Well I don't know how it is over in Norrtälje but we are losing the leaves here in Bergby and this without our making the least attack on the autumn colours! Today then I simply had to have an autumn study and I took a young birch tree that still had a fair coat of leaves to boast, size 25, orange and blue contrast. I think of it as a consoling au revoir to the autumn until next year where upon I will give the season the attention it deserves. How is the Kommune Norrtälje project developing? I have been thinking hard on our 5 themes and have come to a sensible conclusion I fancy; to apply the breaks. I do not want to make the same mistake I made during my last residency where the abstractions of the program played havoc with the practice early on. I managed to sort it out later but I learnt that  combining the abstract thematic with the aesthetic practical is a slow dance and the post truth melee, for all I know about it, will keep. I shall instead describe, as quietly as I can, a little of what I did today which as usual was a rushed  affair. Oh what I would give to be a kept artist like so many of the innovators of the past. Did you know that Van Gogh had the salary of a full time teacher piped in by his brother every month?1 

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Suffice to say time was not on my side due to an especially broad array of troublesome incidents, which I choose not to relate, and so I was forced into considering cancelling the painting trip or at least changing the location, but then I remembered the little wagon I used two years ago which when fixed to my cycle can just about fit my equipment. Attaching this little bastard took a good deal of time in itself but I managed it and was off to where the young birch lives. Upon arrival I had to abandon the bicycle and walk across a freshly and deeply ploughed field to the tree which grows out of a drainage ditch between fields. The tree and its coloured leaves were the subject but I wanted also to include on my canvas an impression of the newly installed solar panels which cover almost the entirety of an adjacent field. I hear from the electrician who adjusted the wires on the yellow house that the panels have been installed illegally due to cables running under land owned by the good electrician. I believe the story featured in Norrtälje Tidning.2

 

I was able to achieve the necessary calm state sur le motif for about two hours​ during which I regained a little more ground I feel. The orchard series was on my mind3, can one treat the autumn leaves like the spring blossoms? I tried to find the balance of illustrate and attack in the foliage that I admire so in Van Gogh but inevitably falling short. You know what it is, its the ability to get there first time that counts or with of 5 or 6 salvos maximum before one is overdoing it. After that any hope of achieving the delicious combination of freshness and power is lost and one is best to go all out for  picture full painting4.

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So absorbed in the work was I that I was late to collect my girls from their education facility in Norrtalje and whatsmore, having neither time to wash or change, I arrived looking like Cezanne emerging wild eyed from Fontainebleau after an eight hour stint! Much to the amusement of the the fledgling Swedes. 

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I will be out again on the morrow,

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John

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1. We were not aware of that.

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2. There is no record of this story, only a feature announcing the solar panel project.

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3. Refers to Van Gogh's series of orchard paintings painted in Arles in 1888.

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4. A phrase Van Gogh used to describe a vigorous and energetic approach to painting. Mentioned in letter 524.

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