It really is 3 months since I
started this project!
I can't
believe that I am already a quarter of the way through. It has been
exciting, rewarding, completely engrossing and amazingly difficult. I
have loved every minute so far.
The first few weeks' work were very hard to complete and made the
prospect of the whole year daunting to say the least. I had all sorts
of technical problems quite apart from the problems of creating the
work, and for a while the project seemed all but impossible. I'm glad
to
say that gradually I settled down to the task and began to deal with
the problems in a more rational manner.
The first and most important lesson that I have learnt is that with
each new week I have to immediately and completely forget the
things that have obsessed me for the previous 7 days. If the new week's work is to
stand a chance of success, I have to move on without a
backward glance. It doesn't matter any more if the previous work has
succeeded or not, it just is!
Before I started I gave myself some rules, as far as possible I was not
going to use much computer help with the music. There would be no
loops , drum machines or sequencers, I
was going to try to play everything myself! I have managed so far to
stick with this and it has helped and hindered me; helped in that it
forces me to think laterally and be a lot more creative, hindered
because
it makes some simple tasks much more difficult. It has been like
acrylic paint. The best thing about acrylic is that it dries so
quickly, the biggest problem with it is .........that it dries so
quickly!
I gave myself no rules with the visual artwork, but I soon realised
that I was expecting myself just to paint, and to paint just abstract
images. I carried on with this until week 11, when I suddenly found
myself making a relief sculpture.
I'm happy with this turn of events and feel that it has freed me up a
bit. I
have always loved this sort of art, I particularly like the work of Ben
Nicholson, Hans Arp and David Smith. I want to stick with abstract
images but hope that maybe other media
and techniques will seem right for future weeks'
work.
I have been aware right from the start of this project of the amazing
goodwill, support and encouragement that I have had from family,
friends and colleagues. It is wonderful and very much appreciated.
I had hoped that by now (3 months in), I would have developed "a
method", a way of going about my weekly endeavour. I am sorry to say
that I'm a long way from that happy state, I don't even have a starting
point. Each week it feels the same, I wonder where a new idea will come
from and if it will be any good. This seems to be the fun and
the
terror of it all.
You are listening to the music from week 3
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