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November 10, 2004

Hunger

As you may have noticed, from the lack of activity here in the Unstuck Diaries, and the absence of work in the studio, I haven’t been painting for a while. And I realise, in these flat spots, how much I miss it.

I think it is good to have a break from painting, to reflect, to regroup and to reorganise my thoughts. But now I’m ready to paint again, in fact I’m hungry for paint, I miss it, like an old friend, or a woolly hat left behind the stove to keep warm on a cold morning.

I have an ache, a palpable yearning for it. I feel something is missing. I walk through town and feel I’ve left something in a shop. I talk to people and think I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. I have very realistic dreams about missing trains and not quite getting things right.

I stop painting either because the Gumption [see below] has gone, or because there isn’t time or because I don’t have a model to sit for me. At first it’s okay, I potter and pretend I’m not an artist, and never really was one. Then I fidget and write a lot in notebooks. Then I start looking at people and wondering what they’d be like to paint. Before I know it I’m asking people to sit for me and without any specific direction, booking half day sessions.

The paint’s talking to me, shouting actually – screaming from the tubes “Let us out!!” So I guess it won’t be long. That or the padded van and the patient men in white coats, whose politeness belies their strength.

Posted by john at November 10, 2004 11:28 AM

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