“Why does He always try to keep at a distance from me?” It asked. “He doesn’t like you,” I replied. “You’re all the things that He doesn’t want to be. You embarrass Him, following Him around.” “But that’s pathetic, if ‘It’ was not here, neither would ‘He’ be. He cannot invent a distance that is not there? Truth is, I tell Him things that He doesn’t want to hear. Admittedly, I’m inclined to a cruel edge, and He’s afraid of me. This art stuff is where He hides.” There seemed some truth in that. The problem was not that ‘It’ would not go away, but that ‘He’ had not challenged It. When It looked Him in the eye, He was beaten.There are times when It rests and He has a little space in which to do something. It is possible for the art to retaliate, beat It back. He enjoyed making these drawings. When It is resting, needy tensions subside, mistakes can be made at leisure. Strange idea, ‘making’ a drawing. Doing a drawing? That’s clumsy. A drawing grows. Can a drawing be grown? Drawing is more like breathing? You think you’ve discovered something and it turns out to be a cliché.The titling of the birds tickles still. Tracey’s Thrush was intended to be more linear, nervously dribbled onto the paper, but the breathing was too relaxed.
