Mind the gap

There's been a long gap. This much is entirely evident. Simply looking at the previous entry below will confirm that the gap can almost be measured in months, although the gap in my mind is longer. That latter gap measures just how long it has been since I last felt engaged as an artist. More to the point, it measure how long it has been since I last felt like an artist. It has been quite a while. As I write this, I am resisting the urge to look back over the last few months of entries, to measure the gap.

Last year was a very busy year for me artistically. I created two bodies of work (one of which may potentially be ongoing) and co-created another. There were also quite a few shows. Somehow, in the darkening winter months, as 2012 wound to a close, my train seemed to jump its rails and slowly grind to a halt. Looking around now, those rails don't even seem visible, as if a heavy snow has fallen, blanketing the ground and covering the tracks. Perhaps the tracks weren't even there and in the way of a dream, the track was actually one in a forest and I've wandered away from it and the falling snow has erased my footprints. Lost in a forest, all alone.

Is this some form of artistic block? At present, I doubt it. In my mind a block of that kind is associated with a desire to create but not the inspiration, nor the necessary ability to do so. I could be wrong.

Where I am, instead, is lost in that snow-frosted forest, where no desire to create exists. I wrote earlier that I don't feel much like an artist, when the truth is that I don't feel like much like anything. I am currently a void. This is not a feeling I particularly want to share. Avoid a void. Nonetheless this empty, in between place is where I am.

While I know that making and sharing art is what makes me who I am, it is not something that I can simply force into being. I know full well that there are processes I can engage in, stepping stones I can stumble over, that will take me back to that place, yet even those are too much to ask.

Snow. Void. Blank. Empty. Flat. This is part of the circle, the revolving circle of creation, the snake eating its own tail, revolver eternal. I do not like it here.

The secret is Shepp

With the majority of the painting work for my next exhibition completed, I should be relaxed, happy and feeling satisfied. Sadly, nothing ever is quite that simple. This morning, in fact, I woke early from a series of anxiety dreams. Suddenly, it seemed, nothing was quite right. My paintings were all too similar, the names I gave them yesterday were clichéd, or just too damned gnomic. No one would want to buy them. I wouldn't be able to paint the last few pieces as I had intended.

The paranoia and the anxiety rolled on and not much work got done. It took the intervention of Megan and her years of experience with these things, to turn me from that path. She also pointed out that if I didn't feel that way sometimes, then I would be an "asshole" and I think she has a point.

Maybe I'm a stuck record when I mention this, but being an artist is hard. It may well seem from the outside that it is easy, just turning up and putting paint on canvas, yet the reality is far from this. Those sharp jags of self doubt are just part of that.

A little while after being turned from the dark side, I returned to my studio and managed to paint. Making even one good mark was a victory and I managed to make plenty.

As ever, music plays a key role in my motivation, as well as helping to tune out external influences. This allows me to dive inside for material, or for energy, or whatever it is that I need to paint. Today I chose a piece of music that has played that role probably more than any other.

At twenty minutes long, Yasmina, A Black Woman by Archie Shepp is a long and winding piece of avant garde jazz, recorded on his visit to France in 1969 and it is perfect for painting to. The long passages, the ebb and flow, the moments of intensity and especially the rhythms, nothing else quite works as well. It takes me to the place I need to go almost every time.

Right now I have a painting on my board that is rough, harsh marks and odd spaces. It is a good way from being complete but it is a start. In a little while, Archie Shepp will return to my ears and I will move and I will paint.