Reflections on Clutter

Yesterday's class at Leith was to expand on the theme and take it further than just doing a competent painting.

I set up my still life and realise how much the reflection them was bringing up my lifelong curiosity about clutter and chaos.
Matt encouraged this approach and suggested two works for the day. One, a painting of what I had brought and the other was to be a drawing of all the bottles spilling out of the plastic bags.

 The drawing is in charcoal, A2, and started by being very carefully drawn until Matt came round to suggest that I draw blind, creating more rhythm and movement in the jumble.
I found it difficult because I was focused on the fact that it was all lines and circles. My need for structure got in the way.

More work to be done on this.

The painting changed from being a reasonable likeness of the objects to more of a muddle.
Again, the suggestion was that instead of arranging the objects, I should take in what was actually happing in the surrounding area. To create the difference between the objects and the chaos of what was really behind gave it more life and was more real.








Next week I have to talk to the class about what I am doing, where I have come from and why I am there, with a selection of my work.
I have given this a lot of thought and so far my them of reflections is going to include everything from puddles and shiny objects to myself.
I asked myself, " Why paint?" and came up with " Why not?" The next thought was that my reason changed from day to day according to what I felt like. Friday I go to Leith and so I paint without questioning why.
Then came the thought that I don't have the urge to express myself through paint because everything I do is expressing me. Emotions can come out through playing Beethoven, every mark I make on the canvas is from me alone and therefore says something about me. Everything around me is a reflections of how I see and hear my surroundings.
Krishnamurti says that we only know ourselves by relationship to others and what is reflected back to us and I can see this more and more. It is only me in my head and so impossible to be truly objective.

Perhaps the reason I paint is like keeping a diary? It is a record that I was here, what I saw, what I thought about. Ultimately of no interest to anyone but me.

My early drawings ( from aged 15/17years ) show that I was preoccupied with how things work and investigating everything from the insides of clocks to spaces between objects. That is still there.

What I am trying to do is get the essence of what I see and hear. The paintings that have worked all show this and it is about looking more and understanding more of what I see and feel.
The essence of muddle and clutter is a real challenge because I have noticed how much my early drawings and paintings have been very controlled.
Matt talks a lot about the need to keep a sketch book and constantly draw to explore. Blind drawing, less analytical and getting to know the subject from the inside is always being discussed.
I have realised that my sketch books are full of adequate drawings but not much is explored in depth.