I'm trying to keep busy and have made a long list. There are always things to do, I've got so many paintings which could be reframed, filing to do, hundreds of painting ideas, but new ideas are better. My health suffers if I have too little to do, I must always be busy, and ideally pushed or challenged. I need new inspirations, new goals. I don't watch television and rarely read so the other option to work is self-absorbtion which leads to anxiety - my energy must go into my work.
Today I traced out one of the new paintings called Cock of the Woke. I also re-recorded some vocals for an older song (unsure whether to ever use them) and did basic vocal practice. Then sawed an old frame, for Monsters of Spring. Many of my old paintings (maybe 100!) have frames with visible screws in the side. I used to make them to a specific design which was simple and easy to construct, but they had visible screws in the side which held batons behind for mirror plates and the string. After a few years, the screws bothered me; at first I didn't think the look of the side of a picture frame was important. So now I need to reframe a lot of paintings, and for the past few years have done a lot of that.
I'm limited in what I can do with the screw holes... they can't be filled and painted over unless the frame itself is painted in thick paint. I can't easily cover them up except with extreme distress or some thick and obvious filler, so the easiest solution is make a new frame. I only have enough wood for one frame now. Today I thought of sawing the frame down to chop the screw holes off, so I marked the frame and sawed around the edge with a jigsaw, but alas, it was a mess. So, new frame it must be.
I started to draw out a new composition, Volcanism and Social Media. This, in the plan, will use my figure from Penalties, one of my early paintings, and largest at the time. I remember using a big house brush for the sky, and sanding it smooth later (it was cobalt paint, perhaps not healthy to do this in my bedroom!) This was a bit of a breakthough painting for me, it was exhibited in the Lowry Gallery in Manchester and I met Catherine and Peter from my first art club there, so a few months later decided to join it and leave my many years, 15 years, of isolation, my 'hikikomori' period.
In the late afternoon I transcribed the lyrics to several songs which didn't have them typed out, mostly Tim Watson's words for The Anatomy of Emotions tracks. These are long and very wordy, so I used an online auto-converter then edited by hand. The whole process took just over two hours.
I'm still anxious. I prefer depression on the whole but have very rarely felt this relaxation. Like Dali, I am an engine which never stops running, such is training of a terrifiying childhood.
