Dear Readers,
How are we? It has been a while. I ain’t seen you for time, as they say in these parts. Do you like that expression? I do. I have that odd fascination with time and local ways of saying often-said things so I like that expression very much.
It’s November. In the two months or so since I last wrote to you a lot of rain has fallen. We’ve broken everything, and we have to put things back together slowly, with each other, and by small degrees. My friend Thom wrote very well about this very thing today — go and read what he has to say.
I haven’t been in touch because I have been writing other things. I still love you, I just found myself elsewhere with the words. I’m part of the Hastings Writers’ Group now, a group that was founded seventy-five years ago by Catherine Cookson and some other people whose names I will learn. We meet every two weeks and share what we’ve written. There are writing prompts, and we respond. The second-to-last one was to write a short story where the weather influenced the plot and the story that I wrote was deemed the best story. I don’t know what that means, if it means anything, but it felt good to know that what I wrote made someone feel something. Not that writing or creating something needs a reason for coming into being, as The Muse will remind us — you do it because it’s in you to do it. You gotta allow it.
We do this thing at work from time to time where we invite tyro illustrators in and look at their work and answer their questions. It’s a curious exercise. Some artists throw it out, make and mark and draw and pull things out of somewhere deep and raw and wild and essential and undeniable and irresistible and some artists don’t. I don’t know where I fall. We did it today, and today’s eager crew were prolific, keen and questioning. We had a good time I think, and we’ll speak with many of them again.
So, it’s late. I’m on a train home and this little missive might find itself a quick wrap-up. You might be able to guess at what’s coming next.
We talk about ‘voice’ and ‘personality’ a lot when we’re talking about pictures. It’s easier to couch things in a kind of allegorical way – describing it in terms of something else - that trying to explain it directly. It’s a difficult thing to describe a picture using words – a ridiculous thing to attempt, really. So we talk about how it makes us feel, as best we can.
Anyway, the pictures that resonated with us the most today, or any time – the ones whose energy adds to our energy – those are the ‘best’. You can feel it. And the pictures that resonate are the ones whose artists are closest to them. With practice, you can create any picture. Or anything. Or if you love something enough you can pour more and more energy into it and then describe it beyond words. And the things that are an expression of what you want to say speak strongest. I need to think about that. Adios, amigas y amigos. Enjoy the rain.
Yours sincerely,
Paul