Marshall McLuhan has gone down in history, of course, as the man who coined the phrase “the medium is the message”. If he was right then I’m in trouble!
There are some media (and here I have in mind the artistic context of that word) which appear actively to work with you, facilitating what you want to express, almost as if they anticipate your thoughts. Others can almost be said to be working against you all the time. It isn’t even as if they have ideas of their own to which it might be interesting to listen, following where they lead.
Not long ago we had the care of my son’s dog for a week-end. Understanding that dogs have to be walked every day, we put on its harness and lead and took it into the street. This dog was not going to go for a walk. It lay with its belly flat to the ground with the claws all four paws gripping for all it’s might. It didn’t matter that we understood that it was only a very young dog, and shouldn’t be subjected to too much exercise. This dog was fundamentally opposed to any exercise.
Today’s experience of returning to oil pastels has been a bit like that. Whatever it is that I have in mind, the pigment is simply not interested in it. There are occasions, even, when the pastel seems to be actively refusing to adhere to the paper. On other occasions I look for a colour, knowing that I have already used it, only to find that it appears actually to have gone into hiding. It is hard to explain this, but I get the impression that they are resenting the fact that they are being applied to a surface. Almost every stroke I make, applying colour to the paper, looks back at me sullenly. Each line appears to describe a slight sneer.
As with the dog, there comes a point where you just have to decide that this project is not going to happen. On that occasion the point was obvious, in that not a single claw was being retracted from its hold on the earth. We got the message very quickly. Just what is the message that oil pastels are sending me? Is there any point in my insisting that I am in charge? I don’t see any point in threatening a box of pastels. Do I start again tomorrow with a new medium?