My roll of Arte has arrived and as I feared the quality is poor to the point where the canvas can be torn like a sheet of paper! It is hardly possible to strech it. If you remember it was necessary to take a punt on an unknown brand of canvas due to the problem with stock and delivery at Jacksons but this arte really wont do. We will have to use it and after all it is probably perfectly stable, you can paint on many surfaces provided it is primed well and am I not wrong in thinking Van Gogh even used a tea towell?1 So the rest of our summer campaign will sit on the brittle arte but after that a change is needed, is there some place where we might find an alternative duk, a textile shop perhaps?
We arrived back from Bräcke some days ago but have not yet had time to paint due to getting the house in order and attending to my mother who has been in need of company and supplies after two weeks on her own. I have been picking her up in the morning and bringing her back to Bergby to enjoy the garden these past three days and consequently I too have had time to take it in. It is a great garden space we have you know and one which could keep us busy for weeks of studies of plants and trees and views out to the Norrby perimeter but it is too close to home somehow. It is necessary for us to make some sort of trek, some pilgrimage out into the fields or forest to feel we can concentrate. The solitude helps the concentration.
The fields, both here and all along the Norrtälje väg have changed completely while we have been away, turning most decisively, ripening, into varieties of grey yellow through to deep ochre and oranges; not a hint of green left, so our summer campaign to break the green must now shift to breaking the ochre and that will continue into harvest time and then we will be in changing times for us I fancy. Our failure to find funding and consistent sales has left us in need of what the Swedes call the 'bread job', and then I fear it might be all over for us as far as painting goes. It may be for the best and necessary but it will be a difficult shift away and a devastating loss of creativity. I cant imagine life without it actually. I suppose it would be possible to revert back to some high falootin2 critical art games but that landscape has changed with the alt right domination of the internet for me and in any case there's no endorphins in it. I would be better of just playing the piano after work.
The one positive we can take this autumn is that we will be spared our yearly rejection from Miss Dahlgren3 as we neglected to apply this year so busy were we with the blossoms. You know just one success with the working grant would have really let us push on and I doubt we would now be facing the end but so be it, is it not fitting that our predicted year of years should finish us off? Just as Donald will probably have gaslit his way to a second term we will then ourselves have to take a bow. I had meant to ask you actually whether we might extend this season to include the November election for the good of the project generally but I don't much care now either way.4 It was a mistake to become so embroiled in the 'times' I fancy. What business is it of ours to dip in to the world of ruins and think it will have some effect either on us or events? It is absurd, but I suppose it was about staying sane but is that not in itself the bottom of the barrel motive for art practice? Van Gogh didn't bang on about this prime minister or that candidate, not much anyway beyond mentioning General Boulangeir; he was too busy with his work. Forgive me and this post which has taken on a most unfortunate self pitying tone. Look here, even if we had all the money we wanted, the bread would be assured as would the expectations of the 'way of the world' but we would not have so dramatic a change in schedule as I would still care for mother and take the children to school. We would still be sneaking our oils in between the cracks of daily life, and that would be fine really but as I said, the walls are closing in. If sods law is to be believed, no sooner will we secure position at some grocers than we will be on the receiving end of an unexpected boon that would have rescued us! If it all drys up then perhaps it will be time to turn to promotion, to dissemination and exhibition. Perhaps that will be the only way to move beyond our current wretchedness.
As a result of the above tasks and worries we only have a small portrait sketch of Helen to post. I wonder if we could square it up?
With weak hand,
John
1 Wheatfields in a Mountainous Landscape, from the Kroller Muller Museum was painted on a teatowell.
2 Should read highfalutin.
3 Lisa Dhalgren works for the arts funding organisation. Mentioned also in work 1.
4 We have granted an extension.