Exposed (No, not like that!).

I'm excited today. I've just hung my paintings in a new space - not a gallery, but a hairdressers whose building could easily work  as a gallery space, and who, very generously, said I could put them up. It's Skullduggeri in Newcastle - feel free to pop by, get amazing hair and stunning beauty treatments, oh and check out the art, it's really good.

Why the excitement - well this is the first true test of the pictures as Art outside of my house. They can take on a life of their own and start to stand on their own two feet now. I get to find out what others think about them, which ones work and which don't, and you know, there's always the chance someone may want one? Already putting them in a new surrounding has brought out different paintings in different ways. Especially my earlier paintings that I tend to think of as perhaps less successful - because I have been around them for longer, and you always look to what is next; these seem to reassert themselves in a more public space - I think because the colours are more vibrant. I am pleased though, because it gives a new energy to what I was beginning to think of as failures. 

And here we have it. As soon as I write that word 'excited', I know that My next heartbeat is of anxiety, or worry about the potential of failure; that in exposing my work, I am exposing who I am, my hopes and dreams and inviting others to comment, to mock, to ridicule. Of course I am now big enough and ugly enough to weather this threat, and know already that the work has been appreciated by those who have seen it, and I know that success does not come without risk, and smaller failures. Deep down though I know I want this to work, I want these to be paintings that people like, and want to be proved good, not just arrogant.

But to live is to risk, right? And maybe Marvell had a point about "Time's winged chariot hurrying near" - we are always under the pressure of a single life, and the need to make the most of the time that we have. Even though Marvell was using his phrase as an exceptionally eloquent piece of guilting someone into bed his solution is still apt: "though we cannot make our sun/Stand still, yet we will make him run". What time we have must be lived, must take our breath and strength, and joy.

Did that letterbox just wink?

The latest painting has turned cranes into dinosaurs. The other night I'm sure the moon looked down in dismay at the world. And now the locked compartment under the chair in front of me has just winked.

So I'm beginning to worry about my tendency to anthropomorphise, well everything. I mean obviously houses have faces, and cars, and trees... and washing up; but surely it's not good to give all these things an opinion or viewpoint, or worse - a conscience. After all I don't need feedback from a plate wth stubborn stains from last nights Indian: I know it was an indulgence, that my choice was hardly original, that I can't be sure about the provenance of the food, and that I should lay off for a bit - I just need it clean. 

Seeing new imaginary possibilities is great at times, it can lead to a new story or diversion, and a new line of thought to pick at and unravel; but too much creates a cacophony of voices that butt into a happily ordered shoal of thoughts - and some just want to service those thoughts, others are huge sharks that scatter your equilibrium. This is the more so as I not only invite myself to see faces in the world around me, but I also like to find monsters - like the one in the doors to the side of me - where warning stickers have created perfect upward fangs. 

Clouds have traditionally been an excellent repository for these swirling possibilities of fantasy - something to do with the imaginary provocation of the sky, but I enjoy finding these unreal citizens in the works of the ordinary, as if hidden labour or covert spies upon a civilisation that doesn't quite understand the work it inhabits. 

I take som comfort from these faces that are hidden around me though,  a feeling of warmth that although we live in an increasingly survelliance driven society, these faces are mine to see, are mind to observe, and they will not pick up on hidden camera data, they will remain a part of the world that will remain idiosyncratic and mine.

Now all that is left for me to be able to sport these faces in the features of the futures.

In what with the in crowd?

I've never been cool. I've never felt like I'm one of the crowd - and I've always quite liked that. As a result I guess I'm never sure that because I like something, someone else will. I doubt my gut instinct, even when I know I have to shout about my work to others. I'm looking for the USP of my paintings, but the only thing that seems to link them is me. I like to distort the world and recreate it precisely; I like to roam in imaginary worlds, and I have a childish sense of humour; I'm a snob and a rebel and I like the highbrow and absurd. I figure this is tricky to sell. My biography is busy, but resolutely middle class, and I'm at my best when... well I'm not sure - though I think I may have a glass in my hand.

If anything my paintings are trying to work me out, and work out the world around me - sometimes explicitly but I fear, with me, much of the reveal is in the sub-text - what I hide beneath the action in the background, or in what I haven't painted. So telling someone why they need my work - why they want it, is a problem: because it complements a sofa, or reminds them of a childhood holiday, or stirs a memory, all of these are in the eye of the cash-holder.

So I look at my paintings and try to work out who will like which one, which painting will fulfil this or that brief - decoration, focal point, relaxation for the eye, or big noise on the wall? And to an extent I can step back: I can say the lines are busier here, this is more traditional, these colours are less harsh, this is funny and so on. The truth though is that I have a connection to them all. Paintings I've just finished worry me because they haven't settled in my mind; those from a while ago that I was doubtful about turn around and surprise me with the freshness of being seen whole for the first time. 

I put my work into themes and categories, but these always seem to end up like a game of twister, with the left foot on red, my hand on blue and my face planted in the yellow

Bur despite my nagging doubts you know something? I do think they're good. I like them. 

Oh... Okay.

Paintings surprise me. I've just completed my latest, and although the idea was there for a while - I mean I lived the disaster and personal mortification, the way it finished, that was unexpected. 

The layers are blocked in okay? So today was about tightening up lines, solidifying coverage of the paint, adding tweaks to expressions, and shades to hues; then I'm looking at the canvas, and before I know it I've swirled the brush here... then here and then here, here, here and here. I stop, stunned and look.  I like it, so I add here, and here, and there. So now I understand what the painting needs, where it's going, so the palette is daubed and dabbed and scurried until I've added, tweaked and blitzed the original idea to produce the finished painting. It still has the structure of the sketch, but now the energy of the moment is back, is infecting the whole scene, and what I had in mind has gained something from the move from sketch to canvas - before was the cartoon, this is the finished article - assuming the cat doesn't knock it over today.

This element of chaos is important, it keeps ideas and designs alive, prevents you from becoming too complacent about an idea or a process. Recreating an idea is no longer simply about laboriously drawing a design onto the canvas, it is about finding a way for the paint to breath; to give the elements of pattern, expression, line, colour, pace and composition room to wriggle, to find their own equilibrium. When this happens the painting becomes unpredictable, but takes on a unity of determination to shout out and demand the viewer come into the world it has created. 

These are moment when preparation and skill and analysis are give something more, when paint becomes a painting, when a sketch lifts itself from the page. These are moments that you hope for, that you fear you won't find when you begin the project. The spontaneity comes from the detail, but it is the inspiration that makes you feel in what you do. 

Easy as falling over? I think not. 

Stateless...

The sky is in soft focus this morning, prarieland that sweeps away to the horizon. Mauves, purples, lilacs bend with the subtle kiss of white marking boundaries for the herds. I have not yet woken up, so my mind moves seamlessly from the beauty of morning light to half finished thoughts and imaginary happenings; the rhythm of the train escorting me from state to state as the stations arrive and depart. It is a morning of cotton wool and icy breeze.

Caught between states is a curious place - not able to act on the pressings of my mind, yet able to travel on a whim between times and places, memories and suppositions, and create a geography that is released from Newton's (or God's) tyranny of bobbing apples. Here everything is familiar, but everything is strange - a world I create but don't control. There is a sense of the unreal - akin to orientating yourself in a new place that you know well, a feeling of being a tourist - or an immigrant. Here the familiar human is juxtaposed with the difference of culture and landscape. 

A hillock passes, trees crown it, knotted into patterns that are gnarled and regal. The image is bathed in witchlight still, the twists and turns becoming crevices and gaps in the fabric of the universe. My surroundings break out of expectation in my mind. 

This post has been germinating for days, tapping into fragments of thought and idea that have been buzzing at the back of my mind. The buzzing became a swarm as I made the trip over to the Lake District and down the north west coast - observing mountains that flocked towards the valley floor and beaches that mirrored the sea and sky becoming a landscape of glass - giving me images that made sense of each fragment and gave pictures a sense of sequence and the rudiments of plot. 

This was strange for me. After all I love words, I love to write and create imagery and paradox and juxtaposition and all that. But I hate plot. I never see it in advance, or if I do I recognise it from the works of others - not a crime I know, but it makes me feel... uncomfortable. But now a plot begins to form, and one that lets the elements begin to breathe, where before I had to fight - pounding the chests to get some sense of a choke or cough, before acknowledging my wasted effort.  

Now my random pictures start to flow into the flickbook they are, and I begin to see where they are going.

A walk in the bark.

A walk on a beach on a Sunday morning. Light is low and bright, the wind blows behind - giving extra propulsion as we play tig with the tide. This is a happy, happy space - and I know this because this morning the beach is full of dog walkers, and the dogs are ecstatic. Tails wag incessantly, on every dog. And why not - there is space to run, to dig, to chase a ball, there are scents to make them dance; there is the company of other dogs stirring the memory of the great pack in which they used to roam, and there is the presence of their owners to insulate against the insecurity of loneliness as they rush off to chase, explore and to inhale.

The sense of joy that bounds along the sand is irresistible, and I find a stupid grin creeping across my face; I look over and it is there on my wife too. We laugh. It is a simple laugh that comes from sharing a moment with someone you love, that exalts in the joy of the moment: the dogs running in circles around owners bemused, amused and vaguely aware that normally they have to be seen to have control - but that is redundant here; the waves breaking and creeping to shore; the salt on the air, the wind at our backs and the ships on the horizon.

We make our way out onto the rocks, amid seaweed and rock pools, to find ourselves looking out by where the rocks meets the sea - at worlds that form, run their course and return to the great wash within hours.  Worlds that are invested in the shortness of their existence and seek to explore them completely while they can. The sea weeds have intertwined on the rock amongst the lichen and limpets and create a vegetation that is peculiarly amphibian in style, but not less beautiful and complex for all that. I draw quickly, while she walks in circles to keep warm. Then gingerly we pick our way back to sand, losing our way, but enjoying enjoying the sense of falling deeper into the day.

Then lifted by the clouds of unconditional joy that bark, yap and woof around us, we finish with weak tea, bacon rolls and the cotton wool of laughter.

Seagulls.

This past week has brought early mornings - very early. As a result I have found myself walking through a deserted world of impassive shop fronts below icy mists. The buildings in which these facades are set have had a chance to breathe, exercising the flourishes and crevices of yesteryear - Victorian temperance has rolled its eyes above the modern wine bar, whose hyperactive font now sits over the entrance like a gaudy plastic tiara.

In this world the main inhabitants are seagulls. Free to roam and strut as they wish, their behaviour and variety of expression has lead me to stop and sketch (I am naturally early, so I have time to stop pre coffee and draw). Slowly they have taken life - the elongated neck of the gull cry, calling out to others in hope or gloating; the hunched following gait of the spiv on the make as they seek for the deal that will make them rich - rich I tell you! Though it may not be entirely legit. Then the searching look of the scavenger who glances up to make sure you're not after the treasures they've found, followd by the patience of the innocent who just happens to be following your food - but it's mere coincidence I can assure you. 

The same form stretches and contorts in myriad ways - eyes narrow and widen, the neck protrudes swan like before disappearing like a mastiff. Wings raise in preparation for flight, flexing each feather to feel the buoyancy of air, then shrug and contract as the nearest souce of food, discarded on the ground, is spotted. One moment sneaky and a little menacing, the next keeping feet warm with a waddles river dance; the confident lone wolf, then huddled like pub goers who can tell you how it used to be better when.

Once seagulls stayed mainly on the shore, now - like foxes, they make their ways into our urban centres where, by foraging and scavenging, they can find more waste and food that is readliy available. This urban migration mirrors our own in more ways than we think - after all they're just out for an easier life, and in searching and finding it they find their behaviour changes, they adapt to survive. Now they have become streetwise, suspicious and quick to see the profit in a situation. I guess it shouldn't surprise me what I see in how they behave, after all, it's just what I see in the humans that wake a little later.

Coffee shop ballet.

So space is a tricky thing. I mean like the space that surrounds you. Your physical precence in relation to the world and objects that you live amongst. I've never felt particularly loved by space - I always seem to have the wrong shape for the one I inhabit - too wide for a seat, too tall for a room, too direct for a pavement, too single minded to walk in a group.

Okay, so much of this is in my head, but to me that is ever-present, and it is exacerbated by  attempts to nullify my impact on other people. This has been brought home over recent days by two events: the first  discomfort in a seat in the theatre brought on by an awareness that were I to sprawl - my customary position, I would invade the space of the others - who seemed really close. The result of this was that I shrank myself into the chair in an attempt to disappear. Don't worry (as I'm sure you were) - we moved seats so I was able to watch the performance with no physical anxiety (or peformance anxiety... sighs). This brings home to me a sense of the paranoia that I constantly have to fight against - I'm not saying I wouldn't have invaded their personal space, but to do so would have mortified me.

The other event is more recent involving a small coffee shop, a clumsy me, an espresso and a complex dance with a waitress trying to clear away plates that culminated in a moment of ballet which saw me trip, stagger, pirouette and spray the coffee over three tables and much of the floor whilst bouncing in a foot of space like a shot putter after the throw. This comic moment reminded me of how my mind likes to choreograph movement - through people and spaces, I find a delight in the near miss (or for the sake of my wife a near hit) and split second timing of movement. In this case there was no grace, but there was the still moment where the coffee balanced on the saucer and hesitated before imitating the action of a lemming and throwing itself wilfully to its doom. This is space as chaos - as chance, and embracing who we are without time to edit our lives. Absurd maybe, but not inhibited.

Naturally the only thing to do when space plots against you is to turn it into art - expect to see it soon. 

Cogitating.

A painting has struck. The idea has spread from the initial itch - a flicker of thought, to first lines in a sketch book, to a roughed out design on canvas. Now the idea cogitates in my head, mulling around colours and blends, pursuing lines to their logical and illogical ends - trying to identify where to make the first mark. I look, and try to layer the scene, mapping out sky, mid and foreground. Then there is the sun, and how the light plays tricks on clouds and objects - how it stretches out, and flirts away. I am anxious to paint the central characters - capture the detail and the fun of the scene, but if I rush too quickly into this I risk deforming or alienating them from the rest of the scene.

I'm trying not to over think this - after all going too far down this route will just see me keep putting the painting off, so that instead of an excited idea wagging it's tail up and down, it becomes a cold nose pressed into your face at dawn. I know too much consideration will simply kill the painting, yet I also know some thought about the approach will elevate the idea beyond whimsy, through technique, to a piece of art. Also, there's the simple fact that oils take a long time to dry - a long time; so if I start in the wrong place, and end up reworking and reworking it... well, suddenly this painting takes a lot longer. If this has to be, well so be it - but I'm not going out of my way to complicate things in advance. 

So in the mean time my head is working on the time in the painting and the hue of the sky, considering how to bring out key features and how I want to use contrast. I know the painting should have an air of realism, but I know that the point of the painting needs to break out of that and have fun with the viewer. I also know there are spaces I should leave vague, waiting  for the instinct of my hand and brush to take over when the time comes. 

This cogitation is fun of course, but the proof will be when I pick up that brush. Ah, well, here goes... 

Ripple light.

I love light on water. The ripple of the world that it creates - not so much a camera obscura as a wobble in the texture of reality. You look down at the image of the world around and see that it is held together so slightly, see how it can bend and waiver and distort in unthought-of ways: towers bend, bridges break and lights play with perspective like mischievous sprites. Spots become streaks, the secure is torn apart by a change in the current, the spiritual and the secular merge for a moment.

This is a world stripped of certainty. A world where rigid structures are collaged by movement into fragments of this and that, and new pathways and shortcuts are revealed. It is also a nether world, the world inverted, yet holding up a mirror to ourselves and what surrounds us - a mirror that forces is to look again and see what it was we thought we knew. 

If light on the water draws me in moth-like - holding me in fascination, it is because it revels in life's complexity, in the difficulty and hypocrisy of what we think we know. The water likes to show us cracks and distortions, to make is remember that what lies beneath the appearance is more nuanced, that architecture feeds upon itself, that all nature is interconnected, that thought and actions balance on the point of history, wobbling between nods to the past, and anxious glances into the future - that the point itself is planted in shifting ground where nature, geography and urban development all collide. Here we see the rift where class, gender, race and the individual experience all collapse upon each other. 

And this complexity is surely the point, for our attempts to understand need an openness to individuals and to the forces that create, sustain and destroy them. We are products of circumstances and the choices we make within them. This is an axis that requires more than knee jerk morality, or mob judgement; rather we need society to acknowledge situations, contexts and pressures so individuals can accept, adapt and when necessary atone.