(He always said he was.) Seriously, though, I have been away for a brief holiday in North Yorkshire, and I took with me a little volume about Hockney given to me by a friend. I encountered there a phrase by Hockney which I have seen quoted on several occasions. “That’s what artists do. We look!” … Read more
We woke this morning to find that during the night a fierce storm had passed through, leaving broken trees around the village. Just when I start thinking that I might be able to give some attention to art I find myself spending the day sawing and clearing fallen branches. It is, as they say, an … Read more
There is a kind of slow churning going on in the back of my mind as I recover from the frantic summer. I’m very busy indeed with DIY and gardening, but both of these activities leave a kind of inner space which other things can be going on. Very often comment about artistic “creativity” seems … Read more
This morning I hung my new display in Shipley, and I think that it looks quite good. I just hope that other people think so! The title I have given to it is Beyond. The theme refers to, or even merely suggests, something lying beyond the immediate field of one’s vision. Often there are shafts … Read more
Recently we watched a documentary film about the life and work of Paula Rego. I have long admired her work, and the film did justice to it. By the end of the film, however, I was really feeling quite wretched. It was clear to me that there are no circumstances under which I could ever … Read more
That certainly applies to my long-awaited “art retreat”. The reasons for its oddity are interesting. I took with me for reading a book that my daughter had given me for my birthday recently, on the group of Canadian artists known as the “Group of Seven”. (I encountered them first during my year in Canada, in … Read more
It is strange the way in which, quite suddenly and out of the blue, ideas for art work can strike. I have had in mind for a little while a series of images, based upon a birch tree in our garden. The tree has now been felled, because it created far too great an area … Read more
I’ve been hoping for some time that I would be able to produce one more picture for inclusion in my “Green Man” exhibition, at Lincoln Cathedral in July. Try as I might I could produce nothing coherent. I started several sketches but they all fizzled out before I had confidence in them. I must have … Read more
After the excitement of the last week or so, generated by both my momentous birthday and the climbing trip, I’m now emerging into something like normality. The physical stiffness I ought to have expected from my day in Derbyshire, is wearing off and I’m trying to take stock of what needs to be done. Not … Read more
Sometimes this process seems to be quite mysterious. Certainly this is so in my case. I don’t do nice views, or still life images. There is usually some kind of symbolic core to what I produce. The odd thing, however, is that as often as not the inner significance of a picture will only become … Read more