“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”
Andy Warhol said this once. I don’t know when. It’s one of those quotes that float about the internet with no fixed origin, but it floated into my world this week and it seemed aptly timed.
I stopped painting about 15 years ago. Attempted a restart in 2015-ish but it never took. Then about two or so years ago I started feeling the pull towards colour again. I just wanted to push it around on a piece of white and connect with it in that strange non-verbal, spiritual dialogue that starts with your eyeballs and feeds your soul.
Naturally, I did nothing about it.
Luckily, publishing The Fulcrum brought me to a kind of vomit-inducing, soul-crushing creative crisis that brought me in turn to The Artist’s Way, and so now here we are: my first painting completed in many, many years and certainly the first painting like it I’ve ever done.
When Insta was still groovy and I was seeing a lot work from makers and painters, I found this 2017 image on PieceWithArtist magazine’s account by photographer Alan Fentiman of printmaker Julian Meredith.
There was something about the light and the blues and browns that just did my head in and I was moved to paint it. Or to try to. I saw the picture in 2021 by the way. Printed it out last year. Only started painting it a few weeks ago.
It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.
Turns out, there’s a real overlap in painting and writing. Both must be undertaken from a core of true desire, both rely on listening, both need solitude, both need trust, both engage the creative spirit that is both intimately ours and wholly universal.
I’m not sure what is to become of this waiting time, but I’m in deep gratitude for the space I’m being given to move deeper into my own creative landscape.
Which brings me to some updates!
The Fulcrum has gone through a final round of edits and a reprint to prepare it for some US competitions I’m entering. While I have a lot of faith in the story and its production, the primary aim of this is less about winning and simply about having legitimate US addresses to send actual copies to.
I guess it’s more an intention-setting device than anything else. Every little bit helps when the bulk of your hoped-for readership is sitting so far away and you don’t have the weight of a trad publishing house to back you up.
And then: I’ll be at the inaugural Helderberg Book Festival’s Fringe Fireside Chats on 13 August. It’s a festival for local indie authors and I’m hoping it gets some real legs because the more platforms supporting indie authors the better. I’ll also be at Tokai Library next month for one of their Author Talks, and there’s a short UCT course on self-publishing in the pipeline for next year.
If you’re in Cape Town, here’s the link to the tickets.
With The Fulcrum now truly done and dusted (although, a sequel is percolating!), I can finally get back to my novella which has been simmering for a few months now. I’m hoping to be done with this shortly-ish since I don’t have the appetite for another seven-year stint … although, you really can’t tell when you’re done with a story until it’s done with you. So here’s holding thumbs.
Love and light, fellow weirdos.
t
x
*PS, I’ll use this opportunity to point out that Men in Black 3 is a brilliant film and this scene with Bill Hader as Warhol is perfect.