Everything I ever meant to say

I don't want to tell you about the hum drum of my studio life or how many paintings I have or have not completed or how much I have cleaned this week. By the way, I did hoover the place this morning and I ate soup in my makeshift studio luncheonette for the second day in a row. And I am sure that the cafe at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall actually puts love into their soup and because of this, it is the best soup in all of Edinburgh or certainly Leith.

What I want to write about is the flicker at my finger tips and the spark at the back of my brain that always comes from an upheaval or dissatisfaction and then is channeled into the dream world that I like best. You don't have to understand this or make sense of it. All I know is that when this place inside switches on, I am able to see things more clearly and honestly. I love the vulnerability and art that comes from this place. I love the nest building and escaping involved. A perfect storm makes the perfect nest of desperate creativity.

I know when I am approaching this place. I might be on the verge of tears, I might be more ridiculous than usual and the music might seem even sweeter. My self-censorship shield is delightfully lowered.

Francis Bacon once said, "The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery" and I agree. I think it is also our job to follow and cultivate the mystery- to simply allow the mystery.

At times, I have overlooked the mystery, been afraid of it and wanted so much for it to go away so I could be "normal." I have tried my whole life to fit into social groups, social norms, social expectations, relationships, and jobs. I don't ever fit into those very well or for very long and damn if I haven't tried.

So at 45, yet again I surrender to the mystery. I surrender to found furniture that always finds me on the streets and perfect bowls of soup. I surrender to the person that finds my work and gloriously understands it the first moment they see it. I surrender to the perfect song on repeat and the best tube of Payne's grey and the way paper gets so yellow and brittle and the wonderful sound it makes and how I like dirty, broken down art. I surrender to being alone as I experience these things and that you will never know the feeling in my brain when it fires that sweet spark.

Everything I ever meant to say. Ten new works on paper.