...a long lunch party yesterday gave me an opportunity to spend some quality time with Peter Dunn and to talk over some ideas. Realised some things are intractable and are best ignored. Moved some work into the little gallery which is now full; will have to triage and get some into the garage to store. So need an assistant who isn't as aged as me.
Does one become ill by not painting or not paint because one is ill?
Feel like sleeping for the next few months.
Zilch work. Maybe the reading I'm doing counts? What I am reading is complicated... books from newly dead friends, marked in places by them, studied to make a different mind-set from my own.
Most interesting exercise, trying to suspend my voice and will.
.....and in the meantime, another artist close to my heart is ill, possible not fatally, but with the prospect of loosing an eye.
Still no work :) Though Gracie hoovered the studio (=asthma prevents me...) and I washed the floor. Off to friends today. Maybe I've really retired.
Lots of stuff turned up and put away, probably never to be seen again. Apropos; drawings of mathematicians inc Spencer Brown are in a new file in the drawing cupboard (third draw, I think. Maybe second)
Bought some paint today - finally some black (mars) some yellows, (fake mango, lemon -) Lefranc et Bourgeoise, amazingly expensive.
Definitely on holiday here. Cleared, nearly , the second studio. Can now see patches of floor and an entire table top.
The problem was the what-to-do issue of the work I did for Dex for 10 Digital Place. Eventually I packed it all into a largeish suitcase, labelled it and stacked it among the drawings. It's actual - final - destination now on hold.
Once that was out of sight I found the task easier and am happily hammering on. Clearing my tool box and trying to make tools accessible. Then I should be able to get to the new hotplate and finish the project begun some 25 years ago - a Fayum-fake portrait of JH.
The last supper/first office party def finished though not yet signed and dated - it's drying in the guest bathroom, out of harms way.
Tried to upload finished painting of Eve's Genesis, 100 x 100, failed; it's on Instagram so its about somewhere but my usual equipment is petulant.
Its cold, its snowing, its a non-work day.
Reflecting on how many biblical themes I'm engaged with and how many more in storage. Is this a decent theme for the next show? Following on from Saints, makes a sort of sense. Except they're big and unsaleable, sigh.
Not a happy bunny. Dreams are of the nightmare variety that wake me up; nothing dramatic, just disturbing. Last nights was the sound of footprints running down the impasse under my window, pulling plastic sheeting that howled against the walls and pavement.
