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 apparent after (sometimes well after) the picture has been finished. With the pieces on which I’m working at the moment there appears to be a process of gradual unfolding of some theme.
Earlier in the autumn I cut down a very old laurel tree, in order to make room in the garden for more interesting plants. Recently I have been sawing up the larger pieces of wood in the expectation that when they are dried out, sometime next year, they will make great logs for the fire. As I was sawing recently I was struck by the complex patterns yielded by the cross-sections through the trunk and larger branches. It is far more interesting and complex than a simple set of tree rings. For some reason or another I decided that these would make attractive subjects for a set of paintings, and during the past few days I have embarked on this project. I envisage that there will be a set of nine images, and since they are quite small they will probably be framed together.
As I was working this afternoon I began to ask myself just what is going on here. I am not sure that I can provide a coherent account of what I think that I am doing. All I know is that it is very interesting, and having worked up four of the intended nine images into an initial form I am feeling quite satisfied with the direction in which I am moving. Having said that, however, I am still far from clear about exactly what it is that is driving me here. The week leading up to Christmas is fairly clear of external commitments, so it ought to be possible for me to work up the material to a fairly finished state. Even so, I am not sure what I might discover even then. All that I can says is that there is a sense of imperative driving this operation. No doubt I will discover when it is all finished why it was that I began.