Micheal, German worker, left this morning at 7.00 -I've done hardly any work since he came. Curious appellation, worker - he worked at a snails pace when he worked and I worked flat out producing meals and cleaning. Not doing that again.
Got to studio early for the first time in an age, wonderful sense of freedom and joy; even old work looks good. Hung the new painting- 7 maids - downstairs to dry and in the gloomy light it works well, the modelling on the hill doubles as a wing-thing. In the real light the maidens are cumbersome, louche, inept but really cant think how to change them. So, let well alone. It pleases me.
Drawings, sadly, are not infected. Went through a stack and tried to establish something but have failed. Decided that the drawing-I-like, Nazir on all fours holding a fork, has a tight relationship with the Nebuchadnezzar of Billy Blake- possibly because a. hes on all fours and b. hes eating off the ground. Well, holding a fork. Not the same level of madness. Must look Blakes up - bound to have a copy somewhere. Think that N was the king that captured the Jews and sent them into exile, the Babylonian? Perhaps - and that they recorded this spectacular punishment in their book. To wit, loss of mind and regression to animalism, in terror, enough understanding left to cause mental agony. Alzheimers, total loss of power, hey ho; all loom.
Been taking the ballerinas that you got on cakes when I was a kid, these bought in York, and relocating; nice. Ditto little plastic solders on the heads of ND de Lourdes. Encouraging this playfulness.
Very tempted to paint flowers. There are irises in a spotted vase left from Bobs last visit, yellow tulips in a glass vase from Margaret, anenomies and wild flowers in ink pots... all radiating simple beauty.
Later;
Have mapped out the N painting, rather half-heartedly as apart from the drawing there is no info., except internally and Im ill-disposed to trust myself. Had to give up when I cut myself rather deeply on a glass I was hoping would hold a ballerina; blood on her rather good but turps in my cut, ouch! So stopped at 6.30. To my study where couldn't find at least two good Blake books I know I have but have found a Tate Catalogue which has their Blake holdings. Found a Bible, a concordance, a tome on Daniel and the Revelation, and a 1968 pamphlet on 'Some problems in the book of Daniel'. Theres a chapter on the musical instruments in Nebuchadnezzar's orchestra.
Also, thinking about beauty and the call of flowers, found the catalogue of La Beaute, the 2000 expo at Avignon which was the best exhibition I had seen to that point. Maybe still.
So Sunday will be contemplative and peaceful, information gathering.
Found this a while ago in my bedtime reading, spoken by an ex-cultural anthropologist -not an artist -
"One aim of my field is to relativize the images possessed by individuals, discover in these images the factors universal to all human beings, and to feed these universal truths back to those same individuals. As a result of this process, people might be able to belong to something even as they maintain their autonomy." Haruki Murakami, 1Q84, Book one, trans. Jay Rubin [Harvill Secker, London, 2011] p.164
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