Work 25) Blossoming Tree at Stranvägan
Today was a genuine pleasure! How lucky we are in these trying post truth times to have the chance to stand before an apple sapling bursting with youthful bloom and study its form and colour, its mood and movement. How gratefully aware I am now of the restorative effect that this humble activity of ours brings, a bond with the world. And how essential this is for us personally as a break from the pressure and worry that sits in the mind of all critical creative dark matterers1. You see I feel quite affected. The political reality that has taken shape over the past ten years or so is too much to bear, at least from where I'm sitting. It is many things; a crisis, an attack, a failure, a fudge, our world bashed about by rascists and thugs, but it is above all what the yankees call I believe 'a bummer'.
We have all been forced to swallow a strong dose medicine, the bitter pill, dare I say that we have been 'redpilled'2 into a brave new reality that snaps us out of whatever daydream we have constructed to let us carry on through the years of neoliberal enterprise frenzy. But wait, in 2019 we must now say that this state we're in is the state we're in and while it is crucial to track the changes, there is only so much to be gained from harping on about the old world. After all for the more youthful left Doers, who perhaps became radicalized during the anti austerity and Occupy movements, well this is it for them and when they are older and wiser they will be in a position to articulate the transition between this post truth world to the next one, whenever capitalism needs a reboot. But look here, how many reboots are left? It seems as though we are close to the end and the end is looking very much like an accellerationsit3 space reich or my prefered analogy - a nazi star trek - the crew made up of our best tech billionaires and the rest of us living through Deliverance4 on the ground!
Well whatever the future of capitalism may be, today we have a blossoming tree. Our first salvo of the spring campaign and that is all to the good, and look here I plan to attack as many blossom studies as possible over the coming weeks, but what unknowns will scupper us? An appointment here, a sickness there, the summer rains, all we can do is stride out, one foot in front of the other and walk.
I had sketched this little tree and a good few others in this area (the foot of the ski slope)5 yesterday evening so today I was in a position to tackle today's tree toot sweet and consequently I got it done in a couple of rather careful hours. The blossoms once again providing a great challenge to capture a rendition which respects the fragile form and movement sensations of the tiny flowers. How the fuck does the dutchman do it? By some graceful savagery he makes the paint speak; lets the paint become 'It' and may I say that your speculation in note 6 to Work 12 that my use of 'It' is in reference to Zen and the Art of Archery is absolutely on target. 'It' as described in that demented Zen ramble refers to a state of perfect unconscious action. For example when old Herrigel starts to lose his rag at the master because he has been attending his lessons (for a few yen a pop no doubt) for a year or more and has spent six month merely drawing back the bow and months more releasing arrows at nothing. The master insists on this painfully slow and laborious repetition until one day during a class he abruptly halts proceedings and announces that Herrigels last shot was 'It'. 'It' shot the arrow.
He achieves something that both departs from naturalistic rendering but which also captures the essence, the 'thingness' of the blossoms. The paint can be made to represent the tree in illusion or it can be made to actually be the tree if you know how to release it. Few do he does. With such confidence and an abandon he moves the paint, no doubt brought about through the pace of his work. Attack, gesture, flow, rhythm. He is vigorously deliberate but prone to accident, one comes from the other. The trick I fancy is both to spot the right accidents and to understand that gestures made without much thought, a frivolous squiggle perhaps, if left alone can help become the painting.
Well, we continue our theoretically preposterous and practically impossible aping of the good Dutchman but look here, would it be any less a task to ape the Dylan minstrel? Virginia Woolf or that bowl head Nabokov?6 Who knows but the more I think on the strategies and successes of the IRA backed numbnutters of the alt right, the way they reclaim, recast and revise cultural history specifically, the more it seems like the aping of the greats is apt. Retell what they achieved through practice, a politicised twist on the master and apprentice relationship but we certainly have enough on our plate with Van Gogh and two hours per day.
While I painted today I spotted tomorrows subject....and so it goes.
With a handshake,
John
1 A reference to Gregory Sholette's book Dark Matter in which he employs the astrological concept of dark matter (unseen energy) as a metaphor for the surplus of post graduate creative workers around the world. Johns use of Dark Matterers is unusual and does not appear in the book.
2 A process of awakening into a harsh reality. The term originates from the film The Matrix in which Neo is offered a choice to take a blue pill and remain in a pleasant dream world, or take the red pill and experience the world as it really is. The word 'redpilled' is likely to refer to the use of the awakening concept by alt/far right political discourse in which one awakens from a liberal mindset.
3 See also work 7, paragraph 5.
4 The 1972 John Boorman film Deliverance is about a group of city folk who take a trip to the county and are attacked and then stalked by some menacing locals. John's use here perhaps suggests a post space reich world dominated by an authoritarian, anti-cosmopolitan nationalism.
5 Kvisthamrabacken
6 Vladimir Nabokov. In Work 20. Self Portrait in Grey Hat of the Torpoint Art Service Nabokov is again referred to as a 'bowl head'.