changing direction

Fortune favors the brave, a quote, author not really known, another great quote in my head does have an author, Winston Churchill who said, ''The farther back we can see the farther forward we can Look'', as we grow as humans our greatest lessons are from those mistakes that we have already made and learned from and we should remember our past lessons, one such lesson comes from my partner and muse Sheila who brought me a lesson that was to change the course of my life, she was to show me through paint exactly what it was that I was lacking in my 40 plus years of 'trying to paint'
This thought comes to me as I sit in the studio at 6 am carrying out major surgery on ''Mrs Energy'', one of the Social Realism series that I am working on, amputated arms, legs and an open chest wound from the base of her neck to her mons pubis, lying on the worktop as if in the middle of an autopsy I proceeded to add extra length to her limbs.
Throughout my life I have always marveled at my own ability to 'guestimate' always within pinpoint accuracy in any number of things, cutting, weighing, calculating, I once paid my 50p at a school fete a couple of years ago and managed to guestimate 2 short of the 900 and some odd jelly beans in the jar, of course, it wasn't guestimation more a speedy calculation of the number of beans by width  x height, x length though even on that occasion it was startlingly accurate, this ability I carried over into my paintings and other creations, squeezing the tiniest drop of paint out that would adequately complete the job without waste and stretching a tube of paint out to the maximum number of paintings without having to go out and buy more, not because I was tight but because I simply didn't want to go out.



Wandering into the studio one day, a little lost and a lot bored she watched me paint and asked, ''Can I have a go'', I don't know why she thought she had to even ask but, yeah, here you go, paint, canvas, whatever you want. 
For a moment she sat on the floor and mimicked that which I had been doing, it must have looked like fun to her, the mimicry last mere seconds before I saw an actual physical change in her as she disappeared, paint stick in one hand, spray bottle of Turps in the other each little more than an extension of herself; she completed many hundreds of paintings after that moment, without a care for cost or waste or mistake, just pure paint, following that day she had an emerging artist show and was juried into a prestigious Northern art fayre, what wonderful exciting evocative and emotional images she produced there onwards, I think it was Jackson Pollock who stressed that art comes from within, for sure Sheilas was, to me, extra-worldly.










I ceased to paint after that day I recognized in her and her work the very foundations of great art and I realized that I had none of them, my emotions and passions destroyed more years ago than I could piece together, had I not learned from Sheila it is most likely that I would still be wandering the streets looking the part in paint-spattered clothes while all the while feeling totally fraudulent despite good reviews, that was not what I was looking for, Sheila had it, she owned her work and nothing came from anyone else, how could I say that with a head full of teachings and words from others, for sure I had nothing to say about painting that had not already been said a hundred thousand times throughout history.
My mindset was ''I have paint, I have a support I put one to the other and make a picture'' end of lecture about 'my art', it truly was time to abandon ship, my life goal and dream, time to turn in another direction, the greatest decision of my life was made 8 years ago when I opted for sculpture even if, for a short while, I carried the same error over with me but that soon went.
Sometimes you have to change direction in life, it can be a scary option but the rewards if the right decision is found is truly profound.

This Blog Post concludes that chapter of my life which I do so with huge gratitude to Sheila, partner and Muse, there is much to follow as I start this new and exciting journey.

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