A creative

Often in these kinds of situations, the sort where the rituals of socialising and 'settling in' are fuelled by latte and wide smiles, the phrase 'oh your an artist- my (insert relation here) is an artist' comes up, usually accompaned by a qualifying term of modesty or humblemanship. (No one ever says 'oh yes my (insert relation here) is an artist- he's bloody succesful and is currently showing at the Whitney...')

It's not a bad thing, or offensive or derisive. I don't feel like Victoria Beckham when she meets Mrs Average housewife and is told 'oh my fred is a ranging midfielder, he loves a dead ball too...'. Or Mrs Rushdie when A N Other says 'yes I also love the storytelling narrative- Ive done a few myself would you like to hear them...'. No, I find it sweet and inoffensive, but it does draw coser to my mind the question of what is an artist- again- as it is a theme that seems recurrent in my musing these days.

One of my favourite books , currently at home in storage, is a 1950's tome aimed at a roughly secondary comprehensive audience, and is titled 'How to write, speak and think correctly'. It's name has always appealed, in its conviction and clarity, and its broad subject matter. I bring it up now because I think the lot of a artist (read A N Artist) is roughly under the same vacuous premise- how to write speak and think creatively. Or perhaps originally. Because the art of even a painter is most definitely entwined in the thinking process, the discussion and the written shorthand that surely preceeds any kind of creativity or originality. I am all too aware of the restriction that 'just painting' can bring- a fact which is compounded when you can actually paint quite well (note the ambiguity that clouds and swamps the phrase quite well just then. Artistic philosophers the world over are scribbling 'well how, well what...' in their notebooks. But the fact that my line an my figurative form seem well polished compared to most of humanity has been the largest millstone of all in my research and creative enlightenment. It leads to endless nicely painted things that mean- well what exactly? And as such a tremendous amount f unlearning has had to be undertaken over the last 5 years as I search for a meaningful thematic or consistent motif that expresses the written, the spoken and the thunk thoughts that in my opinion categorise the artist, as distinct from the (insert relative here)

Its a long and ardous, painful, depressing and undermining process to fnd such a groove, such a voice as an artist. I have found it tremendously difficult, and still to this day have no common thread or consistent marketable, understandable commodity that a critic or historiancould apply to my output. I am encouraged by the permanence of, or consistent resurfacing of projects
such as the street kids or burmese refugees, and perhaps therein lies some kind of motif or narrative. However it is still a very long way from being at all respected or even concreted in my own mind, and as such the difficult writing, speaking and thinking- correct or otherwise- will continue to trouble my waking thoughts.