online: 21 april 2010 modified: 20 april 2010 20 april 2010 why paint, why write?
Sandy Heath
...sunny weather, but a cold wind from north west... listening to crows and to a wood pigeon... i can just see through the trees to The Ridgeway (a prehistoric path along the hills surrounding north west London)...
...having moved deeper into the forest, and having passed a woman painting a picture of the trees etc, i sit on a nearby bench to continue this diary... a diary of what ever it is that happens here and now... (between city, forest, mind and my finger)...
...just why do we do it (the woman painting and myself writing)?... why portray or describe what is more lively in the raw... more lively and more complex...
...i was going to continue my walk when she came to ask me to guard (for five minutes) her painting, easel, stool and a trolley for paints and brushes... and while she's away i look at the work (as we call it)...
...i am amazed at the difference between the picture and the things painted... not only is the painting more colourful, it's a lot smaller, and flatter, and simpler than the trees and the spaces between them... let alone the pond beneath the trees and the sky that is visible in small pieces through their still-bare branches...
...and there are even greater differences between the things i'm writing about and the abstract symbols we call words... which differ utterly from thoughts and from physical reality...(if that's what it is... or is all this an illusion?)...
...walking back i was surprised at how much more i noticed today of the trees and ponds and water-plants and the acute slopes of this former sandpit... and how various is each leaf or blade of grass, or any thing at all if one looks at it closely... inspired by having looked at a painting or by having written these words...
...so perhaps the purpose of describing is simply to improve one's perceptions... that may not be an adequate answer for everyone but it's good enough for me (at least for the moment)...
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