Page 11 - Essay Awakenings Reloaded by Paul McCloskey
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open he was to inspiration or divine influence, how open was I to the creative
               process, of allowing, in the making of my work? This is the ongoing question

               that perhaps takes a lifetime to fully answer and for me painting is a lifetime
               pursuit. The great English painter Howard Hodgkin makes reference to this in
               his letter  to John Elderfield,  ‘one is continually making the kind  of value
               judgements’ asking the same old questions: is this picture better than that one?

               Why? Is it more expressive? Is it of better quality? And of course the best is the
               enemy of the good, etc. (1995, p.217)


                                     John I. H. Bauer says, in ‘Nature and abstraction’ ‘I think the only
               pressing question in painting is: When are you through? For my own part it is
               when I know I’ve ‘come out the other side.’ This occasional and sudden

               awareness is the truest image  for me.  The clockwise path of this recognition
               suppresses a sense of victory; it is an ironic encounter and more of a mirror than
               a picture.’ (1958, p.18). This is one of the crucial questions I have asked myself
               over the past twenty five years as a painter and it is truly difficult to answer,

               however a point comes when I know I have to let go or perhaps if has let me
               go? a catharsis has taken place and released me from that particular work, until

               the next one, this is when I become an observer to its creation, that is probably
               one of  the  most compelling desires  for  me as  a painter,  is  to witness  it  as a
               creation.
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