Today I watched Jack weep, stirred by the memory of someone who had once believed in him—someone who gave him a break when he needed it most. There was eye contact and those brief, bracing hugs that men give when words aren’t quite enough. I’ve never had that kind of break, so I won’t pretend to share in Jack's tears.
A requiem hums softly in the background of my mind. Now and then, a melody breaks through, beautiful but fleeting. Midnight finds me staring at my desk, almost reaching for a pencil, half in the mood but lacking direction. Can you force it? Creativity, I mean. I'm down to one Christmas card this year. Hang in there, Linda. One peg on the line will do. Here it is, the musing if not the muse. “You’re creative,” she said, and something flickered to life inside me. Lately, life feels like a piano string with the damper pressed tight. Nothing rings out. I wandered into the forest of notation and hugged a few tree-shaped notes. They didn’t give much sap, but the instinct to try remains. “Sugar, Sugar” isn’t trembling with fear just yet. When the art dries up, write poetry. When the poetry withers, draw. When the sketches refuse to come alive, mess around with a DAW. Maybe there’s some harmonic, spectral, verbose formula waiting to reveal itself. It's happening, whether I acknowledge it or not. And so I try. And try. And try.
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an alligator
under a whale under a shark beneath a cloud toxic flowers under sparkling spray waters abound sticky tape pulls and tears ink hisses a little too loudly ah, some of these are quite damaged i don't come cheap even my seconds arrive first big prints little prints from canvas to cardboard ink that won't dry someone she admires you were part of my child hood when you made the smear on your beard you gambled you lost in the depth the clouds can rain directly on the crocodile on the crocodile grin I had started to feel a loathing for the tubes of paint lying around my studio. I want to use the colour I chose, not the one that's at the top of the pile! The problem is that paint is hard to manage if you have more than a few tubes. If you Google search for paint organisers for 200-ml oil paint tubes, you won't find many. There are some cool Etsy ones, but they appear to be only for small pots of acrylic paint. There were a couple of chipboard sheets lying around. One was far too thick, but I used it anyway! That was a costly mistake. I cut a length of pine into four sections to divide the sheets, and I pre-drilled the screw holes. There was a bit of planning involved. I had to make sure that the tube would go through the hole. It wouldn't crimp end first, but it went in nicely cap end first. The hole-drilling was a bit of an adventure. I realised too late that the teeth on the circular hole drilling thing had become quite worn through previous jobs. I borrowed my brother's drill for this. Because the teeth weren't sharp, there was a lot of friction and not much cutting. On the second thicker sheet, I noticed first that the drill was slowing down a bit, second that smoke was coming out of the drill itself, and third that sparks were flying out of it. I'm currently searching eBay for a replacement! So here you have two slide shows: one of the making and one of the finished job. I can paint some daubs above each tube as a guide to the colours. I'm quite pleased with it, but when all the paint is in place, the whole thing is very heavy. Maybe tomorrow I'll screw a couple of small sections of wood to the bottom to stop it from tipping over. Another nice thing is that the paint tubes seem happy when they are just pushed into three quarters. Some flattened ones need a bit of a squeeze. The cool thing is that I can make more and extend this. What do you guys do with your myriad paints? KR ICW |
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