Theres a really good article in the LRB by one Paul Grimstad which l took to Carcassonne with me on Saturday. The picture was too wet to work on so I bunked off, with nothing much in mind; Carca was hideous with sales and the insane laughter of the young. Skulked under the walls of the cite. Favorite cafes closed for January, ditto galleries. Had to wait 4 hours for the return train so fairly bored. Having the article gave me something to think about.
It was a review of a book called Flaubert's 'Gueuloir': On 'Madame Bovary' and 'Salammbo" by Micheal Fried. Flaubert devised a method of bellowing his writing in order to perfect it, this being the Gueulor of the title. But it isn't that that was interesting so much as his observations about intent and accident. Im not going to rewrite the article here - what I personally found was that writers too are concerned with access to the unconscious and its use - automatic writing and controlled writing, how they inform and provoke each other. Don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, especially as I'm not unfamiliar with the writings of the surrealists. Obscurely cheering.
Note; re-read I and Thou, Buber's brillo book. Relevant here.
And funnily enough I'm currently re-reading Salammbo or would be had I not got bored and distracted. Will return to it after the Austin Osmund Spare memoir by Gary Sargeant that superseded it; which is also getting somewhat dull. It wanders about, referring to other artists that Sargeant had known. All a little low key though with a certain sad charm.
Back to Carca... it was dark of course when the 7.08 train arrived and I was an hour early for it. Which gave me time to look and make notes on the lights and the trains, the better to inform the current picture. Couldn't have been better if I'd planned it. (Except for the crowds of insane young, of course.)
So the picture grows and darkens and must one day get finished. 'It is never finished; there is always something to be done over' as Flaubert remarks. La la. I'm enjoying it, for a novelty.
Also found a clamp that holds the two canvases together -
Today's drawing, however, was a misery. New model Clare is vast and round and pin-headed, beautiful but could do nothing with her.
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