Sucking: or, Blowing in the Opposite Direction?

My old physics teacher (the late Robin Armstrong), something of a mentor in my teens, used to have some great one-liners. Not, as in gags (actually, his out-of-class jokes were always filthy and obscene), so much as little confrontations to our assumptions. One of my favourites - which popped up in a recent blog - was his assertion that there is no such thing as sucking. Vacuum cleaners, for instance don't suck air in; they blow it in the opposite direction. At first it seems daft to think of the physics being counter to what is intuitively perceived. But, it was a valuable lesson, in more than one way, and while I can't say that it's been a guiding principle, it signified a questioning, open-minded approach by Robin which, reinforced by other teachers and positive experiences, I've aspired to ever since.

The irony with physics is that I was never very good at it - I mean, I passed my Higher Grade, but, like Maths, had to build up to it over two years rather than the normal one. And I think that the only thing that kept me motivated was the development and encouragement of an ongoing curiosity about what makes things work.

As a child I was what was commonly called, in Edinburgh, a slitter - one who slitters, from the Scots verb to slitter; to walk or work messily in water (it also means to eat or drink messily - another trait some might recognise in me to this day!). If it rained, nothing would please me more than to put on my waterproofs (I seem to remember having a bright yellow sou'wester) and follow the flow of water along the gutters to the drains on dreich suburban streets. Or, if my Dad washed the car on a dry afternoon, I'd be off down the road seeing how far the little soapy river could get. Usually I'd intervene and either help or hinder the flow, or set some floating thing off on a journey.

Playing with water in the kitchen sink was a regular torment for my mother.

Water is the perfect attractor to the curious - it responds beautifully to the forces on our planet which have shaped and make life possible: it flows with gravity - evaporates in sunlight - freezes in winter - precipitates in clouds and falls to the ground again. I'm sure metaphysical thoughts weren't on my mind when I was launching fleets of discarded ice-lolly sticks in those gutters and yet I feel a strong connection with what drew that wee boy outdoors in his wellies to spalsh about in puddles.

In many ways, my studio today is my slittery place now - somewhere to muck about and experiment with liquids and powders. At art school, I remember being introduced properly to oil paint and the pleasures of coming to grips with it as a material - a medium: the various thinning chemicals; the smells (there is nothing quite like the reek of natural turpentine); the way the paint reacted and dried (or didn't dry); the different finishes according the amount of linseed oil and turps added to the pigment. All this is still fascinating. Acryllics have their place, but they seem one dimensional compared to oil - water is their only thinner and they dry quickly in a blandly predictable way (unless you count the host of chemical additives that can mimick the characteristics of other mediums). I use acryllics a lot but for sheer slittering pleasure, nothing beats oil.

It's only in the last few years that I've returned to oil painting in earnest, and it's been a bit like going back to art school. For one thing, there's been a reminder of the process of unlearning assumptions or habitual thinking that was the keystone of those first months in higher education. And the other reminder I have of those early student days is the experimenting thing - the process of just seeing what happens with the medium and reflecting on the worth of the results - which is probably what painting is all about for me on a day-to-day basis.

Yes, you can get all philosophical and cosmic about the metaphors inherent in the material - or it's equivalence to vital natural elements - and that's before you ponder the cultural significance of making art in general and painting in particular. But, when it comes down to it, the thing that gets me started in the studio is an engagement with the material - and most refreshing thing about that is that, in spite of decades of reading about how artists work and going to galleries and arguing about the merits of this art over that - the best things I do, the things that strike me the most (and as it happens, other people), seem to emerge from what can only be described as play.

What's fascinating about the medium is that it never seems to run out of ways to surprise me. The studio process is about devising ways to interact with the medium, possibly based on a premise or concept - a plan - and then seeing what happens and reacting to that. Paint and mark making seem to have an infinitely adaptable capacity to shape themselves around the user - no two painters' use of the medium looks alike.

The worst thing is returning to the studio with the self-imposed sense that I must finish something - as if a standard of image is there to be achieved. A commission adds another external burden of expectation. The process only truly comes to life when something emerges from the playing. This doesn't just mean that painting is a spontaneous, happy-accident process, although these are important elements. Every stage in making a painting requires the deployment of accumulated knowledge and experience; no less so than if I was using wood to make a piece of furniture.

Yet the destination remains substantially unknown with a painting. It's a bit like going for a walk in a new locale: the first decision is to say, let's go that way and see what we find. Decisions are made on the way. Skills might be needed to overcome obstacles. And then a moment of pleasure or satisfaction indicates that this might be the right place to stop or end. Usually, that point of closure in a painting or drawing is one that chimes with other people - something is recognised in the material both by the maker and the viewer.

Like I say, the cosmic significance of that is not what gets me back into the studio. There's a virtuous cycle of activity for me which goes something like: looking at the world provokes responses; these stimulate the desire to get them out - to mark them down somehow; reflecting on these marks then leads to new ways of looking and new responses which are in turn richer and deeper. And so it goes on. If you like, an optical/emotional loop.

Occasionally someone will ask me, where do your ideas come from - and the only thing I feel certain about in this is that ideas are not invented, they are the result of the editing of reflections on experience. Of course, that observation in artists - as different as each individual, artist or not - is unique. And the focus of any observation - the centre-point - is, equally, infinitely variable.

That focus for me has something to do with the observed world - how we see things - sights or events that stir an emotional response and jumping on them if they throw up an icon to play with. That icon is a hook for a strategy of play with materials - and the result of that play might in turn throw up something recognisable from that initial emotional trigger. It feels like a process of editing - editing what is seen; editing materials; editing outcomes.

I've only ever directed a couple of theatre productions and in both cases I was lucky enough to work with generous, imaginative actors who were constantly coming up with interpretations and ideas for their characters. It felt like my job was to edit those contributions together with other aspects of the production to make a cohesive whole for an audience. I'd have been lost if the actors - or the stage-managers, or the lighting designer, or the music composer - had not offered up so much raw-material.

In some ways that collective process clarifies the solitary painting process as it works for me: see; reflect; edit; excecute; edit. The hard thing is finding a satisfactory end point. And that's maybe because the process is about working things out - finding out how they work - as much as it is about a desire to say something or even to share it. Sharing is important - a monumental part of developing - but I find it a hugely uncomfortable passage. Maybe that's just me.

But what really strikes me is that the world out there is a much broader reality than we are capable of seeing, and we are all limited by the received assumptions handed down to us through the authoritative stamp of the media, the state and cultural institutions; it's hard to see what is true in the things that are in front of us.

Back to that sucking and blowing thing.

For me, artists in any medium, fulfill a role of looking as objectively as they can at reality - beyond received objectivity - and to edit away the existing assumptions and obstructions to seeing an alternative to the culturally-specific, limiting points-of-view that lie in the way. To make visible to themselves and others, the things that emerge from playing with a medium.

That's if you really think about it.

Me, though? I'm just slittering about.

GJ
FEB.10

ILLUSTRATIONS: ALL IMAGES FROM MY STUDIO