Parting with Ones Art

Anyone who knows me knows how I annoyed they should be of me because I just about hate anything that is done by my hand. We'll leave that up to those equally annoying people we call psychologists. But, there are exceptions. There is one, anyway. I did the drawing you will see below when I was in my late twenties and I remember it feeling right even at the time. At the risk of sounding too sulky and artistically sullen, this is quite the rarity for me. I'm a man who has put the boot through many a painting in my time and has torn to shred undeserving drawings at the drop of a sharpened piece of red chalk.
I do like this one. This might not be for reasons you and I agree with, however. I was happy to have captured that very elusive more than three quarter pose. This is a rather technical and, therefore, banal detail. I ought to like it for more than this but these are the rather banal things I see and, therefore, admire, or not. But, sometimes the mechanics of a drawing is what the creator of it becomes more bedazzled with than any of the more qualitative stuff. I found many artists, no matter how soulful, or how desiring of a narrative, often preoccupy themselves the many mechanical aspects of creation. May be this is why the artist might give up the rest (essence, feel, meaning, etc) to others.  The act of working on something that requires problem solving and a more logical part of the brain can often take precedence over anything like 'feeling.' True analysis is seemingly 'subcontracted' out. A work of art---ones own---is often a child one loved, and hated, and certainly laboured over for hopefuly all the right reasons but has now been given over to others and now it is they that will make the decisions as to what is right for her. I gave this one up in this way but I also literally gave it up as well.

I wouldn't even feign in any form or fashion to compare myself to Michelangelo but, it may be worth conveying a wonderful description of the great artists living conditions. It was described that he had a first floor stall for his horses and above that, on the second floor, he kept his own house. When some nephew or other made a visit to the notoriously cranky sculptor, he remarked (documented) that the famous artist lived a very sparse domesticated existence. This included the artwork on the walls. This nephew said that on entering the great artist's abode, he was struck that there was but one single drawing, a hanging Christ on the wall, hanging itself, by a single, unexceptional nail. Contrast this with the man who gave us the Sistine Ceiling.
Since then, and because of this, I've often ruminated on the thought that when I'm frail and bedridden, and unworthy of even an argument, they might find this drawing tacked to the wall. I don't ask for much. As mentioned, it's one of the few of mine I feigned to like. Anyway, that's impossible now as it's somewhere in Europe. It is the only one I liked. That's ok.  I'll draw another one.

Red chalk on Newsprint