Good afternoon Mr. Whalecrow. Mr. Tom de Freston here
I have been adding more paint to ‘Him who wanted to have fallen II’ for a few days now. I thought it was alsmot finsihed before but needed something else. That something else has grown into multiple editions, each one seemingly taking it away from the end point. Not that I really know what that end point is or even really have any idea of the reason for each step i am taking. I am just blindly fumbling about in the dark.
I think i am becoming over whelemed by the multiple facotrs which make up a painting, and in trying to balance each am creating a mess of a work. Ill add a dash of colour and it will work fantastically in terms of how it sits next to the colour adjascent to it. But then it shifts the mood of the work, unsettles the overall depth and causes a refocusing of our attention. I start to get the picture working in tone and then realise that perhaps it does not matter if the picture is the most tonally perfect image ever made when the motif and content to wqhich this formal qualitiy is applied is so vacuous and pretentious. Ill then have faith in the motif, seeing it as a strong and relevant synmbol but feel that the execution of the formal aspects of the work means that a potentially interesting message is being articulated by the equivalent of white noise. The next moment ill believe in the idea but feel that the composition is flawed, that the sense of space, the position of the main figures is limited and immature. Then suddenly compositionally things will come together but the idea seems like something not worth piecing otgether with this clarity.
It is obvious I am confused and frustrated.
What becomes clear in times like these is that you are actually mindlessly grappling. I actually have very little genuine comprehension of what painitng, or more importantly my painting, is really about. What set of values underpin it and give it a foundation to hold together. Even when we construct ideas to try give ourselves something to believe in we realise that we lack the requisite technical expertise and knowledge to build upon these. Either the house comes tumbling down becasue it has no internal structure or it collapses around the structure due to shoody brickwork. At this juncture I feel I lack both the necessary deisng of the architerct or the craft of the builder.
eyond these specifics concerns lie greater ones. What about if I realise how to design and build. This does not solve the problem of why, even if what and how are sorted. It is a building with no purpose, a tower to nowhere other than to reach up in some pursuit of empty egotistical goals. Its some vain attempt to display intellect, skill and talent without any real purpose. It all feels a little pointless at this moment in time.
