8th November

Drawing yesterday I set up a critique in my head.
It occurred that it might be better to ask the other artists to criticize, like the monthly crit at college. Will ask the others if they'd like it too - easily done, stay after drawing one day, bring work you want to talk about/hear about.
Spoke to Kat and she agreed. Showed her the sunthief and she immediately saw the problem AND the solution - to paint out the reflection of the red sun under the stolen object. Stops it looking like a bottle or a penis or anything other than a disk. Dealt with it this morning and overcame the temptation to carry on fiddling with it - enough, enough. Its done with.

Read this morning; 'I don't have the feeling that I write my books, I have the feeling that my books get written through me... I never had, and still do not have, the perception of feeling my personal identity' . Claude Levi-Strauss. He wasn't mad, I don't think; the sense that you have to fight or accede to something beyond your self is perhaps normal.

Yet the artist (me, actually) needs a huge sense of self to get to the studio, to expose the product to the public, to carry on carrying on - just have to get rid of the sense-of-self to do the actual work. Or is this bollocks?

Afternoon working on what was the rape painting and is now probably a falling nude. Connection made; now I just put paint on. Its sitting well enough though, Ive upped the linseed in the damart/turps mix, try not to think and let the picture make decisions. Tomorrow may have to address it differently. The painting of anubis remains - untouched, can't see what to do with it and it ain't working as it is.

Took a picture to the cafe. They have a couple of truly duff amateur pictures there - duff but unpretentious - I was going to take the sunthief because its so rumbustious but repainted it instead and so took a little landscape. Its a view en route to Campagne. Just the road, a field, some trees, the electric lines and an airoplane trail. A slight work. Luke the proprieteur, who has been asking for a picture for ages, made a good fist of concealing his disappointment. Lucky I'm robust.