Painting
Details of a painting made in 1998 whilst I was living in Ireland, photographed in 2005 after it had been stored in the old cottage for a few cold winters and many wet springs. Peppered with mould and mildew - most of what I made there was scrappy and messy but the damage here was a bit of a shock. I took these photos and then made a big fire for this and the rest.
I had graduated from Fine Art at Exeter a month or so before and then my father and I drove the Land Rover across Ireland, onto the Rosslare / Fishguard ferry and down through Wales to pick up what I had made and accumulated in my years before. I drove with the horse box behind us, a nerve wracking experience for me and I once begged him to take over after we took a wrong road and I was expected to make a 180 turn in a narrow cul-de-sac. I was cautious and painfully slow but we made it fine and in time. I’m sure we watched a film in the little cinema on the ferry, can’t remember what it was now but I recall the motion of the boat in the dark room threw my inner ear right off and overboard.
After just a night in Exeter, and with the box stuffed, we drove back up and across and then the next day I unloaded it all into the broken cottage and naively thought my adult life as a painter had begun.
A week later I had painted over and scrubbed one piece from my degree show exhibition work and took these photos as a threat to all the others.
Somewhere I have slides and reasonable photographs documenting the 5 years or so of paintings I had made but here so long after I just have these things to hand. Bit weird looking at them and kind of embarrassing but it is what it is, or it was what it was. I don’t know, sometimes people ask.
Has obviously been a bit of a slow couple of weeks for me but I’ve been working on recording music for other people and beginning to write again. Next week I get to play shows in the north of Germany and looking forward loads.
Have nice days - I always appreciate you saying hello if you’re out there.
Stephen