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March 10, 2005
A physical thing
It is a physical thing. It’s about the way I stand, what I wear and, perhaps understandably, how I feel. There is, when the time is right – when everything is pointing in the right direction [when God’s telescope is finally in focus] an incredibly powerful energy about this painting lark.
It’s about being there, it’s about skin and bone, it’s about flesh and blood. It’s the actuality of life, not about make-up or newspapers or photographs of moments when you aren’t really who you are but someone between two points of existence.
It’s not about looking at films about climbing but about tearing the skin on your knuckles. It’s not drawing cats. It’s about brushing an elephant’s toe nails and respecting the enormous weight of physical presence that could snuff you out in a blink or suck the fingers off your hand as you feed her a carrot. It’s about red pants not about baseball bats.
And here, in the studio, it’s a physical thing. The painting is physical, the slapping on of oil paint, the mixing of paint, the standing figure, standing there, for me to paint. How amazingly glorious.
Posted by john at March 10, 2005 08:15 PM
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