Windmills.

The morning is damp and humid. Ideas buzz at the back of my mind - a hive of the future, of possibilities and decisions to make. There is a fluttering, a scritching of paper and wax, something is building.

For the present though I am unsatisfied, I feel as though the me I am trying to build is another facade, subject to the fears and concerns of the future in the way I have already been; and grasping to too old ways of coping - head down, shoulders hunched and keep going - the Boxer approach to life: ‘I must work harder’.

Make no mistake, painting is joyous, something I can willingly give myself too; but I begin to wonder to what end - my constant fear of my relevance, my ability and my appeal orbit ever faster between each work and I begin to feel dizzy, nauseous even as I take up my brush. 

I fear art makes me selfish of my time, giving over what is spare to what is an individual and somewhat narcissistic pursuit. Of course the time that is not spare is there to fund my attempts, and as the one flounders the other takes on the air of necessity; thus the windmill must be built.

I feel lethargy creep in, a lack of purpose and belief. I am becoming good at something that was supposed to keep me going until... again. A pattern that worries me, it provides a safety blanket, a support - in short it stops me needing to succeed in what I want. 

I am a natural coward I think, someone who does not look for or enjoy fear and danger. I may also be a sloth, indolent and seeking the easy life until threatened, until that danger makes me move out of need.

So if these posts are introspective, and even melodramatic and self-obsessed, it is I feel because without the bravery to risk all for my art, I need to create my own windmills; not for building or the endless source of power and toil they provide so much, but to charge at, to prove myself - to keep my art alive.