Virtual Vernissage

Painting with words has always been the ambition for my verse. Poetry in colour the aspiration for my pictures. It's good to have goals and guidelines in one's artistic endeavours, although of course one mustn't become a slave to them. But direction of some sort has to be better than utter aimlessness, and direction is something I'm forever searching for. Direction is one of the reasons for starting this artistic and poetic diary.

This 'virtual vernissage' takes place the day after the 'finissage', as the French say, for the last day of an exhibition, or 'art market' I should say.

It was one I had to pay to take part in, at the Bastille in Paris. It was the first time I'd participated in such an event and I didn't sell anything but had encouraging comments, often including or consisting of the word 'original'. I think 'original' is one of the best compliments I could receive.

The weather was poor, and my 'presence' on the stand was worse, and this blog is in part to investigate the reasons for this. I need to understand what happened and get it out of my system and move on. And there's nothing like blog posting for feeling like I'm moving on, in my experience.

I've also decided to try combining my two, as of present, purely frivolous activities in one blog: namely, painting and poetry. There's very little chance of earning a living from either of them for the time being and yet something tells me they are among the most important things I'm doing at the moment. For this reason I need to push on, and sharing, as is often the case, is probably the best way for now.

So the idea is to share and discuss my creative artistic and poetic processes, successes and 'things to learn from' here on the revamped Abstract Mystic blog, which used to be exclusively dedicated to my art.

If my ramblings here strike a chord with others then they will have served an additional and hopefully useful purpose although I don't pretend that will necessarily be the case.

My main aim in the end is to humbly but publicly play around with my images, words and associated wonderings in the hope of advancing my efforts and possibly inspiring others to do the same with theirs. Comments are, as always, welcome.