Rapperswil by the lake (Mixed media)

Day 88.

Being of an artistic bent is an all consuming plight. No clocking in or out. The preoccupation is constant. That doesn’t always equate with stream lined industriousness. In my case I find it a hindrance to productivity. Not knowing where to start or how to adroitly harness the beast being my greatest obstacles to manifesting that which roars to be born.

The work is in grappling with that and what that involves. I am the work and the work is me. I can’t shut myself off to create instead I have to align myself in a way that the work flows out of  me and this is an ongoing and deeply mysterious battle of sorts.

It is a process of  breaking down and reassembling continuously. Allowing all things to exist to become the force of creation being always in flux,a part of everything and nothing at once.

It all takes time. The practice of creating is incorporated into the stream. The rewards come in unexpected ways.

Henry Miller put it thus:

“I didn’t lack thoughts nor words nor the power of expression— I lacked something much more important: the lever which would shut off the juice. The bloody machine wouldn’t stop, that was the difficulty. I was not only in the middle of the current but the current was running through me and I had no control over it whatever.”

The photo is of a breakfast painting of Rapperswil in Switzerland where I spent a memorable afternoon in 2013.

Sitting at the table feeling relaxed and amused in the company of my good friend Monica, the remains of a fine feast before us I was inspired and saw in the debris the church tower, clouds and the hill beneath the blue blue sky.

Untitled (Acrylic)

Day 87.

Currently rereading Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn. I read it once before over a year ago and see that I have underlined more passages than I have done in any school text.

The passages that struck me then as particularly resonant are today even more so. I’m grateful to have made indications to such passages as I know they are they’re readily accessible to me whenever the need for sustenance arises.

On the pursuit of gaining an understanding of himself he says

I couldn’t afford to leave things hanging in suspense that way- the mystery was too intriguing. Even if I had to rub myself like a cat against every human being I encountered, I was going to get to the bottom of it. Rub long enough and hard enough and the spark will come

The painting is a new work in acrylic.