What Does An Artist Do All Day?

DAY EIGHT

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DAY EIGHT 〰️

12/08/2022 11:17 – DAY EIGHT

 So what will this Artist be doing today?  One of the things I have penned into the TDL is to research more about the artist TOM PHILLIPS who created a body of artwork in books (he called it A Humument).  There is nothing new in Life.  What we think of as our own ideas has probably been thought of before.  What we do has probably been done before.  Not everything previously done or thought of becomes public knowledge and some that has made the public forum may get missed in the ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’ theory.  I didn’t know that Tom Phillips even existed.  Should I be ashamed by my lack of knowledge?  Not really.  I should only become conscience-stricken if I do nothing about new-found knowledge.  So today I must spend some time researching.

Today’s Photo #1 was done on Tuesday 9 August; all others are today’s work. My book art (pic #4) today already has worked a title and story into my head. This is ‘Nubian Pilgrim’.

12/08/2022 23:24

I’ve done some research into Tom Phillips.  Fascinating.  And so much more to discover about the man as the artist.  But the more I find out about this previously unknown creative [to me that is, although he is widely known elsewhere], the more I become dispirited in my new-found quest.  My ‘Seven Daughters of Eve’ has already been done as ‘A Humument’.  As I explore my feelings over my new idea for a project, I ask myself if I am discouraged from continuing with it.  I think not.  Even although I have since discovered that the ideas I was penning down to do have already been done decades earlier.  How can this be?  My thoughts reach back into the body of text by Bryan Sykes, and I would quote them if I could read them still, about how we are all linked genetically through the passage of time.  I can’t for one moment think how I could have any genetic link to Tom Phillips.  Not even through our great-grandmothers’ great-grand-mother and beyond that down generations of a possible matrilineal connection. Perhaps the idea of repurposing old books or old parchment is not even Old Tom’s idea.  Perhaps there have been several re-purposing of another’s creations throughout time.  Perhaps his innovative idea had been done before he started on his quest.  And if it had, would he have known about it?  Would he have continued with his project if he had known?  I suspect he would have.  When an artist gets an idea it has to be given life.  It becomes a precious obsession.  I am obsessed by The Seven Daughters of Eve.  Each day it becomes more precious.  I will claim the repurposing as my own even if the idea is centuries old or just thought of earlier by the artist Tom Phillips.  Synchronicity of ideas.  This is a topic that is as deep as Loch Ness and might hold a whole family of Nessies within it.  If only I had time to dive in and swim around this subject.

I’ve been reading more of the book The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes.  I’m rushing ahead with it and I fear that I am getting too far ahead in my thirst for knowledge to the point that my artwork is not always making a connection with the words that I read or what my thoughts and feeling are for the day.  I’m trying to make the connections of book, brain and hand connect more meaningfully.  I’m losing track of what art I have created when, why and how.  Already conscious of this dilemma , I am starting to formulate ideas on how to stay on track.  Date the back of the pages I write/draw/paint on is one way.  Keep note of the page numbers on digital files.  Write a wee bit about each artwork in this blog [or some other chronological recording system].  This simple task is becoming a sizeable project with complications.  Another distraction from doing what needs doing.

Art got done today.  More gel-plate printing experiments, some of which I am happy with.  All unfinished projects of course.  Some have really defined ‘visions’ within them and are clipped on a pegboard for working on.  A lot of today’s ‘pulls’ though will become collage fodder.  I really want to be getting on with some canvases, working larger and looser.  I need some new big works for my Solo in September and the way I am going about things is not conducive to fine art production.