I’ve been aware for a long time that my painting has a metaphorical quality about it, often referring to aspects of experience only indirectly. It isn’t unusual, however, for me to be simply aware that something of that kind is going on in a picture, but I remain quite unclear about exactly what that might be. One of my repeated phrases in life (as my wife will tell you) is a quotation from Bob Dylan: “Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?”
Visitors to my website will be ware of my persisting involvement with Almscliff Crag. At the Unit 9 group recently we put on an exhibition entitled Current Obsessions. I put in something about my interest in Almscliff, and preparing to do that I was amazed to discover that I have produced at least 25 pictures of the place, counting only the reasonably finished ones and excluding informal sketches. Why? On several occasions I have asked myself that question. Just what is going on here? Sitting by the window today drinking a coffee this morning I thought that perhaps I had an answer.
A few years ago I was fortunate enough to be awarded a year of mentorship by the noted local painter Graeme Willson. Although that was an extremely valuable experience, in one respect I found it discouraging. In our final assessment session he wondered whether I really could make it as an artist, and distilling his observations I think that it came down to a matter of a lack of objectivity. This has always struck me as curious, because in my former career as a social scientist my capacity for independent objectivity was one characteristic of which I was proud. It is curious that a difficulty in achieving a level of detachment about my work is probably, as Graeme suggested, a continuing weakness. Perhaps today’s reflections have provided me with some sort of break-through.
Thinking about my pre-occupation with Almscliff I now wonder whether I don’t, in some way, identify with it, and in particular with a feeling of obduracy. It has stood above Wharfedale, resisting the weather, for 10,000 years, since the last ice-age. It might seem odd to suggest that this could be seen as a personal metaphor when I am wilting perceptibly under a bad cold, but in the wider scheme of things I do think that this might be true. The less welcome news, of course, is that Almscliff is seamed with cracks and fissures, indicating that it is shot through with flaws of one kind or another. Could it be the case that, metaphorically speaking, my studies of Almscliff Crag are nothing but a series of sketches for a self-portrait? I wonder.