Sometimes life is a bitch.  I am very well versed in this bitchiness; the scratching and scrawling, hissy fits and just plain difficult nature of this otherwise sweet life.  Take for example, I recently took the opportunity to submit an original work-in-progress for a local open exhibition.  Standpoint was the title, and the idea was to create a piece of work based on the standpoint one takes in this life, the personal point of view, the musings, trials, tribulations, love and sweetness.  A real beautiful brief actually because it lends itself perfectly to an outpour of ideas, creativity and thought forms.  Indeed, in the immediate moment I read this brief, the whole image popped into my head, perfect and complete; all the intricacies, colours, everything.  This strike of inspiration, the gift of a fertile ground with which to create is my raison d’être .  I live for this; the parting of fog, the dancing colours revealing themselves somewhere within my soul.  I think many artists feel the same way.

So, fired up, I got to work.  I’ve been completely inspired by the psychedelic posters from the 1960s, and the idea of creating dioramas and mixing things up a bit.  I wanted to bring together all the things I love to do; photography, digital manipulation of said photography and to include hand worked elements; ink and letterforms, words and wistfulness and wrap it all up within my tribute to the psychedelic art form which has inspired me since forever.

In fact, the last element proved problematic, having now scrapped and reworked 3 times now.  Hey, I can handle that; I enjoy the practice to be honest.. and I love the stillness and patience required to work with pen and ink (and a special pen and ink that I own, requires always my very best efforts).

But after three weeks of working on all of these elements, the last thing I thought about was money and costs.. and being stereotypically poor and the inevitable fact all available resources are  (quite rightfully) poured into the domestics of bringing up two young boys, I forget entirely I needed to print and frame the work.. and I can’t.

Being poor is something I accept as part of this game I play, because my raison d’être I wrote about earlier explains to me blindly everything that still is beautiful about living and breathing on this planet much, much more so than all this wretched money ruining everything in this world.  Finances, projections, grand master plans for some reason cannot touch me.. They are abstract and do not compute.

So, life’s bitchy side comes along and scratches me across the face to remind me to pay attention to her.  Standpoint is now cancelled, yet here I still stand and I feel much better for writing this all down.  Make of that what you will.

Chris