Tuesday is my day for rock-climbing. Yorkshire is wonderfully supplied with great places to climb. The crags are by no means as big or as spectacular as in some other places, but they are set in truly lovely scenery, and present their own gritty little problems. I usually go out with my friend Andy. If the weather is poor there are several good indoor walls within driving distance. Today, however, was fine. We are not great rock athletes, but for our ages we do pretty well, normally rising to a grade known in the UK as “Very Severe” (in the USA that would be 5.8: in continental Europe probably 5b). I was really pleased with what I managed to do today, although Andy ended up with a minor injury (only a pulled muscle).
It seems odd, perhaps, to welcome an escape from art. I guess that a lot of people who paint look at it as escaping to art. Today, however, was definitely an escape from. Art can get a bit obsessive, and I think that we need to be reminded that there is a world out there. The project I’m working on at the moment is emotionally fairly intense, and some times it feels a bit like swimming under water. I need to come up for air.
Today I was particularly glad of the break. Yesterday I blocked-in the basic forms for a new picture. I some ways it seems that it should work quite well, but there is something not quite right about it. I shall come back to it, looking at it as if it is something new …. a bit of a surprise. My hope is that, at that moment, it might become clear to me exactly what it is that isn’t as it ought to be.
That will not be tomorrow, however, as I have quite different plans in mind. In the morning I will be going to Wetherby, to look at a small gallery that has invited me to show with them. I need to get a feel for the place. Then it’s on to Ripon, to see the annual Great North Art Show, in the Cathedral there. I’s always an impressive show, with probably forty artists exhibiting, from all over Yorkshire, and often from further afield. Finally, I will be going to a restaurant between Ripon and Bradford, called The Square and Compass. For some time now they have been kindly showing my work in their bar. I like to rotate the items on display, so that they don’t get stale, so every three months or so I call in to change things around. So by the time I get back to my doubtful picture, it really should come to me as fresh.