What Does An Artist Do All Day?
DAY TEN
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DAY TEN 〰️
14/08/2022 05:55 – DAY TEN
As an Artist it is not always easy to ‘take a day off’. In fact it is almost nigh impossible to switch off at times. I try to create a bit of order to each day which helps to regulate my sometimes over-active brain. Today is Sunday and no matter how much I try to remind myself that Sunday is a day away from the studio and the gallery, I mentally drift towards the pull of the tide of all that is work/art-based. No matter how much I want to create today I have to focus on doing some housework and possibly some gardening too. Perhaps I can allow myself a gentle walk later today with a sketchbook in hand.
14/08/2022 12:45
I’ve killed another hour. Murdered the good intentions. I’ll get a life sentence of housework with no early release today. How did I commit this crime? Well I had finished cleaning the kitchen, moved onto tidying the living room, and on my dining table was my repurposed 2021 laminated A3 Year Planner. I use that under my laptop and mouse. Works a treat and stops the table getting scratched. But I had a lightbulb moment of how I could repurpose the already repurposed. I could use the laminated A3 sheet as a protector for when I am doing small artworks. I could even use part of it as my palette. Would it work with my watercolours? Best I try out the idea I thought to myself. So I did. I smothered a small part of the right side with watercolour mixes and my water pot. I laid the ‘Daughters of Eve’ book on the left and proceeded to ignore the call of the household chores. The hour was dead. The Artist indulged herself.
I painted Death. Not in a bad way; nor even a sad way. In a way that rejoices and celebrates my recently deceased uncle Colin’s life. It was his funeral on Thursday, which I went to, and felt so sad that he had passed away. I didn’t get home until very late. I had got so tired while driving that evening I had to stop and sleep in the car for an hour or so. It was 11pm when I finally got home. To mark the day I drew his initials on page 15. Not that the page or the number has any significance. I visited this page a few times over the last couple of days thinking I need to paint the loosely inked letters I had created. But nothing came to mind until I sat down and stared at page 15 for a while today. Just get on with it I thought. I used watercolours with my travelling paintbrush and painted intuitively without thinking too much about anything apart from my uncle Colin’s life and my memories of him. He was only three years older than me but I still thought of him as uncle and not cousin. And so his monogram got started. I painted intuitively and at the end I could recognise, in this monogram, his life unfolded and packaged away to take to the afterlife.
The symbolic meaning I had painted without knowledge of what I was actually creating was this:
C: represents Colin himself. The blue rollered background contained all the letters within a ‘box’
o: became a leaf/tree symbol of Life itself.
L: became the Grim Reaper’s scythe which also formed part of the Tree of Life. Death and Life intertwined .
i: was symbolic of the candle of remembrance. The Light that leads the way.
n: represents the doorway he must go through from this Life to the Next.
The last symbol to mention is the small rock by the foot of the doorway. No Life on Earth is ever without it’s hardship. You have to look hard to actually see this small rock. Colin was the ‘joker’ in the McLean family, even the minister said so! But Colin had his fair share of hardships or problems but he would laugh and joke his way through them. Just small rocks for Colin. The World is a sadder place without my colourful uncle Colin in it. Even the colours in my painting for Colin are symbolic but again the choice of colour was truly intuitive. It is only after the completion of this work can I see all the threads of meaning within. An Artist creates intuitively. Well I certainly did today . Goodnight Uncle Colin.
