Couch banana.

I've had a weekend of apparent procrastination. It feels like I've spent the time on the sofa with my feet up watching food programmes and episodes of The West Wing. This in itself is not a complete waste of a weekend - I love watching the combination of ingredients and anticipating flavours in my mouth, and I am an addict of Sorkin's dialogue and the acting and timing of The West Wing ensemble; it is however by no means all I did - it's just that I feel like it's all I did. I sit fizzing with a sense of the potential of the time I am not using - a couch banana if you will. 

Yet I also spent a lovely day wandering around a city centre; got my first request for a commission, which I sketched out and mocked up; and I completed a submission for www.standuptragedy.co.uk's new publication; oh, and wrote the last blog entry (including all that pumpkin stuff); so all in all quite productive. So why the feeling of procrastination?

I think the act of sitting on the sofa connects in my mind with avoiding work - with missing the chance to do more. I feel a sense of guilt that I am not pushing myself further - even when I deserve, or need the chance, to chill out. The deeper danger is that I begin to feel that my enjoyment of painting and writing means that I must make them more like work; enforcing a sense of rigidity and obligation in my approach. There must be a sense of discipline of course, but it must come from the enjoyment of the process and result, not from the fear of being different.

I am aware of my latent masochism peeing its head over my shoulder, whispering its doubts and insecurities into my ear, stressing my mistakes and failures, noticing the one error amongst the thousand successes. This time I see the imp for what he is - a critic: myopic and domed of head, face twisted in a sneer that comes from his own inactivity and an over abundance of bile; and am able to reply: a knock back is not a failure, tiredness is not worthlessness, and a day relaxing is not an inability to commit to the job.

So instead of crumpling under the pernicious mutterings at the edge of my hearing I will watch another episode, one where Josh and Toby lose it over different time zones between counties in the Midwest, then go and paint something that captures my imagination. It might work, it might not, but both are worth doing, right? 

Dream pie.

Today I went to the shops. Again I found myself on the simple journey through my estate, along the main road, and across to the row of shops that surround the local travel hub. On the way I noticed the sodden yellows of the browning leaves, turning to mulch as the autumn rains begin to compost the season. The sky was clear, though dulled, and there was a suggestion of wind that hinted the full entourage was on its way.

I found my imagination wandering as the movement of my body gave a rhythm to the walk; the subtle changes of direction and gradient stimulating different muscles and joints, expelling energy in contrasting directions. This all culminated on my arrival at the shop, where I saw the pumpkins on display.

Now pumpkins conjure two ideas in my mind - the first is the idea of pie, the iconic pumpkin pie. I have never made it or eaten it, but since childhood America and Americana has been a presence in my life (blame Lucas and Spielberg). I associate this pie with a, not uncontroversial, public holiday; but I also associate it with a sense of glamour - odd really, as the idea and flavour of pumpkin and squash provoke warmth, earthiness and a sense of sweetness, more echoes of family than high living. Though on some level the idea of the idealised family life is something that I do respond to as glamorous, as other or different to my own experience; maybe it is this association with shared experience that I have used to lace pumpkin pie, to give it a mythical unifying status?

Pumpkin also screams out Halloween. This is also a holiday I have never really known - I have never really felt the desire to dress up in costume - mainly because I feel it is unnecessary to have a costume to inhabit another persona or existence, my imagination lets me do that pretty well (and without the social embarrassment of a body that seems incompatible with any known cut of clothing). I do however approve of the idea of a holiday that explores the link between life and death - though where exactly extortion of money or gifts from other people fits into that is difficult to see, unless Charon begun it all?!  

Anyway, when I saw the pumpkins this time I immediately began to transform my front garden in readiness for Halloween; mentally sculpting frightful faces with burning eyes and fangs from the pumpkin; then placing flickering lanterns in strategic positions, calling out to the spirits and spreading shadow and glow over evergreen bush and tree. I imagined supplementing all this with hidden candy, with gothic notes, the smells of mulled cider - apples, cinnamon and cloves, and ginger cake. At first this level of interest and detail surprised me, I generally seek to dismiss the idea of holidays and festivals as some form of consumer con; but with each idea this seemed to move from a reaction to the holiday, to a production of the holiday - a performance to invite others to, and to participate in.

It might be pie in the sky, but I'd like to think I'll do it this year, who knows - it may even go well?

Coffee and bagels.

A groggy stumble down the stairs. A quick fumble with the toaster and the coffee maker, then it begins. Smells of cinder toffee, coffee, cinnamon and raisins, along with toasting bagel dough waft through the house. I finish ironing, sniffing through steam in anticipation of the autumnal aroma that creeps like fog along the ground; sweet and bitter, brought together with butter, the delicious dark notes of the year compliment the outside dew and chill.

The scents of warmth that I feel give me new attack on the painting before me. I relax into small brush strokes that highlight and shade. The feel of the whole piece starts to solidify in my mind and appear on the paper. This is the time when character and atmosphere are created, when the lines pencilled in are given texture and personality. If the sketching is the development of the character, this is the performance! 

I bite into the bagel, and feel the warmth of the butter (which I overspread), dribbling off the bread, before washing it down with the sweet and smokey cinder toffee coffee, which has a woodiness that compliments the dark earthiness of the coffee. Whilst my mouth delights in this combination, and indulges in food that coaxes me back to life, my body finds its rhythm slowly, and I find myself pushing ideas further and further on the page, delighting in the detail and richness of the scene - making the fantastic a reality. 

This relationship between the stimulation of taste and odour and my imaginative process has many facets. Most obviously food, and especially smells, evoke a sense of place -  but also of ideas. Eating the bagels, smelling the coffee and the cinnamon I am transported to many places on my tongue: it is late winter in New York at the Tasty Dinner on 30th street; it is an English park full of conkers on a misty autumn morning; it is outside the Pantheon at the cool break of a summer's day watching tourists arrive to begin their awe. 

With all this flooding in, it is hardly surprising that I feel a need to create, to explore and to wonder. 

Common sense.

I've just asked my wife her opinion about what I should write in this post. Despite being overcome by sleep, she has valiantly volunteered some suggestions: strikes, her beautiful hair, mince and dumplings and annoying phone calls. All of which are wonderful, though not normally the sort of things I write about. But change is good right? After all, if I've withered on about anything it's the importance of fully emerging yourself in an experience, fully... Dammit!

So strikes. Well it's clear to me that these are completely unacceptable. It is a classic example of small groups of people seeking to dictate to the rest of society. I mean we all have to work and that means doing things we don't like, so why do people think they are different? Just because your working conditions are threatened, your organisation is fundamentally changed, or your ability to do your job is diminished, why does that give you the right to impinge on the rights of other people who have to go about their business as usual? It's not as if a strike will change the assumptions of society, or help publicise a debate which is criminally ignored by the rest of us, as it doesn't affect us; hardly!

Who in their right mind believes we could possibly be affected by taking an outmoded communications system into private ownership - it's not like the right to post a letter is a human right! I mean nobody writes a letter anymore - so who cares how much a stamp costs! I for one am delighted by the idea of a group of private citizens and corporations having control over the postal infrastructure by which the old, the poor and the isolated are kept connected to the rest of society. After all, as we are only as strong as our weakest links, it's best we cut them off completely.

As for education, surely it only matters that we can clear children out of the way for the day, so we can get on with our own jobs - and that we can say how well the little darlings are doing by some clear method of distinguishing the best from the worst by levels, or marks or colours or something - I don't care what, I just need to know my Tommy is blue, whilst Sherri is green, and that blue is better! I don't mind at what - so long as its core, and will lead to a job. Oh, and they should be top of those league table things - I mean the best are always at the top aren't they, it's not exactly rocket science is it!?

Phew!  Oh yes, her hair is beautiful, mince and dumplings is brill, and phone calls are often annoying; not all assumptions need to be challenged, but some really do.

Think that about covers it.

Natural words.

The sky late last night was refreshing. Wisps of cloud dotted the dark sky like the first grey hairs in a beard, and beyond these patches of opaqueness, there stretched out the infinity of the night and space. For a moment awestruck the wind cut the humidity of the day's work, and in looking up I felt the relief of purpose and inspiration.

Early this morning the mist cast a ghostly pall on the suburban landscape I inhabit, giving mystery and glamour to the family dwellings and planned greens. Shinning through, streetlights cast with theatrical timing, enhancing shadow and illuminating droplets in the sky. Though still filled with a residue of darkness, the Close was filled with a tangible sense of the morning descending, fitting itself around our lives and absorbing our natures into the days events. 

Writing these posts it has become clear to me how much the world around me influences my mood. This is not as simple as good and bad days though, more it is to do with the drama of the weather - and the surroundings. The fickleness of nature and its dialogue with the landscape turns so easily from placid to enraged, from pensive to playful and changes the complexion of the day. 

This revelation irks me, mainly because of a studied dislike of Wordsworth that remains from sixth form, where I read and re-read him, but could not get over the seemingly simplicity of his obsession with nature; nor the abandonment of his revolutionary principles in his second version of 'The Prelude' that suggests a particularly unattractive view of the process of growing older. Yet his ideas of the philosophic and educational impact of nature are not a million miles from my awareness of the impact of my surroundings. Bugger.

In my defence it is being caught between nature and the urban (even if historical) landscape that thrills me; the sensation of the eternal and the transient intertwining to inscribe themselves upon each other and within memory; a moment of recognising who and where you are fully. These are the aesthetics and the drama of the moment, and in this heated debate I am overjoyed to be a comma.

Subject Matter(s)?

I've kind of dried up about specific experiences today (probably as I've got ideas for cartoon running around my head, annoying the hell out of a residual headache that has set up camp in my frontal lobe); but that does leave open a thorny topic that's been nagging away at the edge of my consciousness (Indeed possibly two as I'm still fascinated by the Freudian and sentient nature of predictive text.); and that is: what is the purpose of this blog?

I began talking about painting, and its value to me, drifted onto accounts of feeling and personal experiences, then finished with another examination of the relationship between myself and the act of being creative with a more theoretical bent. I've since added a soupçon of poetry and a twist of cod-philosophy. The result is an eclectic mix, which, if I'm honest, quite appeals; though it does mean I must apologise to those reading if they expect 'consistency' - for that is a phrase that has always angered me. After all, surely it is just a way of legitimising boredom! 

Some may claim that in writing about everyday events, feelings and thoughts these posts are boring (by some I, of course, mean me), although I'd like to think that on some level I 'defamiliarise' the world around me - following the Russian Formalists, in an attempt to process myself. And, I'm afraid, I don't have the coherence of a single theme or story; nope I'm decidedly incoherent (and the irony of the gibberish I typed while writing that word is not lost on me - nor the mangling of sense and syntax the prediction came up with!). This is a problem I've always had with the notion of behaving 'in character' - like consistency above it implies a stream of logic that can be applied to determine the response of another person; an approach I consider flawed at best, and dangerous at worst - but them maybe I'm just used to the predictability of the unpredictable?

If I act in character I display certain attributed characteristics - such as reliability, sarcasm, irony and cynicism; but if I display weakness, or anger, or uncertainty these are not alien characteristics - rather they are part of me that responds to new situations and circumstances; part of me provoked by new aspects of life or combinations of personalities. Character is a chemical reaction that responds to the variety of elements used to inspire the cataclysm of contact. My personality spikes and melts as the experiment continues, creating the odour of experience (That last bit - the assonance and mirroring, came from the predictive text - see, told you, sentient!).

Dreaming in the rain.

It is absolutely pissing it down. Great globules of water are falling from the sky. My ill advised flimsy summer coat is saturated, and my hair is being cleansed of any product I put in it (Which arguably serves me right for a) using product, and b) calling the gunk or gel or whatever it actually is 'product' - I mean it's probably sentient!), and it is now dripping white residue down the lenses on my glasses. 

But I don't care. I've finished my painting! It is complete. Each area is covered, the lines are sharp and flow. It describes and interprets the scene, and most importantly my gut says it looks good - others may not, but then guts can be liverish in their moods. I can bask in its completion, but more I can allow myself to consider other ideas that have been buzzing around my head - a cartoon, a water colour, and some oils that occur to me. My day spent sketching has given rise to a narrative poem I aim to illustrate, and I've even started to mess around with computer colouring - taking me back to my animation days (not as impressive as it sounds, I was free - as in cheap, not available - and they used the money for a computer - but the experience was great). 

So let the rain pound; let Noah do his dance and gather up his menagerie. I have made some progress, and can afford to enjoy the schism of the sky as a spectacle, not see it as the pathetic fallacy of my life. 

The clouds hang low, beckoning the greyness of the day, squeezing out every drop on to the roads and paths beneath. The transforming of the concrete into the waterways and rivulets provokes a 'singing in the rain' montage in my mind, and as I pass bus queues and shoppers I envision splashing in and out of the puddles, leaping on and off the pavement, spinning umbrellas in my hands and upsetting caught rain onto these unsuspecting passersby.  

Racing across the roadway to get to the station I feel the cold nose of the rain on my ankle, and jump as a car drives through a puddle staged by Morecambe and Wise. Not put off I disappear down the steps with a skip... 

"Do, der, do-der, do, do!" 

Growing pains.

Saturday, drizzled and overcast. There is a sting on the cheek, and the rooftop slate glints from the moisture. I am early, or the train runs later today. I look to sit, but am drawn to the space beyond the roof to say hello to the sky. 

I perch at the end of the station, minutely tracing the latticework of nature as rogue plants have worked their way into the urban sprawl. Leaves gasp upwards to catch the droplets in the air, leapfrogging the withered and decaying residue of summer. Blades of grass crisscross twiglets fallen from grace, while insects scurry for the shelter of the dark. 

Each mark on the page takes me deeper into this secret world that creeps closer to the concrete. My hand describes geometry and bends lines around themselves as undergrowth is unpicked into separate threads. Slowly my consciousness dissolves into oblivion of events around me: people come and go, trains hum down the tracks, conversations begin and end; whilst I follow the leaf to the tip of its stem. 

This bank, running along a transport artery, existing in the peripheral vision of the daily world - only acknowledged to curtail, forms its own logic - its own story of the seasons; its existence is impressive, its survival more so. A small patch of interdependence that strives to touch the sky, yet combines for shelter and nourishment. This is growth in its fullest sense, not merely the action of one or a few, but the understanding of a whole system that binds one to another, and to the world around it. This is growth as being and ageing and nurturing and comforting; not growth as we have come to think of it - as bigger, faster, stronger, more. 

This patch of nature, eeking out its life amongst continuous threat, shows us growth in the purest sense: it renews as it develops itself, it plans as it exists, it winds itself to others in order to experience more.

And, at this moment of epiphany my train arrives to take me to work. 

Surface tension.

My brother sets a twitter vss called #ThePush, and a recent theme was "shells and pebbles", which got me thinking (so it's his fault)...

Are we but hollow shells? Inside so transient and insubstantial? My outside builds a persona of who I am; around others I become a mirror of their expectation and my acquiescence. True depth is only found by recognising the void that fills within - the barren wasteland that we mistake for psychology. Better to say that it is a sense of being lost, alone, rejected from the world around. The mistake is to search in this absence for something to grasp hold of. 

To assume a shell is without nuance and shade is to ignore the marks of time and circumstances upon the outer layer: the marks of limpets, the chalk scars of rocks and weather, the ridges and peaks of protection that form. Furthermore there are the many inhabitants who have existed inside the shell: hermits and parasites who have left their mark on their surroundings; multiple personas who have conformed to the needs of situation and role, sheltering behind the shell, leaving it to take the consequences of their actions, abandoning it when they have outgrown it - it's comfort no longer enough. 

The shell of a man that I am has faced many situations and obstacles, but I wear their scars in the knowledge that who I am now is stronger in understanding my limits and desires, and able now to recognise my potential and capacity for expansion and creativity. 

A hollow shell implies a lack of substance; but this is to assume that our character and personality is not linked to the world around us. I am a shell, but that shell has taken all the knocks (and glories), and wears them in my stance, my voice, my thoughts and my actions. 

What is 'inside' resides upon the surface, but to assume it lacks texture or subtlety is to assume we never change. If this is so we write ourselves as victims in our stories, helpless in the face of events, unable to accept disappointment or comfort. Rather we stand and face what confronts us, sometimes buckling, other times leaping, but always responding.

My shell is chipped and cracked, but it is me, and it protects me still. 

Hogarth's finest.

I write these posts generally on the way to work, then reflect on them over the course of the day before the final write up. I realise my ability to screw up even simply spelt words  would seem to disprove any such reflection, but nonetheless this is the process. It does mean that at times I can find myself at a loss for a topic - not beng ready to indulge myself in political rants at this point - though by no means ruling it out for the future.

So I am left thinking of the scene in my local Tesco Extra as it occurred to me yesterday. Three figures cramped into a column, framed by the gaudy colours of sweets and crisps on one side - an especially lurid pink glinting from the pork scratchings; whilst from the other side came strip neon that lit the chilled drink cabinet along with the sandwich and snack selection. 

One figure faced me from the end of the row, having turned into the aisle, slowly and determinedly ready to complete his shopping. Carrying his basket, his gait compensating for the extra weight that hung from his side, his eyes glanced around seeking a route through the obstacles of other people. A second man stood in contemplation, his eyes scrunched as he peered into the cabinets, assessing the merits and failings of the various meal deals and foodstuffs; whilst the third figure, a tiny woman, fidgeted - debating the crisp arrangement. The three basked in drabness, with greys, browns and beiges broken only with the faded blue of denim, and the fleck of scuffed white trainers.

The whole scene seemed to jump out at me, a Hogarth made real in its deconstruction of the gluttony of everyday life. The aspects of concentration, the extreme grotesque of the bodies, formed into a composition that displayed their preoccupation with the consumer ease around them. This was a tableau of normalcy twisted into a knot, and lit with a corporate glow; both mocking and pitying its marionettes for their taste and their lot. 

I witnessed this, envisioning how to capture this play of character and situation, when my mind cruelly panned around, focusing the gaze accusingly on the viewer, who stood, basket in hand, chocolate and cakes within, gawping at shoppers in a Tesco Extra.

At which point I coughed awkwardly, and stepped forward to pay.