The Spirit of Totnes
Posted by Robert Beer on 7/29/2010 10:54:43 PM
The Spirit of Totnes (detail)
At 1-30 am I commenced a new painting 'The Spirit of Totnes' (6' x 5' approx).
I went to London last Wednesday to see the Picasso at the Hayward Gallery. I also saw 'From El Greco to Goya' at the National Gallery and Kurt Schwitters at the Marlborough. I felt strangely subdued and a little empty as I strode around London.
The force of Picasso's work got through to me. His 'Minotaur Series' moved me very deeply. The power of man the sexual monster, yet gentle with the sleeping woman.
The exhibition at the Imperial Hotel came and went. This morning a letter from the bank - very overdrawn!!!!
It is now Saturday night. I have been painting for some hours, working on "The Spirit of Totnes". After keeping it in near monochrome with blacks, greys, blues, and white, I have just introduced some volcanic colour. Orange, red, yellow. Also blue-greens and violet-pinks.
I seem to be settling into a mood of 'total' involvement with the painting. The word total is misleading. I can work non-stop on painting and not know this total involvement, on the other hand I can work intermittently and yet feel totally at one spiritually with image making.
John Chambers wishes to buy a drawing. He has suggested £60 for the kitchen bamboo curtain pen drawing. I do not wish to sell him this one and hope he will come round and choose something else. I will give him "this" for an ounce of pipe tobacco.
I was very moved because John mentioned his son who had died and remarked on the way I 'see' my mother, and how the drawings carry this love for one no longer on this earth.
I went to London last Wednesday to see the Picasso at the Hayward Gallery. I also saw 'From El Greco to Goya' at the National Gallery and Kurt Schwitters at the Marlborough. I felt strangely subdued and a little empty as I strode around London.
The force of Picasso's work got through to me. His 'Minotaur Series' moved me very deeply. The power of man the sexual monster, yet gentle with the sleeping woman.
The exhibition at the Imperial Hotel came and went. This morning a letter from the bank - very overdrawn!!!!
It is now Saturday night. I have been painting for some hours, working on "The Spirit of Totnes". After keeping it in near monochrome with blacks, greys, blues, and white, I have just introduced some volcanic colour. Orange, red, yellow. Also blue-greens and violet-pinks.
I seem to be settling into a mood of 'total' involvement with the painting. The word total is misleading. I can work non-stop on painting and not know this total involvement, on the other hand I can work intermittently and yet feel totally at one spiritually with image making.
John Chambers wishes to buy a drawing. He has suggested £60 for the kitchen bamboo curtain pen drawing. I do not wish to sell him this one and hope he will come round and choose something else. I will give him "this" for an ounce of pipe tobacco.
I was very moved because John mentioned his son who had died and remarked on the way I 'see' my mother, and how the drawings carry this love for one no longer on this earth.
