It’s the start of the day and I need to get some things down in writing I think. It’s been quite a week. Monday was painting and getting ready for Tuesday and meeting the mentors. Tuesday was doing the talk, the lunch afterwards, then walk and mentor session with Zac then dinner and the pub after! Wednesday was a 10 mile hike from Hayle (MOT place) back to St Ives, Peter Lanyon drawing research in the library then some painting before another mentoring conversation with Zac over tea in the inner harbour. Thursday was bus to Hayle and quick drive to Godrevy Point (the headland on the other side of St Ives Bay to St Ives), then did a little board painting in the afternoon, followed by very high tide at Porthmeor Beach, drawing that from memory, and a drink with Leon in the evening. Now it’s Friday, I had a very sleeping morning, being silly with Leon, incredible yoga and sleeping until 9am. Now it’s the early afternoon and I have the studio ahead of me!
I feel like I have some things to iron out in my head before I can do more painting. I have lots of ideas floating around but not much momentum to do any of them. Why? Because I can’t make up my mind on what to do. Let me brain dump below:
I’ve got a big 125 x 160cm canvas primed in the studio. I have a feel to go big, do a big diorama. I feel I need to practise more on a smaller scale first. This is because I want to overlay my lived experience onto a diorama painting. Can I really prepare for that? I am also not decided on which site to paint. I feel like I need to go and seek a new site, rather than re-doing an old one.
What about a diorama of Men Scryfa, a 6 ft high granite pillar that was standing erect on a hike Leon and I did. Compositionally it would be the opposite of the complicated cliff edge painting I just finished. I feel like I’m in my head and should just do it. Really though, I think I should go on another walk. Sunday and Monday are good weather days. Then! So before then what should I do? There’s also the big waves I saw yesterday on Porthmeor beach, I could do a diorama of that and try overlaying lived experience on top / underneath? I think what I really want to do today is be walking.
One thing to bear in mind – the countryside around Manchester has plenty of ancient sites! It’s not just in St Ives that I can paint stone circles etc. Perhaps I’m not going to be as confined to the city as I first thought. I can always get in my car and leave!!!
I think painting Zennor Quoit big would be amazing.
I am overthinking. I just don’t feel very inspired today. I want to absorb rather than create, that’s the instinct today. Can I foster that energy or do I need to let myself be led by my energies?
The other thing to do is the unpack my notes with Zac – look at the artists he reccomended and write up notes from my sketchbook and phone on here.
I think I need to drop that there is a right thing to do. Zac said it: if I am feeling like painting big, do that. That’s all there is to it. What am I feeling drawn to right now? More ink drawings!
Looking at Rauschenberg’s paintings I realise one doesn’t need to make ‘a work of art’, one just needs to respond to something by making. It’s not about creating the object it’s about reacting to something/someone/an event/circumstance etc.
I’m worried I’ve made my best work I’m going to make here already. Let myself feel!
Georgina Harris 