RAISON D'ÊTRE

Earlier this evening, in replying to a thought-provoking letter from a friend (thanks Tom), I wrote that "creative activity is my raison d'être". On further reflection, after sending the email, I felt that my statement was not really true and that I should clarify it. So, for the sake of honesty, and maybe also as a way of breaking this prolonged Blogger's Block, that's what I'll try to do here. 
 

First of all, before I could have a raison d'être, my parents had to have their raisons d'être and their parents before them and so on as far back as genetically possible and when that retrospective reaches the point where there's no further back to go to, then perhaps that is where my real raison d'être is hidden. 

What I understand raison d'être to mean is a sense that my life specifically, and life in general, has a purpose - a reason for being. And yes, I do believe this. You might say that there is no rational reason for being at all but that we can still live purposefully. Or you might say that in order to live purposefully one must believe in an ultimate reason for life. The pros and cons of these and other views could be endlessly argued but if I were to join that argument I'd be evading what I set out to answer: is creative activity truly my raison d'être? 

The truth is: I don't know. The truth is: I wish it were more so. The truth is: I'm always uncertain about my raison d'être, always feeling that it's on the tip of my tongue, just out of reach. The truth is: time goes by and creative activity ebbs and flows and I still think I have all the time in the world to discover my raison d'être. The truth is: deep down I know that I have much less than all the time in the world. The truth is: more than anything else in the world I would like to feel that I am fulfilling my raison d'être. 

Don't misunderstand: I'm not gloomy, not dejected, not lacking in self-confidence. On the contrary. I enjoy life. I can do Mindfulness, I can do Here-and-Nowness, I can do Serenity, I can do Let It All Hang Out. Yeah, really, I can do all that, no sweat. And I can do creative activity by the dozen. But it's not true that it's my raison d'être. 

So I haven't answered anything. But at least I've written a blog post. Now a picture to go with it.

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TOO HOT

What I've learned about resolutions is that as soon as you write them down, it's almost guaranteed that you are going to ditch them. I say "you" in that generic way which denies responsibility but what I really mean is me: I am the one who usually and predictably ditches resolutions. Eleven days have passed since I said I was going to take up the autobiography...maybe even every day! Ha ha ha and ha. So now you know that you shouldn't take any notice whenever I say I am going to do something. Hot air is what it is. 

And hot air is one of the reasons I am lying prone in the nation of Procrasti. It's just too damn hot. Wherever you are right now it's probably too hot unless it's winter where you are. And if you are able to do anything creative and/or constructive under the blanket of a heat wave  then I would salute you if I could manage the energy to raise my arm or my eyebrows in a salute. 

So instead of the promised autobio episode which I'm delaying, here is something which may be useful for those of us whose spirit is willing but whose flesh is easily immobilised by outrageous heat and other natural and unnatural  obstacles. I first saw it quite a while ago on the studio wall of a friend, a French artisan-printer, and asked him to photocopy it for me. I don't know where it comes from or who wrote it but I've translated it from the French and it's a prayer. But if you prefer a secular version, just remove "Lord" and substitute any source of encouragement you prefer. 

The Artisan's Prayer 

Teach me, Lord, to make good use of the time you give me for my work, to use it well without wasting it. Teach me to learn from past mistakes without sinking into recrimination. Teach me to plan ahead without tormenting myself, and to imagine the work without despairing if it turns out differently. Teach me to combine speed with slowness, serenity with fervor, zeal with peace. Help me at the beginning of a work, there where I am weakest. 

Help me when I'm in the heart of a work to hold tight the thread of attention. And most of all, fill the gaps in my work with your own inspiration.

Lord, in each work made by my hands let there be a virtue of yours so that it will speak to others and a fault of mine so that it will speak to me. Keep in me the hope of perfection without which I would lose heart. Keep me in the impossibility of perfection so that I don't get lost in pride. Purify my perception: what I do badly is not necessarily bad, and what I do well is not necessarily good.

Let me never forget that all knowledge is vain unless there is work, and all work is empty unless there is love. And that all love is hollow unless it links me to myself, to others and to you.

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YES, MAYBE

A kind of blog paralysis has set in, mirrored by a cramp in my left shoulder and extreme reluctance to approach the computer. Why? I really really want to keep this blog running and I really really want to continue the autobiography and...and...and... It's as if there is a rebellious, sulky, jealous troll living inside me who is determined to prevent or delay anything I really want to do. I've sampled enough psychotherapeutic theories, processes and techniques to know that there may well be some buried childhood blocks which can still make me stumble and that ignoring them does not mean they disappear. But: an urgent need to distract, disrupt, delay. 

Between writing the last sentence and this one I went in the kitchen, washed the dishes, made a cup of tea, read a couple of friends' blogs, checked my stats. I am definitely afflicted with Creatorius Interruptus. Talking of buried blocks, a buried Mickey Mouse was how I started the autobiography. I know I've left a lot of gaps, moved on too fast and interrupted too often but let's see if I can begin to fill in some of the blanks before taking up the thread that was left hanging when I stopped the story. Yes, maybe I can now continue in small chunks. Maybe even every day. Maybe twice a day. Let's see. 

* * *

Looking at my life from a distance as if it were a map, it seems like a vast ocean with a scattering of small islands.The name of that ocean is Love and it is dominant, possessive, demanding, jealous, altruistic, egotistic, ecstatic, carnal, spiritual, all of these in constant tidal motion, wave after wave furiously or gently shaping the waiting shorelines.

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WORK AND PLAY

 

Have just spent a beautiful few days on a working visit to the The Old Stile Press to discuss our project of the book of Blaise Cendrar's poem Trans-Siberian Prosody and Little Jeanne from France translated by Dick Jones, which I'm illustrating and which the OSP will publish. We are making very good progress but there's a long way to go before I complete 48 images and Nicolas' busy schedule allows him to begin printing what is sure to be a stunning book (premature boasting is allowed in this space). Dick's work is done but has gone through much fine tuning before arriving at its final crystalline state. We're fortunate that Miriam Gilou Cendrars (Blaise's daughter) has been extremely helpful with comments and is very interested in our undertaking. 

Here's a glimpse of a tiny bit of the work in progress - a couple of the relief blocks I'm cutting and trial proofs. The poem's text will be incorporated within the images. The beautiful setting made every moment of shop-talk a pleasure. When the sun finally came out I started a couple of drawings, first on the banks of the river Hay (oops! It's the river Wye) - Nicolas' camera caught me in the distance - then in the orchard, but I'm finishing them at home. UPDATE: Have added the orchard drawing below.

This will be my third collaboration with the Old Stile Press - the first one was an interpretation of Revelation and the second, line drawings on the Life of Jesus - but my friendship with Frances and Nicolas goes back a long way and I never fail to be inspired by them, their life dedicated to making and living with beautiful things and the magical place that is both their home and workplace. 

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HAPPY SCHOOL

The wonderful Eleanor Palmer primary school, just a street corner away from me, organises a Summer Fair every year. This school is such a bright and happy place, your spirit soars just walking past its cheerful exterior and inside, the colourful, stimulating ambiance is one I wish I'd known in my grey/brown early schooldays. 

The school's PTA association tries to raise funds so that the teachers can bring the curriculum to life, organise trips for the kids, hire artists and musicians etc. and an auction will take place at the Fair on July 6th. All sorts of treats are donated by local people and I've given some prints in the past. This year, I've decided to give them a couple of large watercolours and hope they will raise a goodly sum for this very worthwhile cause.

Offering NdA 1985  Watercolour. W 69cm x H 55cm 

I painted the second picture in Canillas de Albaida, a beautiful village in the mountains above Malaga where I was invited to give a printmaking workshop at an art school run by an expatriate American artist, Jack Rutherford. 

Canillas de Albaida, Malaga NdA 1982. Watercolour & ink. W 42cm x H 29cm

Jack Rutherford standing in the dazzling Spanish sun with a local abuelita, 1982. 

Lunchtime at art school, Finca el Cerillo, Canillas de Albaida 1982 .

And here's Natalie, looking uncomfortable next to a portrait of her by a student who probably didn't give up the day job. Anyway I had a great time - it was a happy school too, as all schools should be, for pupils and teachers alike.

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TAKING A BREAK

Working every day drawing and cutting blocks for the Trans-Siberian book project, often I lose track of time altogether. A measured work/rest/play balance isn't really my thing, especially since the work I do is also play, even when it's hard and demands a lot of wrist action. But this week the weather became more like it's supposed to be in June instead of an imitation of March which itself was more like December. So I decided to take a break and actually Go Out into the sunshine and the world beyond my window. 

To Tate Modern by my favourite route, taking the underground to London Bridge and then walking at a leisurely pace past Southwark Cathedral and through the apetizingly odoriferous Borough Market where all the food steaming, simmering, frying and bubbling looks and is too delicious to make a decision so I can never decide and end up only having a coffee and sandwich at the dull Tate snack bar. But on the way to the gallery, through the tunnel and along the embankment, I took some photographs.

Fake flames were shooting out of the busker's tuba and I suspect that most of the music was coming from the tape recording he was sitting on - such an incongruous and jaunty figure against that distressed wall. 

 Hard-edged abstraction? Architectural chaos? Pile 'em high and keep adding more. 

Sitting alone in the midst of the ceaseless stream of busy strollers, this thoughtful and kind-faced old lady moved me deeply.

 

In front of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. The world's a stage, it's a Season of Plenty and all the tragedies and comedies are played over and over again every day. 

I'll be back very soon to re-start the autobio, yes I will.

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A SHORT COMMERCIAL BREAK

Lucy is in the sky with diamonds as far as I'm concerned! She has posted a wonderful, blush-inducing paeon of praise for La Vie en Rosé and The God Interviews . Go to Box Elder now and marvel at this generous, perceptive and of course absolutely accurate appraisal of these two books which, if you don't already have them, why not? 

After the initial flurry of interest when they first came out, the books have fallen into a kind of black hole where I sometimes feel they will remain, unless people like lovely Lucy suddenly point them out and say what they think and then a few more people discover them and hopefully a chain reaction begins. 
 

The books are listed on my sidebar but that's probably not enough to count as good PR so I'll just add that if you do want to order either or both, you can do it via the official links (Blurb and Lulu) as above, or via Amazon, or simply by sending me an email and I'll post copies to you myself.

And if any of you have a knack for publicity then I'd be happy to have you act as my PR persons. These things that 'go viral' overnight, how does that work? What can't something that's really good go viral? As you see, I don't lack self-belief, it's just that I hate self-promotion. 

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A CONTINUING STORY

Still not entirely free from the grip of that tenacious virus which has zapped my energy and replaced the usual contents of my mind with repetitious song lyrics...do you ever get that? Suddenly the words of a pop song you heard about a century ago are playing non-stop in your head? Down and down I go, round and round I go, under that old black magic etc etc. Somebody take the needle off the broken record! 

However the resolve to get on with continuing the autobiography is still there if not yet the actual getting on and so to fill this blank space with something relevant, here are some pictures. The first one is of a construction I made in 1984 to serve as housing for an illustrated journal I drew in 1973-74 - that's the journal on the right. If you turn the handles below either of the columns on the left, a short paper scroll unwinds with my name on it. 

The Continuing Story NdA 1984/1974  Mixed media construction. W 40.5 x H 23 x D 10 cm

The next two pictures are of cast-paper experiments from 1996. I made the mould in plaster of Paris then poured the homemade paper pulp into it, adding some colouring. When it eventually dried, the paper was lifted off the mould and behold, an ancient relic!

 The Scribe 1  NdA 1996  Cast paper. W 20 x H 14 cm

A few alternative versions emerged from the same mould - here is one of them:

The Scribe 2 NdA 1996  Cast paper. W 17 x H 12 cm 

 

The process is great fun but incredibly messy and you have to be willing to sacrifice your kitchen blender to make the paper pulp, it's useless for anything else afterwards. Serious paper-casting artists do this sort of thing with appropriate equipment in appropriate workshops but for me, it was just one of many non-sequitur technical experiments.

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A COLD IS NOT A COLD AND TV OVERDOSING IS DANGEROUS

Laid low by that thing called "a cold" which is actually a slap in the face, a kick in the gut, some well-placed punches to nose and throat and a bit of eye-poking. Whatever measures you take to get rid of this agressive viral squatter, once it has occupied your premises it will happily guzzle all the Lem-Sips, hot toddies, cough syrups, echinacea and whatever else you consume in self-defense but it will not leave until it's bored and decides to hunt for another innocent victim. What the tiny thug likes best is wrecking well-laid plans, so my train ticket is in the wastebasket along with my anticipation of a fun day of drawing with a group of other artists who met up (without me) for a Portrait Party in Oxford on Saturday.

Doesn't it look just like it feels ? This is an image of the Cold Virus from here . 

Since most of my energy is blown into tissues every few seconds, work on the Trans-Siberian images has been interrupted and even reading feels like too much effort. Music doesn't penetrate the fog and the computer is too demanding, so sleep and/or televison are the remaining options. Normally, I rarely turn on the tv except for the evening news and maybe an occasional film, but in the last few days I've overdosed on tv at all hours of day and night and this, I'm sure, is how total brain removal is achieved. 

Your own mental content is pushed out and replaced by an unceasing stream of innumerable other people's mental content while you sit there hypnotised by the flickering screen. Some interesting, intelligent, informative, amusing things flicker by along with various degrees of idiocy, banality, violence and perversity but the flow of images and sounds doesn't differentiate between them anymore than an ocean differentiates between sailboats and sewage. 

I can't prove it, but I'd be willing to swear that the more time is spent in front of a tv screen, however worthy the fare, the more creative energy and originality is drained out of one's consciousness. I suppose the same thing could be said for sitting at a computer screen all day, or staring at any of the other digital gadgets feeding our brains visual and auditory information 24/7. Have you noticed the glazed, zombie-ish expression on the faces of teenagers, as well as pensioners, or any age group in between, who spend a great deal of their time staring at screens, be they small hand-held or wall-sized ones? 

Anyway, it's only taken me all day to write this little blogpost so all is not lost. I will get on with getting on with the autobio, yes, and with Trans-Sib, of course. Give me another day or two to exterminate the woolly, creepy, sneaky, mushy, malfaisant, Machiavellian "common cold" and all will be well.

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TO AUTOBIOGRAPH OR NOT TO AUTOBIOGRAPH?

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer (silently) the slings and arrows of outrageous (or delightful) fortune or to blog about them - that is the question!

One of my resolutions for this new year was to continue and complete the online autobiography The Burial of Mickey Mouse which I began way back in 2005 and left hanging in mid-stream in 2008. But doubts about the validity of this project added to normal procrastination guarantees that it will remain in limbo unless I kickstart it back to life. 

The doubts I have concern the issue of self-exposure, which of course includes exposure of others who have affected one's life. If you are world famous, dead or alive, and of interest to the general public, your life might be the subject of a biography by someone qualified, or unqualified, to write it. But if you are not world famous and still alive and decide to be your own biographer because, after all, you know more about the subject than anyone else ever will, how much should you reveal? This a rhetorical question because the horse has bolted: I've already written twenty-four autobiographic episodes in which I exposed myself pretty thoroughly so why am I now debating pros and cons? 

The mystery of identity is one which has fascinated me ever since I was a child: who is it that looks back at you in the mirror? And who is it that looks out of your eyes at the world? I am not really interested in the psychology of the self but simply in what it is: what is that thing which has my name? Genetics, heredity, history, biology, physiology etc. have only partial answers and I'm not going to list all the philosophical or spiritual theories, beliefs and speculations about the Self. 

It's not information I'm after so much as the encounter with that thing which is "me". Like someone or some thing you've heard a lot about, seen in pictures and in films but have yet to actually come face to face with. It's not that I don't have 'self-consciousness' - quite the contrary. But it seems to me that in the telling of the story of my life something would emerge which I could not know if I did not tell it. Perhaps because the effort of condensing the story and focusing mainly on that which marked me most deeply is in itself a way to dig up the "Mickey Mouse". 

Looks like I've stopped debating and decided to carry on autobiographing, doesn't it?

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