So following on from the last one... I suddenly realised it was quite ironic me being all cynical about the elevation of obsession as an arbiter of value, because my work, and my arting mind, is pretty consistently obsessive. Even if I'm not 100% obsessive in life as far as it exists outside of art, I positively nurture my obsessions, and nurture a mindset of obsessiveness in the very fibre of my scribbling and daubing.

Of frenzied mapping and groping...

And my other thought was that of course secular art culture elevates obsession, because in the absence of absolute values and absolute truth you're kind of left with your own whims, and obsessions are like the strongest kind of whims. The kind of whims that compell one to plough a sort of blinkered furrow, and temporarily restrain one from becoming too fickle and flitting to the next thing. Disconcertingly, worringly, chaotically flitting. Obsessions at least create their own kind of discipline, their own kind of order, for a while. A false absolute to cling onto? Or just a route to something real... I've clung to the latter theory...

And I think I've thought things through enough to make my natural obsessing not conflict with perennial strivings for truth beauty and goodness. I think I almost try to achieve these things by 'feel'... maybe more on this later...

But I got this message on myspace which made me wonder (I hope the sender doesn't mind my reproducing it):

'Absolutely fantastic, inspired...

...art work, Chloe.

When I've completed my book, I'll be hoping you'll agree to illustrate it.

Your art is reminiscent of the best I've ever seen - i.e. Kafka's 'The Trial'.

Those illustrations exude pure psychological terror and isolation. As all good art should! As yours does.

I'm glad for the add...'

I was obviously pleased to receive such high praise from a clearly thoughtful chap. In fact I woulnd't try to deny the truth of his observations, that my work may sometimes have those properties, of 'terror and isolation'. That's the problem. I believe him, that's why this actually makes me concerned about myself and about the habits of my imagination. It makes me concerned simply that I've forced myself into too claustrophobic a space, mentally and perhaps physically. Even the 'pure psychological' bit could be bothersome. I don't want it to be just my frenzied mind reflecting off its own insides. Yuck! I hope I am connected to something more spacious. Or at least that I will be.

Perhaps I don't mind that my art conveys these things, if they count as honest and true, a true reflection of something in me that reflects and is read as something universal and humane. And if I have managed to reflect those things in a specific way that could only have found a voice through my shapes. That's OK. But do I wish to be so isolated, if this is true?

And then I had some more thoughts about the nature of the 'life' I'm aiming for in my pictures while watching the end of the Andrew Graham Dixon programme on BBC4 about medieval churches and the Reformation. It was mentioned that even when the protestant image destroyers didn't destroy an image completely, they would at least remove the face, and prioritise the 'blinding' of the eyes. Because it was almost like those images did have their own life and their own power, which is why they seemed such a threat. And it made me think about my recent images and my recent attraction to the idea of carving gargoyles. Of making something with peculiar life. Sometimes I wonder of this life is a little too peculiar. A little inverted, a little demonic.

As I alluded to before with talk of 'feel' and 'mapping' and 'groping'.... I've become aware lately that my drawings have become a lot about touch. They've come closer and closer to being like a process of carving form, through drawing. It's like moving my fingers across a surface as it gradually takes form and all the little facets become increasingly subtle and eventually they sort of.... enmesh. But is this touch-heavy touch-seeing process a little bit like the drawing of a blind person?

Is it like missing the big picture?

Sometimes I yearn for a certain kind of LIGHT...

I suppose.. line drawings are more about form and oil painting is more about light, so maybe I'm asking too much... but I... think I know what I mean... I don't want to be a fungus.

I would rather be a desert flower.

I mean I expect naturally be a sort of quiet English flower that thrives in the damp and shade, but I'd like to at least aspire to be a desert plant of some kind, because I love their manly and way out shapes so much. And I have more urges to bask in the sun than I used to, despite the fact I'm not built for it.

It'll be good to draw on some bigger paper, once I've got past this week's draftswoman's block. My constant A4-ing must make me quite restrained... it's almost like as long as it's still on A4, it's still an idea, a proposition, a doodle, but once it's bigger, it's staking a claim on worldly existence.

I don't think I'm proposing ditching the gropey touchy drawings exactly. I think this must be one of those writing to enhance self awareness jobs. Once gropey touchey drawing is defined as a thing, I can be more aware of when I'm falling into it unthinkingly.

And I can try to make a version of it that bends towards the sun, and tries to be beautiful.

I guess it's a matter of seeing the big macro picture and not getting too het up with all the micro mechanics, I'm not in the lab, I ought to maintain some vision.

It may also be to do with sacrificing some control, sacrificing the idea of drawing in order to gain control, and letting stuff happen more.

****

I've become aware since trying to draw to a unifying concept rather than letting things 'grow' based on preferred reference material of the day/ meditations on nature's visual fruit... Well I've come to see that it is a sort of connection to the actual specific actuality of a subject that often excites me, and creates viable grooves. Not an imposed order. Another way of putting it might be that I often make myself fall in love with my subjects, and I don't necessarily mean fully full blown in love, but some kind of mechanism that's related, or a single dimension of in loveness. Either I choose subjects I've already fallen for, or the very process makes me feel more intimately and positively connected to them. And I have become used to the idea that this connection gives the things I do a little more depth, a sort of interest in penetrating the truth of a subject that's more than just mild interest or quasi-scientific prodding. And this has left me a little befuddled, because...

Well I'm not sure I want to be in love with all my subjects, especially when they're men, it makes things a bit sticky. It's slightly creepy, or spooky or something. Another problem is I'm not sure... I'm not obsessed with anything really specific right now, so there's a lot of dithering going on. I never know who to cling to when the rain sets in. And obviously I didn't plan to start the Jerwood project from this 'meditating on my loves' position, I wanted to do something more calculated, or more directed. But... I like nature, I defer to nature. Including loves, including light. What the heck are my 'ideas' in the face of it.

Maybe I should do like Turner and love mainly the Sun.