Use It Up / The End of Oil

I ve been quiet on the blog for a while. I'm starting some practice with quiet studio time when i can find it (the time, not the studio) using up some very old materials. I don’t generally paint - its not what i usually do, but I have various half used sets of watercolour.

My Mother died recently and I have a lot of sorting to do of things, belongings, clothes - the things you have to deal with when someone leaves. So this project is beginning with a reminder of all the stuff we collate, collect and waste and effort.

It’s also a way of a kind of meditation (I also don’t really meditate) I am taking care of myself - allowing space in my day not to be on a screen and to be quiet or listen to music.

I needed some rules - I started out thinking I'd just Use Up the materials in a random way, a purely mechanical act to see what came out - just painting over and over onto the paper with no image in mind (but as I say - I m not a painter) After one session, that felt too boundary-less and unstructured. It was difficult not to make gestures or imagine shapes or scenes. I still want to care about what I'd done. Amazing how hard that was - admitting that it couldn't just be spontaneous - yet.

Then driving the other day a thought came into my head “Democratic Architecture” I didn't know where it came from, perhaps something I 've heard and then I recalled my Car Wash Cultures project.

So now I have an image to work around with the paint - and petrol station / table structures are so ubiquitous and symbolise, work, waste and the beginning of the end of the era of oil.