Thank you for the brushes and lack nafta,1 every, little helps as they say, although I have been getting on quite well with my mangled old brushes which I bought in batch load from the Lidl store. For the past few weeks I have been using brushes which I have cut down to size myself from the stock of large round brushes I have accumilated on account of their unsuitabilty. In fact one can cut some rather interesting alternative shapes to obtain differing effects
in comparison with the standard forms and I find this method particularly good for creating long thin brushes suitable for line.
Armed with my new brushes I headed out to strandvägan again this morning for the third study of our spring campaign and I managed to be on the spot in good time owing to the smooth delivery and exit I achieved from my daughters facility. How easy life seems when winter has passed and one no longer needs to send the children to school like fully equipped special forces soldiers ready for all terrain and conditions. I'd bet my bottom baht that the twenty minute period of panic to get the children out the door of a winter morning has accounted for more than a few marriages.
I have been thinking a lot about the alt right. Perhaps I should refrain because it is a topic to raise the pulse and confuse the mind to levels uncomfortable for plein air painting and family life.
Our neighbour fell asleep at the wheel over the weekend and woke up in a field in Söderbykarlsen.2
I have discovered that a half and half PVA and water mix is best way to sieze a raw canvas.
My gesso is on route from Kreatima of Stockholm as we speak.
You know, as it turned out today we may have hit on a change of direction that puts us squarlely back on the Van Gogh path once more. After all that talk of the two session process,3 of taking the canvas to the station one day then getting on the train the next we have arrived back at speed, intensity, passion and generally getting lost in the process. Look here, we must dive into the process! We must get the paint on the canvas and let it lead us into the jungle until we are completely lost and by faithfully chopping at the bracken we eventually emerge with a painting that one generally leaves as it is then back into the jungle tomorrow for another.
It reminds me that there is painting and there is painting. Our two day session represents the way of consideration and craft and of learning. Here one has time to reflect and plan and achieve a considered result and there is nothing wrong in that but the one session method goes beyond into a special realm where one is marking ones time on earth, where one experiences a heightened existential awareness of time, nature and presence. The results from this way of Doing 'it'4 are often surprising and as if someone else was author but what we have is a more direct or instinctive authorship. Method one is 'you' but method two is a 'you' underneath. Method two produces paintings by the "you" in heightened state, under pressure, taking risks, fighting, vulnerable to the elements and failure. A desperate 'you'. A twitching 'you'. But understand me right, the balls out method cannot be practised by any comelately. If one just splashed about randomly the state which I speak of is not attainable. Why? Because there is nothing at stake. There is no desired destination so there is no way of getting lost - poker for money is a very different game! But with what currency do we invest in painting? Well that is hard to say but overall one must be affected by it, one has to care about it. That is an investment. Can one learn to care? Again, that is difficult to say, and does caring translate into better paintings? Well, yes and no. We are reaching for Pandora's box5 with this line of thought but we can say that there is a discipline but it is a discipline of observation and of committing to the task of articulating these observations in the paint in ones own an authentic manner and each one session method equals one attempt at this ominous task. Having said all that Van Gogh's sessions could last all day where as ours are two hours so lets remember that before we enter the abyss of 'extreme painting' or some such adrenaline sport pot.
How has this come about? Well so often we are guided by accident and that was the case today as when I arrived at my little sapling and began unpacking my necessaries I realised that my pallet was on the table in the Bergby studio and not here with me in the bag. Well with that the die was cast. Postponing was not an option as I needed some realisation so I bit down on the gumshield6 and pressed ahead using one of the compartments of the easel as pallet. This afforded me a space of approximately the size of a galaxy s57 with which to work on a canvas the best part of a french 30, and with less than two hours to work time!
Well this one was really lashed on. It is perhaps as direct a painting as I have managed but I dare not use the term 'pure painting' as I relied too heavily on reworking. In fact the process was one of continual re working and of push and pull between the tree and the background. When the tree was established we worked up the background then switching back to rework the tree in relation to the adjusted background and on we went, trying ultimately to make it one. This back and forth occurred perhaps four or five times before a settlement was reached.
In the aftermath I was left abuzz for a good hour and quite unable to exchange with my parents whom I met at Flygfyran for a round of groceries. Furthermore I was covered in oil! Never before have I managed to cover myself so much and indeed when I finally slumped upon the front seat I looked into the glass to see my face a patchwork of colour and smudge. I looked like a anti-globalisation protester from the late 90's! It then hit home why so many of the passing kommune members had been looking at us for that second longer but it also added extra sweetness to a magical encounter I had with a little girl and her father who came over for a look when I was really steaming in.
Now most people have a look and move respectfully on after a brief exchange. Others stop longer and are pleased to speak some English and you know I try to always be open to talking even if time is ticking away, because it is frankly one of the only ways that I socialise in a way that is spontaneous. When I tell people of the Dignity Scholarship and our 5 themes many people seem genuinely supportive by the way. In any case I treat an interruption as par for the course of plein air work, like the wind, or changing light. But as soon as I saw this little girl and her father approach from one of the houses on Strandvägan and make sharp for me I was prepared to pause and talk and I was as delighted as can be when the young madame boldly strode up to me and handed me a little drawing of a boat that she made for me as a present. She was confident, unafraid and very keen to look me in the eye and see what I was. Her father who arrived a few meters later, made a fine impression too, decked out in the obligatory workers dungarees he seemed to have a wonderful openness and strength to him. I would have liked to paint him like Van Gogh's Boch.
As the exchange came to its natural end I decided I must gift the little girl a token of some kind so in my flawed Swedish I thanked her again for her drawing and said that I would like to give her something in return and reaching in to my oily ikea bag I pulled out my paint splattered composition frame that I use to size up a view. I handed it to her and she took it from me and I showed her how to use it by holding it up and with one eye closed scanning the landscape for a view. She got it straight away and seemed very pleased. As was I!
This new dose of speed has been quite a tonic. I think I may commit to a summer of painting in this way and see where it takes us.
Bests,
John
1. Turpentine
2. A locale between Bergby and Norrtälje
3.See Work 12, paragraph 3.
4.'It': John's emphasis refers to how he discussed 'it' in a zen context. See Work 12, paragraph 4.
5.To embark on a process which is difficult to control, possibly greek.
6.Boxing metaphor meaning to continue with determination.
7. The Samsung Galaxy S5 measures 142.00 x 72.50 x 8.10mm (height x width x thickness) and weighs 145.00 grams.