Within the frame of the work the question ‘why are you dressed like that?’ is grossly impertinent. However it is an inevitable part of the work. When taken out of the safety of the gallery it is open to comment, though the most satisfying are those who merely regard the picture they see favourably. Of course without knowing their minds one has to assume a favourable response. And of those who do speak most do give a kind word. Some are unpleasant, they perhaps think they know, their minds are made up or are merely closed. They are a minority though perhaps consider themselves otherwise. With those who ask a question there is the difficulty of knowing what answer they want, and I have few clues in that short sentence to inform my answer. And I do so very much want to give an answer that satisfies. The work has so many facets that can engage an audience that nearly everyone that inquires can take away an enriching experience. I always have the highest aspirations.
Why do I paint? Am I trying to communicate something, or share something like a view or a feeling? I find the palette of colours appeals to me, it is a landscape palette full of yellows and blues. I am not the outdoors type and yet I find myself standing in the cold with brush in hand. I value my privacy and yet I have strangers looking over my shoulder at half-finished studies. Greater discipline is developing so that my work outdoors is study with the aspiration of recording form and colour and the lie of shadows but leaving the craft to be done indoors. In the studio I take my time on a larger canvas than used for the study in hopes of conveying some landscape feeling. Yet it is not quite topographic production and not quite abstraction. And of course it does not sell. I have yet to encounter an established outlet for the work and my meagre resources can only hire out-of-the-way spaces. My work is unconventional, traditional, landscape is the province of the hobbyist. And yet I continue to paint and here connect with the performative aspect of my practice, as 19o4, where I am the ‘Lady Painter’ of Then, sometimes termed Paintress, seen by the Gentlemen of the profession, those who govern, as an enthusiastic amateur but not capable of producing anything but decorative work; this considered perjorative. So it is not for money and it is not for reputation. It is for making. It is for the progress of change as one colour is mixed with another to become a third. It is for the feeling of the paint on the canvas, the feeling between the brush and the canvas. It is for the appearance of the palette during the work. It is for the total absorption in the task. Where once there was raw canvas and tubes of colour this picture now exists. But to what end? What determines selection of one view over another? There is perhaps somthing pure in being without requests for this or that view, but then without the challenge of commision there is just the walking around in circles, but then there is no one to disappoint. “It’s beautiful” can be a reflex for the flummoxed polite and more than anything I should not like to disappoint. so why do i paint? I paint because I must. Is that reason enough? Where does that lead?
