At first, the hiatus was my best answer to doubt, and to finding myself out of step with the ambitions and expectations of other aspiring artists of my generation – or at any rate those who taught us. Unimpressed and ill suited, I twice withdrew from a university styled study of art – the curriculum leaned more to politics than technical improvement, and I wanted to be a painter, not a revolutionary, regardless of how it looked on my resumé. It was love of art, and inability to compromise, and plain confusion that prompted me. A self imposed ‘outsider’, I took a studio, and spent every cent I could on art materials, and put plenty of paint down, and searched in pictures for answers to the questions my vocation had dissolved into. Even though I worked mostly on abstract art, looking back I can still see that period was not a total loss – certain intuitive advancements were made: a comfortableness with colour – an instinct for composition transferable to any scale. But there’s no substitute for adequate training, and I was without a guide in a profession that has long been associated with a system of mentorship and ateliers. When I put my palette away, it was because of a collusion of events: illness, responsibilities…and all the while that niggly, neverending cloud of darkness obscuring my vision, preventing my progress. In place of art I contented myself with space and silence and the ordinary magic of everyday life – which, thank God, still found me. And if I despaired of art, I never stopped thinking about it, reading about it, or looking at it – I can’t help it, its like gravity for me.
Now, I’m blogging because the hiatus is about to break, and the direction I go in will be determined to some extent by the deliberations and discussions documented here. I’m not under any illusion that anyone apart from myself will be interested, but I’m going live on the off-chance that it might be useful to other artists or thinkers grappling with the problem of meaning and purpose in traditional and contemporary art. I welcome your suggestions and comments.
