PERFECTIBLE...SORT OF HAIGA INSPIRED...

Well not strictly haiga inspired, but something I've been mulling over for a few years now, how to bring together the twin worlds of my visual and literary practice. Back in 1989 I self-published a small book of poetry called Blackberry Jam, accompanying my poems with my own illustrations, but since then my attempts have been sporadic. Back (why do I keep going back?) in about 2002 I posted work in progress of a drawing but wasn't really sure how to present the progress in a way that added anything to either the words or the image. I've been, for a long time, sporadic in my efforts, not that I'm not continually doing something but that the somethings are often disjointed, disconnected, I start things that fizzle out and I never finish them.

So maybe I'll not finish this new idea either (maybe not finishing is a good thing, as it means there might still be something left to achieve), this week has been one of those weeks where my head fizzes with ideas. This has it's good and its bad points, the bad being the resulting sense of confusion, and the exhaustion that follows. I have to pluck something out of the fizzle, and here goes.

My idea (actually not a new one for me, though I've never attempted to perfect it in any way) is to simply make an artwork out of the recorded stages of my progress. In this case, I'm starting on a drawing that's already underway, but while the iron's hot...

Below are both my work in progress and the image and words combined, I have yet to think of a word to describe this. I do have ideas about what I'm going to do with them however, more later.

Perfectible...

Art (drawing, painting) was a huge part of my early life. I have a degree in Graphic Design (specialised in illustration) from the then City of Birmingham Polytechnic, but I always wrote as well, and this has been the form my creativity has taken over the years.

From time to time I get the urge to do something visual though, often it's tied into the seasonal creativity thing - i.e. at certain times of the year I get specific creative urges, the times when I'm most likely to have the visual urge is spring, and autumn. The obvious reason for this being that simply, I love the transitional seasons - right now I love trees in a blaze of colour, and the strange fungi that are bursting through the mulch of leaves and moss and fallen seeds, nuts and seed pods, these natural phenomenom I find so inspiring. Mostly lately I appease my urge to capture something visually (to capture the moment, to understand something about my own interaction with the world, a childlike interaction that I hope I will never lose) by digital photography. I feel guilty though that I allow my artistic skills, mostly drawing, to atrophy, though the main reason for this is a practical one - there simply isn't the time to do EVERYTHING, to write poetry, to write fiction, to slog at getting these published (to deal with the failure when I don't - dealing with failure is EXTREMELY time consuming) and to express myself visually as well.

I tend to work visually off and on, exhibiting occasionally, mostly at one of the annual RBSA open exhibitions. Still, I'm aware at the moment that I need to pack my life with creativity in order to keep my 'spark' going, and this blog is part of my strategy of doing this.

I'll explain, later...