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Painting
in the woods
I
reckon most of these were painted in the afternoon. I didn't plan it
that way, it is just how it happens because of my schedule and
because it is somehow easier to go painting after lunch.
It`s
not a long drive- up the motorway then curving swiftly inland and down that a winding unpaved road from Vargem Grande to Rio Vermelho.
It takes just over half an hour, but it`s long enough to satisfy
that need for a sense of transition between one place and other
which is both a need for a ritual and also a process that allows
me to arrive in a different state of mind before working. The journey is a transition to my work. The ritual is a way of possessing
the work and the place, slowly pulling thoughts together. While I'm driving my mood often changes from annoyance or despair to a
more constructive emotion.
But
I rarely leave the location much happier except for the feeling that
I have at least tried, because so much of the work misses the mark.
But that's the game, to fail and continue. The process of mixing
colours is very enjoyable and a compensation for failure. I try to
experiment with one thing or another each session- a new colour mixture or format or place or composition. That way even if the work
is a failure at least I have learnt something.
I
usually work in or at the edges of an area of planted pines which are
close into the forest entry. The spacing of the trees is fairly
regular and this contributes to the calm. The orderliness of the
space is very gratifying as are the limited colours -russets,
pinks and emerald greens. The slender trunks rise beautifully and
they are not so closely packed to be indistinguishable. Their spacing varies here and there as does their maturity. Here and there a tree has fallen, as if to make some declaration.
Excessive order is not gratifying, but sterile. In these woods there are also undulations of the land, occasional clearings and paths. But it is
peaceful indeed especially in contrast to the natural forest which is
much more anarchic and jungly.
Nobody
bothers me much when I am working, which is a real plus, though there
are some idiots who drive motorbikes through the woods to get to the
sea that lies on the other side. There are also people who talk very
loudly and their voices echo unpleasantly. And there are dogs which
bark and this is not nice at all. I want to immerse myself in the woods, like a character in Hamsun. I need to be alone to follow my thoughts.
Basically this is as happy as I get in life. To paraphrase Matthew Parris (as I can't remember the original quote or where to find it) a positive aspect of aging, and a compensation for the loss of energy or the sense of failure that any imaginative or normally ambitious person is likely to feel, is that one knows oneself and the world better and thus knows what works for one and what doesn't. Of course, that might lead to a lifeless conservatism in taste or action and one should indeed challenge oneself occasionally. But even in such forays into the new one departs from a point more secure than in one does in youth and the experience is more likely to be received positively.
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