By the colour of the wheat it appears to be autumn but we have a few weeks of summer remaining. I do not know however when the good farmer shall cut the field so this study had to be snatched quite unplanned. It is the same size as the spring study we took from the same position during The Wretched Painter interlude and I made up my mind to begin a seasonal series. My apologies again for my failure to nail the inks I promised1 from the video series, it does pain me as there are some thirty works of good energy that would have been part of our DS story and I would like to avoid sending reproductions. Perhaps following the seasons end and the mental slump after the very likely victory of the 'baddies',2 I may shut myself away, get them done, send them to you and you could insert them somehow.
Thank you for the extension3 and of course it is the right way to do it rather than begin a fresh season not knowing the twist in the plot.4
The study back in the spring was a very quick and rough grab, the subject being the sprouting green shoots and the wonderfully smooth curving patterns they make as they stand erect above the rich violet, almost appetising soil. A quick take and rather scratched on as you can see in the video5 which was one of the few that shows the process (but a 'how-to' video it was not!)
Taking up the same position today, the aim was to record the fully grown crop and to have go of the deep colour. We hint at a violet complimentary in the soil and we had a stab at the warm of the evening sky which reads as blue but on my honour it is almost all yellow. The harvest will surely be upon us in the next week as it is already underway as far north as Svanberga and then we'll take a study of the gone crop and another when the plough has been run over it.
Helen's wooden river sculpture,6 which we spent the day definitively removing with drills and saws last week, has given us support wood for the remainder of the season I would say, saving us a good deal of time scavenging from another source or money getting more in.
You know I have been receiving links sent by some algorithm on the topic of social protest. I suppose because I have been eavesdropped whilst emailing or overheard by my sisters sneaky and spineless iphone, as we discussed the matter. It goes without saying that I did not request this but I had a glance at a couple of the pieces and was less than enthused. Admittedly I skimmed and glanced but the gist seemed a little to obvious; the thinking stunted if I may be so bold, hitting a thought ceiling it seems at the first idea that social protest is encouraged and manipulated, by the right. That is the very first hurdle and if little us can divvy that up sitting in the wood over here then lets have something more from a publication. Do you hear me AL?!7
There is just enough sign of autumn to begin to lift our sunken spirit at having the summer pass by without our capturing of the wealth of meadows, much less breaking of the green. Said green has gone to ochre but we can break that until the snow falls so we do not lament the summer and besides the autumn brings with it a pleasant, long exhale following the panting of the high summer season when everyone is rushing around, desperate to capitalise on the day. It seems as though the summer, pleasant as it invariably is, takes a toll that is only noticeable in the calm settling of autumn, but as I said, it's not over yet. We shall pant about a bit more, making a go of the fields and we must also take a still life of an old boat engine which sits in the garden and a boots while we're at it.
As for our season, the themes, the election? Well, attention and interest in the rhapsody of left/right media representations is waning rapidly and this from a starting point of barely paying any attention! That said I cannot stop thinking about our work and themes but I don't quite know whether progress on that score depends on awareness of the unfolding. The truth is that if I look at the news I feel sad and stressed and a little baited, then a little hooked at which point we have been dragged into the chaos and feel only the need to regain the bank and take to the fields. No, in our work we are better off once of twice removed, watching when it suits us, noting and recording tit bit scraps from the never ending post truth movie, and examining them at our leisure from our cheap but very quiet seat, Doing all the while. However I have committed to follow and reflect the election in our work in some fashion and I intend to honour that and on that basis let me throw you a thought regards Don Donald8 and his intention to not recognise the election result if he lost. What about, if one were flirting with danger, a naughty campaign mounted on a chan9 to encourage an alt right election boycott designed so that a full scale yeehahing push for civil war may ensue? The gamble would be whether or not the remaining institutions stamp out the armed uprising or join it. Little Vladz10 Little Vladz roll your tanks in. Goodness me what a far fetched, but one bet is nailed on; if Trump loses there will be no calm acceptance of the result, no conceding for the good of America and it is at that time I fancy that Little Vladz shall pop one last caviar covered blini down his pie hole, dust off his hands and reach for the bomber jacket.
Three hours has passed since we returned from the field and looking at this study now it seems a little dull in its colour. We must remember the idea of the 'jewell like' quality of a Van Gogh that we detected on our visit to the Tate last year. We must use full hue colour and rather than greydowning, we must learn to lower the tones through the application of colour autonomously in order to make progress with our command of colour and simply to achieve full colour canvases. I am all the more certain of the need to pursue the course of intense colour after having read a report from the dutch institute about how Van Gogh's colour has desaturated over the past 130 years. The report includes reproductions of paintings with colour adjusted to show how they used to look and it is quite a difference I can assure you.
Yours,
John
1 John has said that he wanted to include ink studies of the works he made during his video series.
2 Likely refers to the alt far right. Possibly ironic.
3 We think the extension of the season until after the election is a good idea.
4 Election results.
5 See Vimeo, The Wretched Painter, Work 3.
6 Helen was selected for the 'art in the river' commissions.
7 Who is AL?
8 Refers to Trump. See proposal poem Johnny B Goode in the introduction.
9 Refers to the alt right message boards 4 and 8 chan.
10 Vladimir Putin.