Just Painting, Just living.

Feb 17th. Simplify

Post- Degree. So many blind alleys.

Latest thoughts….simplify. Stop trying. Just BE in the moment. A cliche but hey… cliches are created by simple thruths arrived at by a multitude of minds.

Stop reading, and sometimes writing in contorted, pontificating, pompous art-speak language about future plans. Go back to Hockney’s matter of fact delivery; to Barthes’ poetic beautiful phraseology…. the only two people who can write fluently and well in their own inimitable styles.

Don’t make plans. Just respond …. paint, graphite, charcoal or whatever comes to hand, to life as I see it.

The results will be 90% bland rubbish but the 10% which will ‘work’ will be sufficient reward. The tranquility of not fulfilling expected criteria will be worth everything.

Decisions February 7th

Since graduating in June 2013 I have felt compelled to rush about in small circles planning what to do next. The need to ‘network’ ‘exhibit’ ‘develop my work further’. All these things seemed to matter. I felt I had to move on and to capitalise on things I had learnt over the past two years.

But slowly, the realisation that this was completely wrong, has dawned. It’s not possible to force things to happen on a creative level. My art will evolve and develop if I just take a step back and approach it calmly. That’s what I plan to do. I want to return to enjoying painting and not to put myself under pressure to achieve for a while.