Wednesday, 16 January 2013

Where I'm At with I Am

If you look at the write-ups for my various projects, a continuing theme is: 'good, but didn't really follow the brief'.

Well, Duncan told us ages ago that briefs are there to inspire, not necessarily to doggedly follow.

So, my interpretation of 'I am' is that, by the end of this Pathway, I want to be able to say: 'I am a painter'. Not a very good one I'm sure, but I want to be able to feel I've tried my best to do it.

Now I feel a bit more confident about drawing (although, ask me to draw a dog without a visual and it would still come out looking like a deformed cow), painting is the next thing I want to crack. I love paintings. I would love to be able to paint. (And it would save me a fortune if I could produce my own). But it absolutely terrifies me.

It is all so complex. Not only how you handle your brush. How you draw with a brush. But how you choose your colours. How you mix your colours. How you apply them.... The list is endless.

My aim is to produce four large canvases that express four of the main emotions I've felt: happiness (luckily pretty much an everyday feeling for me); nervousness (I've experienced a lot of that over recent years); contentment and focussed determination. Some are obvious, but how does one express focus and determination in colour, I wonder.

Chris attached a poem to the original brief, which partly gave me the idea to do this. It's great fun to do - you should try it yourself. (And just in case you want to, you need to fill in the bits not in bold). I decided to do it then and there, and not think about it too much as I was doing it - treat it as a stream of consciousness exercise.

The I Am Poem

I am happy and stupidly optimistic
I wonder who put beeswax in Jazzies
I hear the sound of love
I see the past less clearly
I want thick hair
I am happy and stupidly optimistic
I pretend all is ok, sometimes
I feel lucky
I touch food and want to eat it
I worry that I don't worry enough
I cry easily
I am happy and stupidly optimistic
I understand that Palestinians should be liberated
I say anything, too often
I dream of family days around the kitchen table
I try to be good
I hope for longevity
I am happy and stupidly optimistic

So, where I go from here is that I'm currently doing lots of reading about colour. Then I will look at some key artists who worked with colour, like Rothko and.... Ok, I need to do some research.

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