Awake at 5.00, though i suppose technically it's 6.00!
Text. Liquitex on canvas, last week. I invented a code to write in in the 1980s. It was a sort of Leonardo da Vinci vanity, I guess, but did enable me to write things I was not happy about saying too publicly. But from a purely formalist point of view the look of the scripts I made then were quite satisfying. The lack of 'translation' was part and parcel of that mode of working. Not quite the Surrealists' automatic writing, but a nod in their general direction.
Already today I have joined a collectors selling website, though postcard prices seem far to inflated; and popped a postcard onto my Facebook page and an image on to 'Van Gogh Inspires.' It still feels pretty pointless doing any of this, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Next week no school, so I want to tidy the room I'm typing in at the moment and finish 'The Cottenham Nude.' Living here has felt a bit like being in prison, and can't wait till Lockdown is over. I can't understand how Tesco's can sell books though bookshops are deemed non-essential? I know the world is stuffed with contradictions, but sometimes they seem worse than arbitrary: literally deliberate, conspiracy-theory worthy, guarantees that the earth and its dominant species are doomed to whimper out of existence. That the international community may not impose sanctions on Myanmar is an utter outrage, but the politicos worldwide appear to be there only by the qualification that they are unseeing fools and unable to help even their constituent voters.
I can see one magpie in the trees outside. I have asked him where his wife is, so hope it'll all be well today. I am joking to a degree, but superstition seems as likely a psychopomp as any other framework. I have been looking back at my life of late and doing that useless thing of asking 'What if...?' But I really should be further forward than I am now. But there again, had I done a PGCE immediately after the Courtauld and then entered private education, would I be any happier or more established as an artist by now or not? If I had managed to complete the novel for Random House might I now be locked into the need to write rather than paint? Had I been more responsive to B, might I now not be happily pair-bonded and content with my lot? Who knows?
2 magpies now. Does that count?