Whilst casually looking back
through this blog earlier today, I noticed it’s a year since I started it. I’ve just read my slightly tentative
and rather mannered introductory post and realised that writing all this stuff
has become a far more significant part of my current life than I could possibly have imagined twelve months ago.
My initial intention back
then was to use it primarily as a fairly straightforward means of displaying my
artwork. I’d come to the end of a
productive year of concerted painting activity and felt that, for the first
time really, I had the beginnings of a body of work I could really believe
in. I’m pleased to say that
process has continued through this year too and that the creative momentum of
painting, and indeed blog-writing, has become pretty much
self-perpetuating. After years of
procrastination, that feels like a major cause for celebration.
Even at the start I knew
that the speed at which I work implied I’d end up writing about other things in the gaps between completing each painting. I’ve always enjoyed writing and, as regular readers must now realise, love words for their own sake. For years I never really had an outlet
for that, (other than boring people in pubs), so this has become a fantastic
arena for me to get the thoughts that regularly clutter up my head into wires and onto screens.
Many of those additional
posts feature cultural artefacts of various types, produced by other people. Some deal with my relationship with
the physical environments I’ve passed through, in particular my feelings about inhabiting different cities throughout my life. A relationship with ‘place’ has always been intrinsic to
my perception of life and, along with the whole element of text, plays a major
part in my artistic process. Others venture into the field of philosophy or even politics but, I fear, in a somewhat woolly-headed manner. The rest are just things it seemed important to say at the
time.
It seems I’ve averaged
around seven posts per month, which is far more than I ever envisaged. If Google are to be believed, I’ve had
visitors from all continents except Antarctica, including places as divers as
Nepal, The Alaand Islands and Reunion, (look up the last two, - I had
to!). To anyone who only
stumbled over me in search of information on Gerhard Richter, Stuart Davis
or Supersilent, - I hope I could add something to your sum of
knowledge. To anyone who may regularly read this but has never left a comment, - Thanks anyway; I
hope all’s well with you.
Perhaps the single most
significant effect of the blog to date is how it led directly to my participation in a proper, grown-up exhibition last month and to
make some new friends in the process.
Thanks again to those who made that happen and to those who came along
to look.
At the risk of
over-repetition, this post includes the images of my own work that
have featured on the blog over the months. Sorry if you are sick of looking at these, - there'll be new stuff to show
you over the next twelve months.
Hi. Good work.
ReplyDeleteCheers, glad you like them. There's a variety of other stuff produced since this post, at various points throughout the blog. If you haven't already found them , they're usually in posts headed 'Completed Painting' etc. or 'Belgrave Gate Project...'
ReplyDelete