Took Dan here this-evening for sprint practise. This started as an experiment in uploading a video to the blog. (Obviously it links to you tube rather than being embeded in the website blog itself).
The still image link is quite interesting in that I see it as a potential painted image itself. The you tube experiment worked perfectly.
Still image and video sort of correspond with my dreamscape and narrative overlay idea I suppose. So the painting starts to move and as it becomes a video it takes on the story telling aspect mentioned earlier.
I still want to make paintings based around this though. Making a video is too easy. Setting up the creative context for the perfect detail within the tale as required in the kind of painting I mean is much harder.
Just been rooting through my old paintings for one that fits with this idea. Sheds, gardens, ramshakle structures etc.
The artwork is not really complete for the Aragorn tower dream yet though. I don’t want to create the impression that I am always having these super cathartic dreams that point the way foreward in both my creative and social life. Nevertheless, this was an absolute corker! ………
I’m sure I could do a very telling starter drawing for the idea. I have always been fascinated by barns and structures that serve the countryside and this dream nudges me a bit further and beyond just the stage set of all that.
This dream first needs analysing though. At least to the point where I can begin to outline some kind of narrative.
I have always been struck by how really good narrative paintings are so nuanced. So that the representation of even the shortest tale can have a myriad different facets, depending on the point where one hitches up to the story.
Dream pictures such as those by Dali on the other hand are kind of fixed perspective illustrations that represent the idea behind the original dream. They might be more inclined to take on the keywords as a starting point and allow what Freud described as “secondary elaboration” to play its part. i.e. Speculation on its message via the complexity of symbolic meaning.
The narrative approach is perhaps more concerned with character and personality as expressed through the realism and staging of a particular point in the tale.
For myself then I do not willingly forgo any of the creative nuences. However, I admire some of the reflective stillness of the Surrealists. Their ability to create a stage set is unquestionable. My allotment piece above is perhaps in that catagory. The Summer aftenoon mood is perfect. Yet I (as the viewer) desire to fall asleep and dream in front of its stage to see what will happen. What are the tales of release and forgiveness that are told like an extra photoshop layer on the surface of my old painting?
So I hope you get the the two main paths that I have outlined here. The stage set and the nuanced narrative.
With a dream gift such as the one described in my previous blog, then maybe the obligation is to bring the two together. Not just the time and place illustration and not just the subjective character reponse in all its subtlety. But an overview containing some kind of real time google earth perspective that shows that ideal moment in perfect detail before allowing us to wake up.
The great thing about a blog as opposed to Facebook for instance, is it being implicit that a more opinion based diary content is expressed. I feel a bit freer to say whatever is on my mind, rather than tailor it for the limited Facebook audience that I have. In a seeming contradiction, I therefore feel as if my audience is easier to address for being smaller (and at the moment -none existent). Talking to no-one at all (or potentially everyone in the world) via a blog is more liberating than the guaranteed audience of Facebook. For me, Facebook is a bit like a parental filter on what I feel able to say. I incline to get wrapped up in trying to be the correct version of the slightly different person that I am with all my different friends and acquaintances. It is not that it is impossible or unrewarding, it is just that I am struck by the more relaxed nature of the writing when “Facebook approval” is removed, and inspired rather than daunted by the idea of communicating with the “anonymous World”. Another way of putting it is that my idea(s) take priority and once they have formed then the audience will follow. Say something and then see who listens.
With this in mind I am going to describe a dream that I had last night (which is unlikely to reach Facebook) and reflect upon where it came from as well as how I might use such an experience from a creative point of view.
Chatsworth House wrapped in scaffolding July 2016
Aragorn and the Tower
I was looking out over my back garden which sloped gradually upwards. I became aware of a strange scaffolding like tower in the middle of the garden that I felt responsible for. A couple of families with small children wandered up the slope of the garden past the tower and then out of sight.
I began to feel slightly anxious. Wandering over towards the tower I could see that it needed some renovation work. However I was increasingly concerned that the tower was in too bad a way for me to repair it. I held it by one corner wall and the whole thing seemed in danger of falling; swaying a little. It stayed up at this point though and I looked closer to see a part of the scaffolding with a missing bolt. Had it been sabotaged? What did this mean?
I started looking for a replacement bolt as well as considering some other tasks that needed completing to restore the tower.
At this point I notice the tall Norwegian approaching from behind me to the left. Just before he reaches me, the tower starts to tilt and collapse and then just disappear in an evaporation of dust.
This provokes an overwhelming sense of relief. I am surprised and utterly grateful as I turn and face the tall Norwegian who has become Aragorn from “Lord of the Rings”. He looks at me knowingly and I feel the sense of release that I have always associated with realising that something doesn’t matter. Very close to forgiveness.
