Yesterday I worked in the studio, mainly just prepping some grounds. It is a low-energy time of year for me, so prepping grounds is the perfect activity: not too much energy required, just a slow repetition of colour and texture without any pressure to create "something good" because most of it will be covered up and transformed anyway.
At the end of the evening I had some leftover paint and so I touched on a couple of the small oil paintings which have been in progress for about 15 months now.
You know that thing that can happen when you're tired and you've been working all day and then, at the end, you do something almost in a dream state and it jumps over into another path of perception. And then you love the work you did just there, not because the work itself is great (it usually isn't) but because some part of it contains a record of a discovery.
And then, exhausted, I slept and dreamt poems where it didn't matter whether or not I knew in which direction the stream was flowing.
Here in Calgary today will be 12 seconds longer than yesterday. By December 31st the day will be just over a minute longer than today.
Happy Solstice, dear Reader!
