The last week has been back-breaking, boring, tedious labour - building stretchers, stretching canvas, gessoing coat after coat. I'm exhausted. But seeing the large white stretched canvases begin to multiply and crowd my space, I am beginning to envision the paintings that will come. It has got me thinking of paint again, the physical act of painting. My three go-to guys when I get in this mood is Velasquez, de Kooning, and Bacon. This week, I came across a great essay about Bacon and his "quest to capture and convey a sensual memory experience". Paint, not just the image, was essential in his pursuit. I can't get his words out of my head:

"Real imagination is technical imagination. It is the ways you think up to bring an event to life again. It is the search for the technique to trap an object at a given moment. Then the technique and object become inseparable. The object is the technique and the technique is the object. Art lies in the continual struggle to come near the sensory side of the objects."