Just decided as I'm still breathing that I would attempt another posty type thing - obviously not a real post. Still not back in the saddle. Bottom seems to have got too big for that anyway. Back in the bloody saddle indeed! As if I even know what that means. Just a stupid stream of words. My fingers tap this shit out without my brain even noticing. For a while everything I did was being simultaneously translated in my head into Blog Post Speak - which is really sad. Even that phrase I've just thrown in 'simultaneously translated' now rankles. Cliches. This stuff just rolls out when I start trying to communicate. I hate the way I prattle on - but hate more the stuff that seems coherent. Like I'm just spouting uniform phrases for easy consumption. So prattling on it shall be - even if just to avoid being anywhere near slick. Easy consumption! There goes another one! Thing is I will never be slick so floating into cliches is just lazy and naff. So just in case anyone thought my absence was due to completing a cool creative writing course or summink - get a hold of yourself. So, point one: I hate the way I write.
Now for point two: I hate the way I draw.
I've whinged on before about how I once thought I was 'good at art' but more recently realised I was always crap. Well - here's some more... A couple of weeks ago a few of us had a session with Shadric Toop - Brighton artist. Six kids (two of mine) and three adults in all. The previous week I'd finally gone through my big old portfolio - and chucked away tons of drawings and paintings etc - things that in my head had been good ('good') but were SO not in real life! It was fun dumping alot of the old schooly things that were still polluting my stash. And I just decided that of the 60 or so remaining sheets of life drawing from years back I would get it down to 20 and that was that. And I did. Got rid of some that even I thought were quite good ('good' - ????) - but I just loved clearing out anyway. Funny how there's about 3 bits from my Foundation course - and nothing at all from my degree course. And very very little of anything since then. But in my head I was Mrs Art's-my-Thing. Now my rank old A1 black portfolio is out in the rain waiting to be bound up and binned - and I've got everything I've reprieved wedged into my ancient sticker-stained A2 maroon cardboard folder. I've probably kept more things from up to the age of 10 than from after. But it feels right. (For now - will probably thin it out more in another couple of years!) It was the first time my paper recycling bin was ever full. Such a glow from hurling this ballast away. ANYWAY - back to the drawing session with Shadders - surrounded by others who either weren't sure of their abilities or were pretty certain they've never been able to draw - there was me wondering if I was gonna be a star or a plank. The others were very kind - lots of 'ooh it looks just like him' etc but when I protested and redrew things in a 'worse' quicker way - a less drawingy way and said 'I prefer that' to the others' perplexion (I just made that word up I think - I like it) - Shads understood my pain. He quietly said 'I know what you mean' - and so I've had another Damascus moment.... You can be good at something and totally crap at the same thing at the same time. Being 'good at' something is limiting in itself. Being 'good at art' has been a cage for years. It's coloured my opinion (oops another cliche) on other 'art' for years - instead of just thinking if I like something my brain tries to determine if it is 'good' first. And it totally stuffs up your own creative attempts. If you do something crap (like pretty much everything I now feel) it stops you doing anything again. If I tried to shoot an arrow and missed the target I'd still be thrilled I'd even let it fly. If I try and draw something and miss the target I kick the door in.
Point three: talent is pointless. Talent is transitional. Fleeting. Nice but dull. Fervour, enthusiasm, diligence, passion, bravery, naivety, fun - all way more important.
And success? (This might be point four but I'm being so prattley that I've really lost all sense of cohesion and don't give a fuck....) Success is for losers.
There you go....
I'm now happy to be crap at writing and drawing. Two things I always wanted to be good at. I've never cared less about being good at cooking or making curtains but I've done both and got away with it. I'm hopeless at knitting and love it. Split the eardrums of my children with my horrendous singing and laughed at their agony. So now I'm gonna carry on splurting out ungrammatical and futile blog posts and start drawing again - like I've just landed from the Planet Dickhead and have never heard of Winsor and Newton.
Freedom!!!!
Didn't Picasso say something about it taking him 80 years to learn to draw like an eight year old? Ohhhh... ish.... So I'm the new Picasso me I am! Look me in the eyes and tell me I'm not!!
PS - Trying to find another word for 'dickhead' which I love so much.... No thesaurus matches found. Tried 'twat'. No matches. 'Cretin' - disappointing results... Just banged in 'idiot' and got this:
Notes: an idiot is a stupid person with a mental age below three years, while a moron is a stupid person with a mental age of between seven to twelve years
See even a total flaphead like me can learn summink every day. Feels GOOD being rubbish.
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