Over a period of ten years, 1983 to 1993, i regularly contributed illustrations, magazine cover drawings, posters, bumper sticker and T shirt designs etc. for Earthwatch, a local grassroots environmental organisation no longer in existence.
Few who know me or the work on this blog will be aware i've done a lifetime of other artwork besides paintings. Sustaining the flow of the current blog posts over five years there have been quite naturally and continue to be periods of what's called 'artist's block'. Though that's always been the case and the same applies to the writing.
While i may or may not appear to be prolific i have always been familiar with the diversity of concepts and forms of what constitutes a painting. Yet such multifaceted possibilities regularly produce an impasse where it's not apparent how to proceed and that's an understatement.
It just feels more amplified from a lifetime of exploring different approaches and since posting regularly online. Especially from having an overview from looking at thousands of paintings you can get the impression that everything imaginable is and has been already explored by someone somewhere.
Even though creativity in and for itself is in no way related to competitiveness which is merely comparative, inhibiting playfulness. Due to the commercialization of art and its competitive materialism it can seem dauntingly so.
Along with the exponential advance of sophisticated computer generated imagery and technology in all areas of life, where there is a gain there is also the possibility of an imbalance in favour of progressive dominance by artificial intelligence over all that is intrinsically sacred. A trend we are persuaded to embrace without question, in itself a cause for wise circumspection of possible motive.
A slight digression on the theme of the creative urge to flow and share encountering a paradoxical anomaly. For now i'm posting a select few from a huge body of previous graphic work. Just for the record here's a handful of the few drawings that remain and but for a co-worker who salvaged them long after the event i would have no record at all. Some published book illustrations may follow. While i puzzle over how to express in paint and colour and the conundrum of how the barely conceivable but universally longed for is quite naturally seemingly beyond the means to express. ~
More Earthwatch drawings continued in another post.
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Martin Rainbowmaker
