On not getting started

I find myself thinking about this blog when I wait for sleep. It's a good way to end the day, and then start the next.

1. Walking past the art shop on Mt Ephraim I see a little painting, a life sized vase of flowers and think what a good idea, I could do that. Later I look at the little canvases I have and decide they are too small (4x4). I get out all the little vases I have and line them up. I look at pictures of flowers in my hand book but decide I need the real thing. Painting from photos doesn't work - it comes out too flat. I could be making excuses to delay getting on with it, or it could be that I need to get things exactly right if it is going to work. I'm learning about the process.

2. Having failed on the flower picture I go back to the painting I started of the bench by the lake. There are things wrong with it, it's dull, undefined, and already too much paint on it, put on without too much care. I have a choice: keep on and hope it will develop into something I can't yet imagine, or paint it over and leave it. I try to save it - will go and have a look at it later. I don't like giving up on paintings, but I know that some of them don't work. It is usually lack of attention.

3. I listen to John Ashbery on BBC3 - I don't know his poetry and find it exciting to hear a new voice. It makes me think my own poems are too limited and controlled. Maybe I need to explore surrealism. I find this comment by Ashbery on James Tate and surrealism: 'the unconscious mind emptying in one-on-one engagements with the life we all live, every day.' I think that is what I am trying to follow in this blog. For a split second I feel confident about living and writing, and after a programme on Istanbul, I remember a visit to the island of Buyukader, and sketch a poem. I will type it up later and see if I can do two versions: my usual clear style, and another more surreal. I will think about these, and the paintings, while I do my marking. The creative me will run under the work of the day, like water running under ice.