Day forty-two of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
Frankly, yesterday felt shite.
Today is not feeling much better so far because I'm still awake from yesterday.
What I'd do right now for just one week without some drama, some stress, some misunderstanding, and just an "easy ride". One week in which I felt like the cake in my hands won't explode in my face at any minute.
Yesterday I chose to sketch Henry Moore's The Arch from a photo I took on a walk with my friend, Phil, in 2018. Just because it seemed straightforward-ish, and it was. Thankfully.
Apart from knowing it stands in Kensington Gardens because I photographed it there in 2018, I didn't really know much about it until I Googled it just now.
As often happens for me, the choice was at least somewhat synchronistic.
Moore commented:
One of the things I would like to think my sculpture has is a force, is a strength, is a life, a vitality from inside it, so that you have the sense that the form is pressing from inside trying to burst or trying to give off the strength from inside itself...
This quote fits how I think about myself and many other artists I know. A force. A strength. A vitality coming from inside and pressing, fit to burst.
So when that vitality and strength feels like it's being held down, there's a struggle. There's a disconnect. I do not feel myself.
I've had to compartmentalise so much of myself over the decades. Through work, relationships, family, friends, social media. That I now actively rebel against that and struggle with being asked to do it, even if I understand the reasons and, ultimately, respect requests to do so.
Henry Moore goes on to say:
This is, perhaps, what makes me interested in bones as much as in flesh because the bone is the inner structure of all living form.
This compartmentalisation feels like chipping away at bones. Breaking and weakening my foundations. Foundations that take time to repair. To strengthen. So I will resist. Even if, ultimately, I break.
I sketched the sculpture in 4H then went over the outline with an HB pencil.