Grandeloquence.

So new year, and I'm up early - helping my wife to go back to work, but also to get a painting I started yesterday into shape.

January is a weird month - full of resolutions made and forgotten, of good intentions that get lost in the fog of the everyday, and mainly full of pronouncement that are noble, grand and by and large empty. So here I go - don't hold me to this though. 

Morning light is uplifting - hinting at spring with the clearness of the blue, picking out any green in the verges and mostly blowing out the fug of the indoors wherein we hibernate for the holidays; so instead of going back to bed I attacked the painting I'd forced myself to start yesterday (as a way of ensuring I got myself back in a routine). 

I'd managed to sketch it out, and I was hopeful until I began the blocking in of the colour. Slowly the sketch was transformed to vague blotches of colour and my spirits sunk - this one is not going to work. I kept going, improving the mess with the build up of more complex colouring, but still falling short of what I'd envisioned. 

With my frustration growing - and this travelling to my hand, I took time off from the piece and put my head in a book, watched some TV, and stopped Looking for a bit. Then I glanced back and got a wake up call - what I saw didn't please me, but it had some potential - the composition seemed to work. 

That potential got and kept me out of bed - now I wanted to see the painting through, to tame it and find the image in my head. It's not complete yet - still scruffy in line and simplistic in the depth of colour; but by the end of the session - blending, filling and starting to pick out the final lines, I now get a sense of the energy and calamity that I want to capture - as well as the a absurdity and chaos of the world that is the core of my world view!

Maybe it's the work, maybe it's the light, but the result is I feel nourished for the new year (Just as well cos' my trousers were tight this morning, which suggests I have to go easy on the food and drink for a bit - holiday weight and all that.) The upshot is I feel inspired - this is the time to get those ideas out of my head, and out into the world.

Breakfast art.

I'm making a bacon butty. The bread has been cut thick, and the butter spread over generously. The frying pan is heating - there is a dash of olive oil on the base because I'm weak. I sprinkle in some pepper - just to gauge the heat of the oil, and it fizzes so I lay the bacon in slowly. It's smoked streaky bacon.

I turn the heat down low - I want the fat to render out and char the rashers a little so that the bacon is browned and there are crispy bits on the pan floor. 

As the fat and juices are released the pop and sizzle of good bacon can be heard, the smell begins to waft through the kitchen. At a low heat the bacon undergoes it's transformation gradually. Firstly the pink of the flesh warms through the strips - almost imperceptibly replacing the redder rawness. The release of the juice and fat shrinks the meat, but at this heat there is no writhing and wriggling in the pan, rather the strips relax in the manor of those in a sauna. 

Then as the heat builds in the pan the streaks of fat begins to marble, sweating then popping as they spit white along the length of the bacon. Staccato movements jump the rashers, the quick strokes of an unseen paintbrush in the throws of an action art frenzy. I flip them over to ensure both sides are browned and the edges gain crunch. Again the ninja ghost artist slashes along the fat turning translucence to white, then to a glossy wood brown as the fat catches just enough. 

With the bacon just so I transfer it to the bread, watching the butter melt where it touches and seeps into the surface - creating more joyful contrasts of texture. I scrape over some crispy specks (and much to my wife's disgust a little of the cooking oil), dollop on some tomato sauce and smear it across, place on the lid and bite.

It's a bacon butty. So why the fuss? Well two things really. The first - to me a good bacon sandwich - a true butty, is close to the apex of culinary achievement. The second is more to do with the moment when I realised the aesthetics in the process of cooking (not just the final product), and I realised the involvement I had in the act of making - and the joy in that process.

You could argue that it was the science of the procedure - the chemistry of the changing of states that fascinated, which is true an extent. Though I would have to say the transition of form and blend of colour was what stopped me during breakfast and made me smile.

Hog the dismay

The year is ebbing away. The last memories and moments experiencing a brief revival before being placed into storage - sprouting feathers from nowhere and exploding colours in strange combinations that should never normally be combined.

I am supposed to have a surge of feeling, maybe a new burst of optimism, or else a great feeling of loss. The truth is that at new year I tend to feel I am missing something - a great party had by other people in a glamorous or bohemian setting, where plans are made that will challenge the future. 

It doesn't help that I have a spiritual affection for New Year - the idea of rebirth, a second chance, of forgiveness or re-forging a life, appeal to the humanitarian (and maybe the utopian) in me. There should be celebration at the year's end, there should be gathering and enjoyment of people wider than just family, there should be a time to consider, to take stock and to resume with renewed energy. Yet I never feel I rise to meet the occasion. 

I suspect this sense has its foundations in a new year where I experienced the joy of being a child at an adults party; and better the great sense of ebullience that comes from breathing in the adult fumes at the party. This experience left me with a reminiscence of great hope and euphoria, and somehow all subsequent New Years haven't quite measured up. 

A great part of this problem is the need to plan the evening so carefully: I am unable to relax knowing that transport will run out, or that drinks need to be bought five at a time and that there is no guarantee that where you stood is where you will stay. For a time where talking, memories and shared experiences are so vital, the inability to communicate with anyone  does my nut. Yet a bottle of fizz in the house doesn't quite seem to mark the moment. So how do I deal with this dilemma? Well I guess finding some perspective is useful - after all it's not the end of the world.

It could be though! What if it all ended tomorrow? Would I have done enough, how would I feel?... Melodramatic true, but I can't help feeling the millennium bug gave a purpose to the whole thing, and that Prince got it right. Otherwise, well - y'know, it's just another night. 

Bubble and squeak.

There are times when I find myself mulling the future over in my mind. The term mulling suggests the combination of subtle spices and citrus, careful lacing with fiery spirit and the infusing of flavours with warming wine - and thus a careful cogitation that balances pros and cons, the different properties of a situation complementing to form a harmonious whole.

In my case however, mulling invariably take the form of an avalanche of thought; single conjectures are coated with hypotheticals and wrapped within what ifs and worst case scenarios. As the possibilities quickly multiply the speed and size of thoughts grow and gather specks of previous mullings - residue of mental explorations that have stuck to the bottom of the pan as the heat has become too much, but now, dried out, the burnt scabs work their ways into a new speculation.

This then is my bubble and squeak approach to paranoia - put all my anxieties, failings and worries into a pan over a high heat and leave until, flavoured with a gravy of guilt and a splash of frustration sauce, a crust forms where all the negativity as congealed. The irony is, as with the dish, that this crust is where the flavour lies - at the intersection of the fat, the heat and the mix of ingredients. So with me the interest lies in my capacity to extend on imagination, to take a strand and allow myself the capacity to tease out the potential in an image, a situation or even the philosophy of left overs.

The fact is though each ingredient of bubble and squeak has undergone many processes in themselves:- the potatoes boiled, shaken and crisped in goose fat then flavoured with rosemary and garlic; parsnips coated in honey and chilli jam and specked with cranberries; sprouts shredded, fried with bacon and roasted chestnuts; and the turkey brined, basted and scented with satsumas, lemons and herbs. Each element is specific to itself and to combine them makes for a dish that can be enjoyed really only once a year because of the opportunity and the richness of the dish.

In putting all my thoughts together I merely increase the intensity of preoccupation. I lose  context. I forget the now - both it's opportunities and its enjoyment. This is why I stop to note the process, to see myself in the situation I have made for myself and not just the situation I find myself in - for though I may be culpable I am also the cartographer of my way forward.

Now, what shall we call this valley - with all its danger and beauty?

Animated moments.

The radio tunes in. Brass blasts out the fanfare of the Christmas overture and at once I find the journey animated - like my very own Fantasia, or Snowman.

Warm winter sun creeps across the landscape as we twist and turn with the entrance and exit of familiar tunes that blend into a coherent whole. The sun catches the bark, casting a silver sheen on the trees stretching out in silhouette against the frosty brightness - touched with a pale apricot. Then, as a minor feel creeps in, we enter the wild woods, with the peering and the scurrying of little creatures tasked with keeping watch over us humans - caught between fascination and apprehension. Mulching leaves and brittle twigs rustle as the bassoon scuffs through the forest debris.

A corner turns onto the straight and the tempo increases. On the horizon windmills - so divisive amongst society, seem to begin an elaborate dance; bowing to each other before taking hold and jigging to the folk rhythms - while just missing the others' foot.

With each twist and turn we find the perspective takes us in and over the landscape; this is where the world explores its different characteristics - one moment stand offish, the next looming close to the car, before ducking down and lying in wait for the next surprise. Bridges seem to wink as they pass over, trees bunch and part like staves on a score.

From chopping and changing woods to fields languidly reclining out to the horizon - this after all is their season of rest and rejuvenation. The countryside opens up while the music gathers apace then slows, with trees thinning and giving way to the wisps of grasses left on the verge waving in the breeze as the coda dwindles before returning in a blazing sunshine for a final flourish.

Then the music is finished and the world around resumes its normal pace. At first I am lost for a moment, but then I am happy to have seen the world in this flicker of unity and strangeness. I am touched and amused and intensely grateful. Merry Xmas!

Dizzy.

I've been on a travel whirlwind over the last few days. Planes, trains, tubes and buses that have taken me all around the country. I've been recorded, read plays, visited galleries, eaten and drunk. I've seen uptown, downtown, revamped and recycled. Now I'm on my last leg and I'm kinda dizzy.

I miss painting - something tomorrow should sort out, and I've seen some inspiring art that urges me to get my shit together. Charcoal drawings of landscapes that worked with light and depth so that you felt drawn into the scene, and also a sense of the activity within. Even with something that should be static - like a broken branch, you felt the presence of the wind, and the life teeming in the hedgerows. The light was chiaroscuro, giving a noir feel to the country scenes and hinting at a darkness in the beauty.

I love the idea of the life within the life. I'm sitting at an airport, my plane is delayed - possibly cancelled. People around are pretty phlegmatic - you'd expect more angst, but the weather outside is pretty awful, and I guess you'd rather wait than be stuck up in a plane in it.

An airport is supposed to be soulless - you know: mass capitalism, corporate, everything homogenised and running to routine; but there are little moments here. The bar woman who worries about whether we'll get back okay, the waitress moaning about who gets Christmas Eve off this year, and about how lazy another waitress is (incidentally the waitress does seem to be standing around drinking through a straw - yet it is she who is there for the bill. Lazy or blessed with exquisite timing?), and the departure crew who can't believe they've only left two bus drivers on for the last plane (mine). All these moments capture the life beneath the veneer; the moments of concern, frustration and excitement that carry on.

And then there's me; this delay has given me the chance to read - properly read, and get into the book, without worrying about the other things I should or need to do. I love reading, but I'm greedy and see it as an indulgence. This is bizarre as I have for many years studied literature - but when I study the depth I seek for is more akin to mining. When I indulge, however, I like to lose myself almost completely and selfishly in the world - so much so that I have a mini tantrum (in my mind obviously) if I have to stop to, y'know, work, or wash-up (Oh! The dishwashers fixed now, so you can all relax), or sleep. The chance to read and see art and people leaves me refreshed, like my mind has the compost to grow again.

Flying home I get a window seat. I look out into the darkness and there I see the urban sprawl. Yet in this light I see a school of jellyfish, their luminescence rippling along from their bodies through tentacles that wrap around each other. For a minute the nature of the urban is plucked from its own depths and revealed. Then there is some turbulence and I return furiously to my book. This is the life within the life.

Farringdon.

I'm weird in many ways, but in one way especially - I like the London Underground. I like the way it connects the city, I like the speed, I like the sense of movement and I like the design of the logo and the map. I even think the Oyster cards and turnstiles have a sense to them.

Yes it's crowded at times and probably too expensive. But it's pretty comprehensive and has its own world of geography that creates an alternate dimension of the London you might know above ground.

Specifically Farringdon is a tube station that has always appealed to me. The mix of Victorian brick and iron work with the metallic intervention of modern stairways and exposed wire tubing, towered over by modernist constructions provokes possibilities. Amongst the determined urbanisation there sprout rebellions of nature alongside the tracks and station - down where electricity keeps society at bay. There is a sense of the buildings as scabs - stitching over a rawness in the fabric of the city's history.

It helps that I know the place of this station in the history of the underground, that I can imagine the great smog of the steam (dream) engines that were first to operate on these tracks, that I can see the tunnels dug out of the earth before being covered over. To me this station is the birth place of an idea; its appearance is both dishevelled and creative - a place where anything can happen or could be attempted. Here some Victorian said: "Egad! Why mayn't we put the railways in the sub terrain?!" Okay, so they were a group of people that liked trains, feared table legs, revelled in the industrial revolution, believed the poor should be shoved into workhouses, and gave us our modern Christmas; mostly, however, the Victorians had some crazy ideas and ambitions and set us up for steam punk.

It also helps that this is the station I used to get off for Fabric: a club deep in the ground, cavernous and sprawling (at least in my drunken and taurineated memory), crisscrossed with horizontal brickwork and vertical iron - industrial tech punk in vibe, a home of drum and bass and grimy techno. Along with this beautiful brickwork, arches and walls of exquisite construction, I also see laser beams dissecting a room, slicing through a darkened crowd - for a nano-second separating your limbs from your consciousness.  Here are the frames of old shops and markets, now re-imagined as bars and bistros - a process that conflicts me, though my inner aesthete is at least happy to see the structures survive and with them the echoes of their histories.

This is urban Darwinism - the twisted evolution of the city and a symbol of our own survival in new and unexpected ways.

Ego.

Why art? Why the need to express yourself - myself? I ask because at some point you get beyond the stage of technique and start to consider what you have to say, and more importantly whether other people want to hear it?

Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of how much I need to paint, to write, and to make my voice heard. After all this isn't all about You, you know. There comes a moment however when you want to communicate to other people as well as vent yourself; and with it comes the awful thought that maybe what you have to say is more interesting in your mind than to others.

Art, of any form, is complex in this way: it tears us between the desire to express - thoughts or feelings, and to shape - to mould and control the communication and impact of that expression. Of course this is a futile attempt, as it is the reception of the art by the viewer, the listener or even critic that determines the value of the content, and even how it works for them. Yet the artist cannot work like that, they must have a desire to speak, to show, to illuminate something; and with that desire comes the hope they will be seen, heard and (gasps) even appreciated.

This has long been my fear, long been the reason I haven't fully engaged with painting for too long. I have been certain (ish) of my ability, but fearful of my relevance - especially given the medium I work in. That is why the painting must be for me - though that is not to say I don't want others to like it.

My work drifts from lyricism to absurdity in its subject matter, from dramatic landscape through imaginary narratives to moments of farcical absurdity and whimsy; all of which I'd say sums me up pretty well. Yet these are themes for the wider world - and should I care? I can see how absurdity captures much of my feelings about the world around and the landscapes my heightening my sense of the everyday; so I guess that the narratives contain more of my subconscious - my hopes and fears. But then, that is not really for me to decide.

I guess I want to understand myself and others more - and the art is a good prompt for that conversation. What do people respond to, in what ways and why?

A new day.

There is the residue of mist coating the trees and pylons today. The sun glows over a world made brittle by the light. This is what sleep takes from me, this is why I need to see the day.

Greeting the morning has let me sketch out an idea that has been evolving, giving me the chance to review it before painting for real; and now there is the world with its translucent cloak, and a sky that's shine is brought into focus by a tinge of argument in the cloud. The world has become deeper, more nuanced with colour and texture, escaping the petty single minded drive of the working day.

This is a world of great loss and great hope, but mostly this is a world that teems with life. I look around the carriage and see an engrossed crossword do-er - exercising his mind though his body is becoming more frail; a young couple heading to town - for them the day is still fresh and exciting; an old woman whose face displays a distaste for those around her and warns of her displeasure; commuters engrossed in their own worlds of phone, text, music and in some cases themselves. Some stand resolute, some slump into their seats, others glance to say look at me, whilst others say don't stare. Many lives, many days; time sometimes has a battle to keep up.

Today is a flash of inspiration: a teaming high street wrapped against the cold and laid bare to the elements; a quick sketch of people; an impromptu job application; a confused couple on the radio and a momentous day in history that also has politics reduced to absurdity with a selfie. 

With life so busy how can I remain stuck in bed? In short I can't, so... let's go shopping.

Jingle bells, and all that sort of thing.

Kick up the arse.

Really!? I really can't get out of bed to do basic tasks? I lie there waiting till the last possible minute then run around doing a half arsed job, then find I'm late so I'll miss out on coffee. Arrrrgh! For God's sake!

In case you're uncertain this will be less of a blog than a mental kick up the arse - or better a mental slap around the face with a wet fish. Today is it!

Okay - so it's dark, okay - so the bed is comfy, and okay so the cat curled up in my armpit - which is dead cute and it seems a shame to wake her; but that's enough, the indulgence is over. There are things to do, places to be and things to see. So tomorrow I'm getting out of bed, I'll do this, do that, paint or sketch AND still function normally.

Tomorrow will be simple: up - sort kitchen and living room, awake - sketch for new paintings, out - get presents before work, then work. It's easy... surely? I mean, I have a plan.

I just need to get myself started, once I begin to procrastinate it is an unavoidable slide to inactivity, which actually doesn't appeal - no matter what evil thoughts drift across my eyelids before waking (normally clouds of cotton wool encompassing and suspending me in mid air). So no more allowances, no more excuses - this must be done.

I guess it's all about resilience, the capacity to bounce back, no matter how weary you feel. It's strange though, because I genuinely feel I've done some of my best work recently, so all I can assume is that part of it is fear and part of it is complacency. There is also the natural rhythm of the year which calls to my inner squirrel, and behoves me to gather and store nuts... to nibble on... there's no way I get out of this sentence with dignity, so lets move on.

This is about getting a grip, about having the confidence to generate your own motivation, about having the belief that you have the right to force yourself - to give yourself a kick. In other words the courage to walk along the path you have chosen without fear and without regret. I'm not sure I'll manage such surety, but I need to take the first step.

So maybe I'll follow my own star this season - though I suspect mine is neon, and flickers as the battery falters. But if you give it a knock it glows brightly again.