Carol Peace

Whether to paint mountains. 2017

6th February 2017

The writing seems to be in a poem form but I am not trying to be a poet here. It’s just as it comes, in part shaped by the space at the edge of the paper. So in typing it out I have kept it similar, thats all. Some of it makes me cringe when I see it and my naive and basic understandings. It takes me a while to catch on*.  Most of it shouldn’t be shared but I have such a terrible memory and my mind scatters about so it gives me structure to have it written down, formalised.

A4 Drawing Scan 36a –  Wether to paint mountains  – Later hands

A figure has certain rules.
A mountain not, its
haphazard.

A4 Drawing Scan 38 – Wether to paint mountains – foot drawings x2

This is not a casual discussion
these are not casual concerns.
It’s not about blackcurrant or damson.
It’s not a decision about toast
or the everyday.

These decisions are
worried, picked at.
They are buried by work but surface
given the tiniest of light.

A fracture, a glint
and they bubble ferociously.

They worry.

Niggle.

Is a valley more exciting than an instep?

A person,
a toe is specific
but there are rules.
It’s not just random shale
and fallen boulders.

I ache as I watch light
glide over a mountain.
Is it the light and the mountain,
or is it the feeling of the light
on the mountain?

My god this person is alive
and so true is it
that this person will
once not be.

Maybe that’s
the difference

The mountain will stay.
Its different everyday
but it will stay.

This foot will not.

So inevitably its about death…. of course.

Thats why its beautiful.
Thats why it makes you cry with the confusion.

A4 Drawing Scan 44 – Wether to paint mountains

Today I have found
a mountain in a foot
a rock in a hand
a valley’s flank
in a thigh.

A4 Drawing Scan 47 – Wether to paint mountains

So if it’s about showing people beauty.*
if they won’t see it line then maybe try colour.

deep maroon base, yellow bright red

*Edgar Degas

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

*Dolly Parton

I’m a little bit slow to catch on

But when I do, I’m caught on