Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Routine, Lists and Nothingness ...

Well, I've cheered up since my last post!
My life is just in a state of flux at the moment, for one reason and another, but I have to say that the return of the school drop-off and school pick-up has felt incredibly beneficial to an up-tight Summer sufferer.
I've started running again, I'm doing a bit of boring work again...I have routine again!
Routine, for me, is the essence of accomplishment, and as long as I have a ridiculous, fat marker- pen list, blue tacked to a wall in front of me, I can accomplish!
Now, this list sometimes even features:
05.30. Wake Up
People are often shocked at this (possibly by the time) but usually by the fact that 'Wake up' is part of my list...
Well, if I am only able to cross one thing off a day, it makes me feel better than if I'd crossed off nothing at all...lists should be achievable, in my book (and my fat marker pen).
Actually, I have other sorts of list too, which are much more serious and ambitious, and slightly unachievable, but they are my 'long term' lists and, crikey, when I cross something off there, it feels SO good!
Over the last week or so, I've also been tidying and sorting (and yes, I managed to cross off 'sort piles of papers at the end of the bed' well and truly off!)...so my mind has become a little freer, which I'm sure has helped spark an idea for painting, which I wont write much about just yet, as it's still in a sort of infancy...
Last week I had to speak about synaesthesia at the British Science Festival in Guildford:
I played Judy Garland singing 'Over The Rainbow' (a '50's recording), and Elvis singing 'In The Ghetto' whilst the audience looked at my two paintings of the sound of the two singers' voices. I also handed 'round oranges, Maltesers and English Mustard for people to taste whilst they were looking at my paintings of those tastes...
(If you're a bit bewildered, you can visit my website)
Anyway, I'd done some of the paintings a while ago, and this talk I had to do, forced me to think again about sound, and how I paint it.
After doing a lot of voice portraits, I felt that I'd lost any 'feeling' for it; I felt my paintings had slipped simply into artistic notation.
So that's why I've been concentrating on painting things which I feel something strongly about inside: (the fear of the underneath of boats, shipwrecks, and of course telephone boxes)...and then last week, my feeling for sound and paint came back!
...and I'll hopefully keep you posted about that in the near future...
But just for now, I'm enjoying a bit of nothingness: Nothing amazing, nothing absolutely gorgeous, nothing particularly anything really...I'm just waiting...
amongst some of my sweet nothingnesses...


...all rooted by me!

It's a wonderful feeling to paint or create something you have a real passion and feeling for, even if it involves an element of nothing!

5 comments:

  1. theres nothing about nothing there, thats a whole lot of somethings! i've just spent the last 45 minutes looking through your amazing website
    I love your work and that whole notion of synesthesia, I particularly love your alan titchmarsh and julie burchill....brilliant!
    sounds like your at the really good part of the creativity process, i'm hoping to get there soon ,in the meantime, i've loads of those horrible things to cross off my list before i get there....your post gives me hope it' won't be long before i can embrace that lovely nothingness too.

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  2. Lots of wonderful creativity there. I'm going to start putting getting up on my lists too, for even more of a sense of accomplishment in daily life :)

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  3. Hey there - I left you an award at my blog. Actually, two. :)

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  4. I like your latest creation with the phone box!
    Are you busy painting at the moment?
    Yes I too was shocked to read that you wake up at 5.30 am, a whole 2.5 hours before I do!!! Think about all the things that I could get done if I got up as early as that. The trouble with me is that I go to bed too late to cope with early starts.
    Hope lfe is treating you well
    Take care
    Isabelle x

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  5. 5.30 is early! i wake up at 6 and feel knackered all day... i used to get up and meditate then, might start that again actually as it's harder later in the day and i like it to be daily... love your plants and the phone box painting.

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