The creative journey never arrives at its destination
but it will take you somewhere far more interesting
Hello friends
By the time this post goes out I will be on a boat.
Not a Life Boat (at least I hope not!) but a ferry to be precise, crossing the Pentland Firth between Orkney and Mainland Scotland. It’s the first leg of the trip down to attend the opening of the exhibition ‘In Orcadia’ at the Royal Scottish Academy, that has been the focus of my studio time this past year.
After that comes the long drive down to Edinburgh, in the company of fellow exhibitor and good friend Anne Bevan, who will also be showing her new work. We’ll pass the journey with conversation, music, snacks, and a few pit stops as we cross the Highlands, so although it’s a good 6-7 hour drive I’m sure it will pass easily enough.
But this is just the last little step in a long creative journey making the new paintings I’ll be showing. I shared a while ago about the particularly long and turtuous journey the painting above, the one I named ‘Voyager,’ took me on. Since then it has gone through more twists and turns before it seemed to arrive at some kind of resolution.
I started this piece back in November 2023. It looked like this…
Maybe I should have just stopped there. But, never one for an easy win, I did not stop there. Reader, I went on…
And on.
By around December/January it looked like this…
And then, thinking it needed a ‘lift,’ I added some more metal leaf, in little raised dots. I rather like this stage now, looking back, but it made me cringe at the time. I sanded off some areas, overpainted others and kept going…
…until it got to this stage by the end of January 2024, after three months’ work.
I liked bits of it. They made me think of nebulae and swirling galaxies, as much as the breaking waves that had originally inspired it. That’s when it got its title: Voyager, a space craft that never arrives, but just keeps heading further and further out into the unknown.
But somehow the painting as a whole hadn’t yet ‘gelled’. I didn’t know what to do with it. To tell the truth I was a bit sick of the sight of it. So I put it away for a while. I worked on lots of other paintings, most of which did not give me nearly so much trouble. I put Voyager out of my mind. Maybe it was just a dead loss.
But later in the year I began to wake up in the early mornings thinking about it. Voyager was niggling at me again. I’d see things that gave me ideas for it. Things in the world around me. Other paintings. I showed it to artist friends and shared my thoughts and doubts. They shared their responses to it.
And then one day I was perfectly clear what it needed. A couple more days of work and it was done.
Voyager is a painting that has several other paintings buried beneath its surface, not to mention the other paintings it might have become had I made different choices, paintings that might well have been better ones. I’ll never know.
The Voyager One space probe, launched way back in 1977, recently managed to connect with NASA to send a message home from 15 billion miles away - the farthest any human-made object has ever travelled.
My painting is framed now, ready to hang on a gallery wall and share with others, so in one sense it’s finished, or at least my part in its story is done. For me, it will always be a painting that maps its own journey and forms part of my own.
This is how it is. The creative ‘journey’ is never about arriving somewhere. It only leads to new curiosities, new questions. Like the little Voyager space probe, it just keeps on going.
Here’s the four big panels setting off on their journey to Edinburgh a week or two ahead of me, disappearing down our muddy track on their way to the ferry. Next time I see them they’ll be on the walls of the Royal Scottish Academy.
The physical preiview is now fully booked out, but if you would like access to the online preview as soon as it opens on Thursday 23rd you can RSVP to ensure you get the link at 5pm:
The Life Raft Co-Working Session
There won’t be a Life Raft Co-Working Session today as I’m on the road. Paid subscribers can access last week’s recording in the subscriber chat. I hope to see you next Wednesday on the Zoom. For those of you who can make it, we are having a Life Rafter meet-up IN REAL LIFE! Meet in Upper Gallery VII of the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh at 12 noon. Drop me a message if you plan to come so I have an idea who’s coming!
That’s all for now!
Sam
Read an earlier episode in this story…
The cringe stage
I’ve been working on a painting, in fits and starts, for a couple of months now. I had a push on last week to finish it. Indeed I was working on it during last week’s Zoom Co-Working Session on Wednesday so it might look familiar if you joined us.
Above all else, enjoy yourself is my wish for you in these days of journey and exhibition. You well deserve it for such a glorious work, and all the glorious work it took you to do it.
Wishing you all the best of success and memorable responses to your paintings. I have been absorbed in al the magical mark making that you have mastered that paints a transcendent experince of water.