the intense humming of evil
Blah. I've not done anything meaningfully creative in well over a month. Blocked. Stuck. Trapped. Times like this are the worst because I feel like whatever it is, it's left me. Painting is hard enough for me; a constant struggle of self justification and horrible doubt. It will probably pass as it always does. Last night was actually a bright point as a few ways in started to open up for me. Little ideas, nothing special. It always happens in the middle of the night.
It is scary though as sometimes I feel like my art is the only thing I've got. It's the one thing I've never been scared of. The one thing that came easily and that I was good at. God, this is all rather 'woeth me' isn't it? Deary me, I just need to get my arse in gear.
I'm off for a weekend in Edinburgh in less than 2 weeks with my fantastic friend Vix. We're then going to fly down to her place in Reading for a week. I can honestly say I haven't been this excited in a long time. I LOVE spending time with her, something which we don't get to do nearly enough. I love her to bits.
Hmmmm, thinking about it as I'm writing this entry, I feel like I want to make some of my new work really a lot darker than usual. Things have been pretty ok well, bearable for me, mentally, for a while now, which is awesome. It's such a fucking cliche but I feel I can channel all that horrible stuff into my painting. Why not just keep pushing it? We'll see.
I usually feel quite below par, intellectually. I take so long to read books, usually drifting away from it halfway through. I bought Paradise Lost this week and was pretty much stumped a few pages in. I know it has a reputation of being a difficult read, but still. In saying all that, I did encounter a small victory last night. I was listening to a Manic Street Preachers song called Pretension/Repulsion and the following lines jumped out at me:
Shards, oh shards
The androgyny fails
Odalisque by Ingres
Extra bones for sale
Wow I thought, that Richey could write :) But I didn't understand the bones reference. It sounded good, but a little too oblique, which a lot of his lyrics are at first glance. But then I remembered an Art History lecture from first year when we discussed La Grande Odalisque by Ingres. The subject is famously elongated to unnatural proportions. Ingres is altering reality to achieve his perfect woman, giving her at least 3 extra vertebrae. Purity. Just the kind of thing that obsessed and tormented dear Richard. (This was the 'way in' I was talking about before.)
Oh well, at least I got that :)
