Filling the void

[WEDNESDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2009]
I am filling the void, replacing outward-going paintings with onward-going ones. Two weeks of feeling listless and lost in a painter’s void, and I’m clawing my way out, werking on “three and eight”.


I pay some more attention to the sinister crow, bringing its red neon perch to shimmering life.


I keep looking at the clock. I can’t kid myself. Even though the void is being gradually filled, my heart is not completely in it. Maybe it’s because I’m a little out of sorts, maybe it’s just one of those days. I have grand ideas for new paintings, but I really must finish the unfinished first – clear the decks of at least 2 of these canvases that I have lingered for far too long.

An inventory of werks cluttering the loft:
1. Home Sweet Home – neon in green and orange-red
2. Three and Eight – neon in deep red and green
3. Something Sinister This Way Comes – crow perched on deep red neon
4. Ssshh – white neon on black
5. Wish You Were Here – large format seascape with red neon.
6. Ne Travaillez Jamais – neon of indeterminate colour on dilapidated wall.
7. The Path of Least Resistance 4 (white) – barely started white neon on small canvas
8. Untitled (blue neon electrical currents) – small canvas

I am determined to finish 1 and 2 as a matter of priority. 3 and 4, I werk on as the whim takes me; 5 is my next big project; 6, a long-forgotten werk, awaiting a spark of inspiration; 7 and 8, their day may or may not come.

I stopped looking at the clock. I stopped thinking about what I could be doing. I cleaned up my brushes. I squeezed out some Lemon Yellow and Emerald Green and I werked away at the three green neon strips of ‘Three and Eight’, then I went back over the eight red strips, blurring the edges of the bright white centres. I think I may take it inside tonight and hang it for a silent, intermittent critique. One thing I can’t decide is whether it actually looks better upside down. This only occurred to me as I werked on it the wrong way up, earlier today.



One thing I do know is that it is 5.40pm, which, in theory, means that any extra werk I do from now on is a bonus. ‘Three and Eight’ is upside down and on the wall. I have some of the yellow-green mix left to use on ‘Home Sweet Home’…


And relax. A sip of apple schnapps. Clean up the brushes. Exit via ladder.