{"id":11631,"date":"2023-12-27T15:31:36","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T15:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ian-latham.com\/blog\/?p=11631"},"modified":"2023-12-27T15:42:55","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T15:42:55","slug":"reason-vs-motivation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ian-latham.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/27\/reason-vs-motivation\/","title":{"rendered":"Reason vs Motivation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reason vs Motivation<\/span><\/p>\n

Another New Studio<\/span><\/p>\n

On the Open weekend I had twenty visitors on the Saturday and two on the Sunday, I can’t complain because I sold a painting.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve called this post Reason vs Motivation as a step towards an explanation of my current practice. When I was talking to people at the open studio the film elicited some comments about its elegiac quality, which tied into my thinking through Eliot’s ‘deception of the Thrush’<\/a>. Given that gardens in Christian thought are always the garden of Eden and consequently serve as a metaphor for the loss of innocence, the reference to my own garden uses it as trigger for the desire to reclaim something lost. The something lost is lost “in” innocence rather than being innocence. The problem with the past is that memory and nostalgia render it different to the degree that what you desire from the past isn’t what it was in the past, and the suggestion that it can be reclaimed is doubly erroneous as you yourself are the major difference that prevents its return. This is of course entirely obvious and is not the reason that the work is made but is probably the motivation for it being made. I’m still trying to articulate this properly and perhaps that’s the wrong thing to do as nothing kills creation for me quicker than having a reason to do it. I think it becomes contingent when it has that kind of rationale attached. It has to remain poetry rather than prose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the open studio I carried on with the drawing of the photograph made by Jamie Bubb<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Reason

jb-flowers one<\/p><\/div>\n

Making the image darker and darker.<\/span><\/p>\n

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jb_flowers one<\/p><\/div>\n

This was the state of play on the 7th<\/sup> December, and started another drawing from the same source.<\/span><\/p>\n

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jb_flowers two<\/p><\/div>\n

This was the second drawing on the 7th<\/sup> December.<\/span><\/p>\n

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jb_flowers two<\/p><\/div>\n

And this is it on the 8th<\/sup> December.<\/span><\/p>\n

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jb_flowers one<\/p><\/div>\n

The first drawing was darkened considerably by the 11th<\/sup>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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jb_flowers two<\/p><\/div>\n

More detailed was added to the second drawing by the 11th<\/sup>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Reason

three trees sculpture 15th December<\/p><\/div>\n

On the 15th<\/sup> December I returned to the big sculpture and added white paint. Initially I’d thought of painting spots where I wanted to piece holes but when I started I decided that I should just paint the gaps between branches, or an idea of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

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pigeon<\/p><\/div>\n

As I waiting for that to dry I drew a pigeon.<\/span><\/p>\n