05 11 2025

Despite swearing never to join a drawing group again, I returned yesterday morning. Can't remember why - just the need for quiet reflection, perhaps - very glad I did. Previous engagement annulled by the fact the fussy brits have gone; apart from an American and a Norwegian everyone there was French.  

 You wouldn't know it to look at this drawing but Boris the model was excellent and presented several gentle challenges. 

Plan to spend today overpainting some oils, after a little mound of paperwork is addressed. Joy.

21 10 2025

 A nice snap of Ian, from our unassailable days. A performance in gallery 291. Photo featuring Julia Claxton and the Virgin Mary who was about to break into a falsetto misrendering of Panis Angelicus. 

Still trying to clear out art store. 

19 10 2025

 Been clearing the artstock; removing paintings, washing them down, restocking them; taking out chests of photos. 

Certain amount of triage involved.

Painful physically and emotionally. On the plus side, remembering positive attitudes. My generation of artists, poets, musicians were happily overthrowing our parents past and absolutely secure in our convictions. We knew the world was changing, hurrah; what we didn't know is that the new world was nothing at all to do with us. We were working hard for our cultural extinction, which happened regardless...

tant pis.

Here's a portrait of me from ??? made by a computer. You sat in front of a camera and a machine typed out the image which is made entirely by text. Brave new world, eh.

15 10 25

 Blue Plaques docs in post - couldn't find out how to attach attachments electronically so went for the tried and tested, which means getting lost in transit; but I've kept copies.

Now to replace the books and generally tidy the chaos generated by the process.

13 10 25

 Everything  I'm doing is happening on a computer. Its coming up for my fathers 100 birthday and the societies concerned with his work are trying to generate an event or two. I've been charged with getting a Blue Plaque organised. Interesting process chiefly concerned with the building that the plaque will be attached to - and the yay or nay lies in the lap of the gods - 

Research, frustration, brief victories, more failures. 

His birth was registered, found that. His birth certificate doesn't exist. The govt site asks for info if something isn't right... another damn rabbit hole.

He'd started to reflect on an autobiog so mercifully a deal of unassailable info is there, published in David Ws book Think before you Think. 

Yeah, right.

30 09 2025

 New excuse for doing bugger-all; some kind of cold has thwapped me sideways. Not unpleasant, dosed up with pharmaceuticals, reading and dozing in front of tely. Little downstairs computer has packed up so research has to stop - Bob is away and common decency means I have to sit with parrots or they feel bereft. Just as well as research is overwhelming me, damn thing turning into a thesis which is not, not, my intention.

Crappy drawings;

...and so on

24 09 2025

 -Back from Sete, a miraculous little holiday with my brother Matt. He's newly widowed and coping with a bereaved family. I'm finding Ians death has strange repercussions. 

Went drawing last night with a newly-established art group, fantastically depressing. Thomas-from-Paris a decent bloke; interesting, indeed. But the room was packed and the quality of the work being proffered - was overwhelmed with the horror of endless repetitions of misunderstood turn-of-the-century artworks.

----At least, that's what I would have said before I learnt to be non-judgemental.

  My own work was crap too, which didn't help. Can't go back. Enough futility in the studio without extending it. How many drawings have I done over how many years? Many thousands still cluttering up what storage there is in the studio. Pointless except for the three or four that escaped my control to teach me something - at least (last nights little comfort) I've managed to destroy my facility for glibness.

Memories of drawing Ian over the last thirty-five years flashing over me. Futility, loss, purposelessness are my handmaidens today and for the foreseeable.