lacklustre

It is Monday and the painting and gardening hasn’t happened yet. Today I managed two things: I videoed Claudia’s lesson for her course and took her car to be cleaned as she is planning on selling it. I suppose the painting and gardening can wait a while longer.

Saturday night I went over to Peter’s to borrow his camera (which we didn’t end up using). It has been a while so it was good to catch up. We made a few plans for the future which was good. Peter started a few yarns but often seemed a bit distracted and didn’t get to the point. He said for instance that Kristian accused his ex of destroying his art career. It was patently obvious that neither of us believed it to be true but I was dying to hear what was going on in Kristian’s head to make the accusation in the first place. I asked a couple of times but Pete never got around to the answer. I don’t know what was going on there, not with Kristian, I don’t care ultimately, but with Pete’s unfinished yarns, whether he was tired or thinking about work anxieties I don’t know.

I guess I wonder about Peter and in the end I don’t know why I am not getting things done with aplomb myself. Is my lacklustre approach just laziness? I don’t think there is anything wrong. I am just a bit unmotivated. Probably all I need is a date to work towards. That provides a target, a definite outcome. Painting is very secondary to nurturing my relationship and keeping on top of work but I think when I am happily painting other aspects of my life fall into place. Actually I am not sure of the causal relationship, whether painting causes things to be better or things being better causes the conditions conducive to painting. Either way neither is present right now.

Jack and Hanna came to lunch yesterday, which was grand. Interestingly Jack said he was bereft of ideas for writing. I would take it back a step and investigate his practice whether he writes his way out of a blockage. He and Claudia thought reading more of other author’s writing was the go. I think that background reading is worthy in itself but not something that has a finish and therefore can be done fully before commencing writing. When I think of my experience at art school I ended up being overwhelmed by all the ideas that were around and could only paint when I almost ignored all the competing streams. I painted the worst paintings I have ever painted during the pressure cooker years of art school, which I think is ok, I was there to learn not produce commercial success. Now I have a practice that suits the stop/start nature of my endeavours. I can add a few lines when I am not in the mood and if they don’t work out I can just obliterate them. Nothing I do takes a whole knowledge of the outcome.

I saw in the paper over the weekend a quote attributed to Flaubert. However when I goolged it turns out everyone has said it:

"a work of art is never completed, merely abandoned"

I would have thought if I was a writer that I would have a drawer full of ideas that I had scribbled out. I might not have good ideas but the drawer would be there for reference. Likewise I think of authors who take note of interesting conversations and incidents that they experience without care for where the confluence will be used. I have dream ideas for stories or interactives that I have in various diaries, I am not short of a starting point, but then I am not a writer.

I also remember other students saying they were daunted by the blank canvas at art school. This wasn’t the problem for me as noted above, I was overwhelmed by the possibilities not where to start. I loved starting a blank canvas unconcerned about the finish, the completed look. I still love a blank canvas for the mess you can outlay without concern for any thing that already exists.