woman series
THOUGHTS I
I’ve spent a lot of time looking for themes worthy of artistic expression, and gradually learnt through repeated disappointments with the results, that a theme has to move you from inside. The best themes seem to choose you, control and drive you, rather than you them. Therefore, I am trying to lose control.
Someone pointed out that I have been working on the Woman concept for the last ten years, only I had not realised it yet.
The Woman series is about the raw power that streams from women. Men don’t have it like this, male power lies elsewhere. When you walk down the street or stand on a train, female power emanates from women and knocks you sideways. This is not a consciously motivated power, it’s more like a form of energy, and the woman maybe cannot even help it. Maybe she is aware of it but not in a detached, objective way. It is so close to home, so central to her being, that it is entirely beyond control and beyond comprehension. I think this is probably my way of perceiving essence, and of course it is meltingly beautiful, it chokes my throat and sends tingling rushes up my spine sometimes.
It is power, it is beautiful, it is very direct and even forceful – it is not a thing submerged, certainly. Essentially it is beyond control, and is at its best when it is uncontrolled. It can be manipulated by its vehicle, but this only has the effect of obscuring its full potency. Can I become intoxicated by it, desire it? Yes, but this obscures it too. Better to admire and thus respect it.
I want to lose control, let this essence too intense to be tameable express itself through me, let it make the decisions, not me.
So I get myself very still, and then I work, resisting thought. Specifically resisting the urge to control the outcome.
14 April 2005