My night was spent awake, but filled with a new writhing excitement rather than angst. I felt lost in the day however, lacklustre, feeling isolated and disconnected from humanity. Art is my life but I must muster my encouragement from within, from my philosophy that life is about sharing information, about art. I know that my work is generally ignored, and that those that don't ignore me dislike or envy me. Such is the artists' life. I live in poverty, isolation, and stomach pain, and ceaseless work for no reward (except self-satisfaction and the knowledge of ultimate success - of course!) yet, I work and focus on doing the best I can each day and with each solemn and certain breath, and this gives me a unique ecstasy.
I also feel artistically renewed, that my ideas are entering a new phase. May the gods give me time to make more, last many more years. I worked on three paintings; transferring over the Portents of Desire drawing and preparing the surface, then creating a shadow guide for Sappho:
Than preparing that canvas. The mood here is the solitary cry of the isolated poet. My idea for the 'second movement' is pink and fecund. I also came up with an idea for the third in the 'sacred' series which includes Deb's portrait; but the mood must be considered carefully.
As I worked on Sappho I listened to the brilliant and final Rachmaninov programme from in Radio 3's Composer of the Week, then, as I worked on the tedious drawing, the start of the year-long Beethoven programmes from 2020. It's odd to me that his 'late quartets' are thought of as 'difficult' or strange, when to me they are as tuneful and brilliant as the 9th Symphony, or any of his late work; not 'experimental'. I found it oddly synchronous that I felt Beethovian, then tuned to his moods and biography. On we charge heroically!
