Vertical lines
#wrightwritesnow 118
A bit of a cheeky title, considering I have been out of action for three and a half days. Horizontal. Lying down. Supine. With what purports to be a head cold. Low energy.
I managed to listen to a sci-fi fantasy audiobook (a series) which had 175 full chapters. Good story, nice descriptions, good characterisations, and a plot that was not too predictable. Narration was smooth. I interspersed this lazy listening with miniature forays to the kitchen for hot soups, hot drinks, and two actual meals. I fancy I would be a good person to employ to get rid of repetitious phrases in books. The job would entail reading a book, and producing a list for the author of all the phrases that could be reduced by at least half. I would charge a lot for this service. So went the fevered dreams I had during this time.
I gave up on listening to my favourite podcasts and interviews. I could not drum up enough energy to write anything, or draw anything. Or learn how to draw anything, although I did do some half-hearted sketching practice from the comfort of my bed.
Two evenings ago, I felt a little better, so I used a paintbrush to test my competence at painting vertical lines freehand. This is quite different from using a pencil. It did not take that long. Each line in the image below was painted vertically, which means I turned the piece of plywood that I happened to have lying around 25 times to achieve the six approximate rectangles depicted below.
I applied the rest of the white paint in abstract strokes on my big canvas, because that took even less mental acuity than the lines above, and there was no risk of botching up other elements featured in this painfully still life in progress.
That was enough. I took to my bed again. But I propped up my vertical lines and gazed at them from my bed until I nodded off again, still listening to the audiobook, even though I have perfectly good books in a neat little pile on my bedside.
Today I felt a little better. I hauled myself up and decided I would go to the History of Art lecture at the Old Farts Uni, mainly to give myself some exercise. It turned out that Marc Chagall was the featured artist this week. I found the lecture unsatisfactory, for it did not contextualise the artist or his art sufficiently well to quell the silly remarks from other students two rows behind me. So I sketched unsatisfactory faces (I have just started teaching myself about the proportions of the human face) in my little notebook instead. That exercise alone gave me an enormous appreciation of excellent art in general, and Chagall in particular.
Meanwhile, my vertical lines might just be the beginning of something more interesting in the weeks ahead, accidental future botch-ups notwithstanding.
I like your painting. Sometimes what arises while in a liminal space can be like a door opening into a different plane.