Projects

The advantages of working like this, is that you’re gradually refining the subject, like peeling an onion, your gething down to deeper and deeper layers of meaning. Where as if the painting was just a one off, you might be leaving money on the table, so to speak, in terms of not getting at the original impulse that drove you to paint that subject in the first place.

I read a lot of material about art and art related matters, and the vast majority of artists and commentators agree that working on a series is a very desirable thing, primarily for the reasons above but also from a more commercial perspective.

You look more professional, if you have a coherent body of work under your belt, it also indicates that you’ve taken the time to think something through and this is your contribution to that idea. The old adage that one idea leads to another is true. Your last painting on a theme, might be totally different than the first (I would hope it to be), but you would never have gotten to the genesis of that final painting, if you had not had the experience of working on the first.

So that the gospel according to Jimmy for today, now the only problem is I have never worked on a series in my life. I know, obviously, all the reasons I should, but whether it was just from lack of discipline or a very flighty mindset I have never worked on one, nor had I ever the desire or compulsion to work on one. So poor me.

I have never genuinely being so intrigued by a subject that I wanted to keep picking at it (wrong word I know) until I brought it to some form of closure and presented it to the whole world, much like a small child holding its pot after being toilet trained…that is until now.

I enjoy, love writing. Whenever I sit down to write something I’m reminded of the words of Nobel laureate Saul Bellow, when he was asked his opinion by a reporter on some matter of international importance. He just replied that he didn’t know since he had not written about it yet. And it’s probably the same with most people who write, they need to write because that’s the way they think. Normally, they are not the most logically minded people, and writing enables them to sort out their thoughts. So that’s how I came to my series project, by writing about it.

So what did I write about? Trees? Four thousand words on the beauty of oak trees. No. It could be done, but I didn’t do it. I wrote a story. A children’s story of a small boy who followed a butterfly into a part of the woods he had never been before, where he meets an array of interesting characters, from an impulsive teapot to a very posh ostrich. I wrote the story and now I want to paint it. So that’s how I came to my series or as I prefer to call it, project.

Is there a lesson in all of this? Maybe there is. What you work on is unique to you. It’s not just confined to painting what you think you should be painting, or what you think the world deems as important, such a series on the war on terror, or the erosion of the planets resources.

These are lofty topics, worthy of being tackled, but I won’t be tackling them anytime soon. That might have bothered me before. My lack of concern would have led me to conclude that I’m not really a serious artist if I’m not interested in the serious subjects. You can only paint with integrity what genuinely moves you. And this story of a little boy meeting all these strange characters moved me to both write and paint the story.

So, likewise, if you feel you’d like to work on a series, just take time to look around and listen to yourself and how you feel about some of the things you observe. As ever, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised.

As for the story and the paintings of “The Boy who followed the butterfly”

Watch this space and see how the project develops.