The Spaces Between. Part 2: On Show

 

Above: Detail from The Rapture

Looking back, I’m not at all sure why I kicked off the Artlog by deciding to make stage by stage posts of The Congregation of Birds. Given I’d been shy of visitors to the studio while any painting was in progress on the easel, it seems at this distance to have been quite a challenge to myself to have produced fourteen posts during twelve days spent making a single work. I know there were times when I thought I’d made a mistake and should back out of the venture before I made a complete fool of myself. But I stuck with it, and afterwards there was a sense of having achieved what I set out to do, which was to strip some of the mystery away from how a work is produced. The posts can be viewed at this link:

The Saint Francis Diary

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Since then I’ve made two start-to-finish posts at the Artlog, and I rather wish I’d made more. They’re a good record, because there can be no doubt that while I imagine I’ll recall all the stages that go into making a painting, without photographs I quite quickly forget what’s under the top layer of it. Sometimes I make notes, especially when something is hard-won and I want a reminder of how I went about the resolving problems. Occasionally I have good intentions to photograph a work-in-progress, but get so deeply engaged by the day-to-day painting, that I forget to make the photographs necessary for a visual diary. My studio diary for Touched may be found if you click on ‘Annunciatons’ in the Topics bar, and once there, scroll down. (There were fourteen days of work that I recorded on it, but alas I ran out of files for my ‘Topics’ box, and couldn’t bundle the posts together in a link for easy access.)

The last ‘diary’ of a painting at the Artlog, was for a large Tobias and the Angel painting. Damian Walford Davies watched its progress, and by the day the painting was finished, he’d produced the beautiful poem that became its title; The Rapture.

Tobias and Raphael Diary

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Although there haven’t been any more ‘diaries’ of paintings, I do try to post regular project updates at the Artlog, and Hansel & Gretel and Skin/Skôra may both be located in the Topics box. I hope shortly to add Gawain and the Green Knight, but first need to work out how to upgrade the number of categories that I’m allowed. I’ve currently reached my limit.

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