Brushes, photo, mirror.

brushes, photo, mirror. Oil on canvas 20"x16"

A painting completed from life in one sitting. Its a kind of self portrait but not the conventional type. I didn't want to paint my face alone,  because those paintings seem to say "This is how I look". I wanted to say "This is who I am"

To this end I've included the tools of my trade (brushes), a family photo and a small mirror. The brushes are used by me on a daily basis. I grow to like them and start using my favourites more often than the others. I form a relationship with them. I wear them down in a characteristic way- not just the bristles the stock too. They become an extension of my body, I don't notice that I'm holding them. When they are worn out I'm reluctant to change them and I certainly can't throw them away. So they sit there in glass jars. They were once part of who I am.

The photo is of me and my family on holiday in France in 1958. I can remember posing for the photo and the holiday vividly. We (my two brothers, Mam and Dad) were flown from a big,dirty, cold industrial city in the north of England and a couple of hours later landed in a warm, sweet smelling, funny sounding, French, sea-side town. The light was blinding, the heat was stifling, we were dressed in our best clothes - all the time! We had been bought Silvine sketchbooks. (you can just make them out on our knees). The sun was heating the covers of the books and making a smell that I remember still. I drew incessantly because the light made everything more vibrant and colourful. I became an artist then - I never stopped drawing. I learned as I studied art that Picasso had probably been there, at the same time - just round the corner with his wife and mistress.

The mirror holds a physical reflection of  my face as I'm working. They also have a totemic value for me, in that they are one of the three things in life that produce images - lenses, mirrors, humans.