I never usually have much of an idea where a drawing is going to go before I've started it. A lot of this is due to the fact that I often draw at the call centre, and don't have the time to plan. I think that's an excuse though. The idea of planning a drawing, or a piece of writing, is anathema to me. I often think that perhaps it could be improved if I did have some design before I set pen to paper, but when I try, the inspiration just vanishes.
It was in January last year that I did this drawing. I worked on it at the call centre. I was still on the phones at the time, and drew between the very rare calls we got, (I think I went for a week without taking a call). All I knew when I started it was that I wanted to draw a woman lying down. After I had drawn the, presumably sleeping figure, it came to me that she was lying in a field of corn. Obviously summer. Then I wanted a line of winter poplars in the background. A lightning blasted tree. Then the figure of, maybe, a farmer. Why is he walking away? What is that strange rose-bush plant, and what liquid is it dripping? Is it night or an overcast day? Why is the woman sleeping anyway?
I can give myself no answers to any of the questions. It represents nothing. There was little in the way of conscious direction as I worked on the piece. I have always felt that there is something occult about artwork, for myself anyway. By the use of the term 'occult' I am not necessarily ruling out the possibility of external influence (I read the tarot cards after all), but I use it to mean a power whose source I cannot consciously identify.
I have a problem with artists who label their work as coming from the subconscious. The subconscious, I tend to think, is like the plumbing in a building; hidden, necessary, but ultimately functional. Art seems to come from a place that is not strictly functional, not a higher-conscious, but an other-consciousness.
Like tarot cards, I find meanings -or resonances- as I prefer to call them, only after the picture is finished. These resonances change over time, and seem to reflect my mood. In this, they tend to resemble tarot cards - one can read into the image whatever one feels at the time - a kind of mirror. Perhaps. This pleases me, for Pamela Coleman Smith, artist for the famour Rider-Waite pack of tarot cards, painted her enigmatic and timeless images from a series of visions that came to her whilst listening to music.
I suppose any art always poses questions, but really, I don't want that question answered.
I just want the question mark to resonate.
