Experience is always the present moment.

      

                                                       detail. oil on wood. from A Man and his friends. 130x130cm.


Painting a head (my head) is preparing to fail. I begin with a mixture of optimism and trepidation and experience frustration, imagine that the work is progressing and realize that it is not. I can't give up although I so often want to, so it is scraped down, restarted. It is all I can do and I cannot stop.

Work in progress.

My painting is a fluid process.

 I don't have an identifiable goal. It develops, sometimes well, sometimes not. Along the way there are reverses of fortune and re-workings; some areas that hold on until quite late succumb and I paint over these areas wondering why I held on to them for so long. The photo record shows where the painting might have stayed, where it has disappeared: stasis is not my wish, not yet. I can always think of an addition, an erasure. I feel forced into rebuilding the image, moving towards a conclusion which maybe hours or months away and sometimes years.

Painting is thinking.

oil on canvas. 50x50cm.

 

photo collage. 10x10cm

                                                            
                                                          photo collage. 10x12cm.

And this one was amusing.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110999204275429396091/posts/1gdLgR9k7di

Painting in progress.

I found this today, filmed in 2010 I think . A glimpse of part of my process  to the sound of Keith Jarrett.

Winter/Spring/Winter

                                        
                                         winter/spring/winter. oil on canvas. 80x80 cms.



Which is just how it has been, in the land as much as in my studio. I had mentioned that I was working on something else and this has been scraped down so many times as I tried to do more with less - though I might have just ended up with  less - and juggled thoughts about the difference between thinking about paint and thinking in paint. I have to put this away now because I have already made big changes to another recent painting .The back and forth between the two has been a head-ache so it was a welcome change to go out into the snow today before returning to stoke up the stove and get back into Mr. Elkins.