I wrote in yesterday’s post about the sense of a return to normality I was beginning to feel, stimulated by the recovery of activities that have been in suspension for many months, as a result of the current pandemic. This feeling has been growing during today, but not always with the expected sense of positivity.
This morning I drove over to North Rigton, as expected, to hang a new selection of my work in the Square & Compass. Although the staff extended their usual welcome, and it was good to be back in action again, I was reminded very forcefully, as I hung pieces which were done in some cases a long time ago, that it has been very difficult to sustain any creative impulse during “lockdown”. Instead of turning out to be a time during which I could immerse myself in painting in an environment in which distractions were reduced, I have had to acknowledge that the past couple of years have been, on the whole, a rather depressing experience. It is very much the case that I am struggling to emerge from that feeling.
Two features of the day have served, nonetheless, to sustain the feeling that we are moving back into “normality”. This evening I will drive over to Ilkley, to the Art School, to take part in the resumed series of life-drawing classes. These sessions are always so motivating, and always leave me with the sense that things are moving forward, even if only because I have been compelled to try something I have never tried before …. and it never seems to matter whether the results of those experiments have been very successful or not. There is invariably a feeling that I have learned something.
Then this afternoon I have even managed to spend a little time on my own drawing. Driving back from North Rigton this morning I reached a decision about how I should handle a particular new project. Despite (or perhaps because of) my struggles with egg tempera, I have decided that this is an ideal occasion on which to return to the fray. This afternoon I have managed to do a fair bit towards the preliminary drafting of the piece. I do become dreadfully unhappy when I am not actually engaged in art work, and I hope that I can sustain this new commitment.
Finally, I managed to book tickets for my wife and myself to attend a concert by the celebrated band Lindisfarne. Perhaps you have forgotten them …. or even never heard of them, since this is their 50th. Anniversary tour! They are a folk-rock group from the North East. I guess there is a paradox in my being carried forward on a wave driven in part by nostalgia, but I suppose that this fits in well with my general views about the disorder of time.