14 Aug Scroll

Energy levels cycle and shift. The little works feel claustrophobic and too small. A large roll of watercolour paper has sat in the corner of my loungeroom, facing the tree, since I had to empty my studio space. My first work this year have been cut from it but it is still substantial and takes wrestling to physically manoeuvre it into place on the wall. Once its up I cover its whole length, brushstrokes huddled in my changing eye heights, drips at my toes, as I unroll it and repin it to the wall. It becomes a physical trace, an index of me. Of where I stand on the ground and where I see at my eye level, where my hands reach and how they move across the canvas. There are finger prints and palm prints. Ticking marks across my vision and ink that puddles outside of my perception, away from my notice.

I fold the paper over on itself and it prints the painted marks into Rorschach blots of indiscriminate colour and shade. The paper finishes before I want it to and I’m annoyed that I started the other works, cut away part of the roll. I’ll bring them back into the studio, The landscapes of these other places were outside my reach while I sat with the tree but they’re back and possible now.