This week I wanted time at home to process what I am experiencing at the Chapel. Due to the impracticality of transporting flat soggy large scale watercolours in a mini, I find I cannot paint in the Chapel. It has been suggested that I leave the work to dry in situ, but with filming and other events taking place in the building, not to mention the inevitable paw prints of Target, the estate dog, that too is not an option. So home it is.
A couple of weeks ago I sat silently in the Chapel for half an hour, listening to and absorbing the building, its history, its occupants, the conversations witnessed. Other than meditating, the conscious mind was not aware of anything. No ghosts, nothing. Many years ago in Chicago, I encountered what I believe was a ghost. I had no such feeling here.
Working with the unconscious requires a certain amount of faith in the process. As the hotel owner in the Marigold Hotel said ‘It will be alright in the. If it isn’t alright then it isn’t the end.’
My process requires many layers of paint, applied over many days or weeks. I have no specific image in mind but respond intuitively to the mark making in front of me, allowing the unconscious to influence direction. I work on 5 or 6 paintings at a time, each at various stages of development. In this way I am neither precious nor bored, just curious, and often disappointed. I rarely abandon, reworking until the work speaks to me or is repurposed.
During such a session this week this image appeared.
This is still a work in progress but I have titled it Conversations with Ghosts. They were present in the Chapel all the time, I just couldn’t see them consciously!
susanmilleruk 