31 10 2021

 Getting quite excited as the Co-Mission gathers speed.... it is shaping up. Im mixing metaphors much as Im mixing images. 

29 10 2021

 Yeah woken with good eye sight and the neck/shoulder pain gone :) No excuses. 

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The pains back, of course :) But I've been able to letter in the roughs of yesterday, which has been a delight. After reading Meetings with Remarkable Manuscritpts its a kind-of echo; and memories flood back of Sister Veronica, the little nun who taught me lettering. Only nun who didnt strike terror into my heart. She had a waist so tiny it was a wonder she lived. Seems she was captured and tortured by the Japenese back in the day. She taught me to sew as well, always patient and kind. 

Using walnut ink I made in 2017, nice quality, variable mark though pale. Mixing with ancient Stephens Fountain pen ink, red - because I like it - it must be as old as I am.

28 10 2021

 ...so it was all going quite well. Got a handle on things, based on illuminated medieval MS (slightly) And discovered that using a new set of muscles and whatever it is I use to do a different action from normal work causes problems. Seem to have a trapped nerve in my neck and I can only rough things out and that with the help of painkillers. And chocolate. Oh and I'm in isolation again, did I say? Had lunch with a friend on Sunday, shes tested positive; Bob and I are negative but the french guidelines require us to isolate for 10 days after exposure.

Which is fine though missing some events I was anticipating with pleasure. Sigh.

27 10 2021

 

Between waiting for things to dry in the Co-Mission, have been fiddling with unfinished bits that are lying about. And tearing up many many duff drawings. Think I'm getting worse.

Can always work on the backs. Drawing for me has to be immediate, bosh bosh done, so there are bound to be miserably bad ones. What makes one good? Dunno. But I know bad when I see it. Something to do with intentionality; if Im honest, inside and out, I can seize something of that moment and hold it. Something goes wrong if its self-concious in some unseemly way. 

decided this is finished, because Im fed up with not being able to do the wheel - and what it is is enough for me.  

26 10 2021

 Gracie drove me to the devils armchair yesterday and took this wonderful picture of the view... found a wild boar hole which may or may not have been a spring source but was anyway a mud hole containing water and ringed with boar foot prints. Which explains a few things about the site that have been perplexing me - water, food. Great mud too, ochre yellow. Will collect some another day, ideal for modelling.

Today... today I start sticking things into the Co-Mission book. Hope all is ready, its a big investment in time and dosh. Looking foward to seeing it though.

24 10 2021

 Off to the lake yesterday for a days drawing - havent looked at the results yet but the day itself was wonderful, quiet and sunny and clear and wind-free - ideal for watercolour.

My friend Keith has had the same eye op as me and is going through exactly the same difficulties. Anguish, he calls it. Says we will forget this anguish. And mine are so much better now I'm sure he's right. Back to the studio tomorrow.

In the meantime six of my paintings have arrived in Germany and are both safe and appreciated - a relief on both counts. Feel very good about it.

21 10 2021

 This morning, waiting for the art movers who are taking large box of paintings to Germany... excited and fearful, as in what could possibly go wrong??

Then it's hit the desk time, for assembling the Co-Mission. Bunting arrived!! Looks marvellous, Pauline done a fantastic job, each picture is printed clearly, hemmed all round, sewn to ribbon

Will probably wrap around the completed package - when its completed. Wondering if Im doing an annally-retentive thang, leaving the security of this time. Security? =knowing what frame I'm in. Clutching my ancient stone tool as talisman.

...

20 10 2021

 Love my new tool :) Pretty hard to photograph but its possible to see tiny tiny marks that have shaped and sharpened it. It fits sweetly between thumb and fingers and is very sharp and strong - was idly drawing in the varnish of the arms of the chair last night - don't want to force it to destruction by seeing what it is capable off, it's enough for me that it is there.

19 10 2021

 Took yet more time off to go to La Franqui yesterday - really useful, spent the time chatting surrealism with Marcus and looking at stuff.  Found an axe head. Germans rang me while I was sitting next to the only German speaker I know well - it was the couriers who will be taking the package to Munich. Now to re-pack and have Norbert screw down the box - thats this mornings task. This afternoon the return of Bob.

Tomorrow is Jims funeral.

Another friend,  Frances, has died. Gutted for her family who have dealt with three years of cancer-work. She's in Wales so I'm unlikely to get there for the funeral. 

17 10 2021

Its all coming together in my head and def time to enact... guests leave today (perfect guests, self maintaining and highly entertaining),  Bob returns Tuesday, my eyes are functioning.... apart from sorting Jims funeral, I'm up for  finishing the co-mission.

16 10 2021

 Despite long silence I've been working, after a fashion. Gathering material. A little bit of which is exciting me rather. More anon - not actually in studio as have weekend guests and will be sightseeing with them. 

09 10 2021

 Still cleaning - now on archive room. Found work diaries from the 1980's - very earnest, careful handwriting, detailed accounts of how time distributed. Binned with joy. Really into this stripping-of-the-past process. 

08 10 2021

 SO virtuous! Got a large clear desk and a space to put my feet under it. Yet to hoover the place but otherwise...

07 10 2021

 Able to face the day with a bit more creative energy so am clearing the decks - the second studio is in agreeable chaos and I need it to finish the co-mission thang so today is clean-up. Which will flow nicely into the delivery of things I need to work with. With luck.

Got a cold so that cocooned-in-cotton-wool sense is helping.

05 10 2021

 Miserable about the work; direction, content, capability. Thought I'd over-reached myself. Still do but not ready to do flower paintings again. Fun though they are.

Took off this morning to Carcassone expecting to see some art but even failed to do that - train/bus strike gave me the choice of a quick trip or an uncomfortably long one. Pleasent break and bumped into an old friend. Cheering.

Back home the photos for the Co-Mission have arrived - the handful I'd ordered anyway - and the cloth printing stuff is nearly ready to post AND the paintings sold to Munich will be picked up soon. Decide to do nothing and things get done.

04 10 2021

 Little bits to tweek but basically done. No idea what going on nor where Im heading. Waiting on some things being delivered to complete the C0-Mission; and for the moment, apart from more fiddling, its clean the studio. 

01 10 2021

 Can't decide wether to run the dotted lines into the pond thing or leave well alone... let it settle perhaps. Pressing on with the texts for the Co-Mission. And have another go at the ferris wheel? Dunno.

Had pneumonia vaccine yesterday and arm v sore, despite the anti-hists the doc gve me to counter this. Keep moving! iatrogenic illness better than the alternatives (todays matra -)