I Painted Silence

A Sunday essay about an honest attempt

I was always terrible at art, a complete inability to draw; to paint. I wanted to do it but had no facility. Maybe that’s why I turned, rather quickly, to words. Joni Mitchell describes songwriting as painting — with words and music. And I like the idea that everyone is an artist, has some ability to make art of some variety. In the end it’s the making that matters, the idea that you’re doing something.

As a kid I gave up on art almost as quickly as it seemed to give up on me.

I occassionally wished for more ability or some technique, but it never upset me or hindered me. I took to the typewriter and beat those keys like they owed me money.

I still do.

And they still do.

But about 20 years ago I started trying to paint, and make, and I glued CDs to a board after frying them in the microwave and painting extra cracks onto the background. I sprayed wood-backing silver and scratched designs into it. I painted things black and then used the back end of the brush to scribble-pattern a design into the paint. I wasn’t ever particularly happy with the outcome, but I was very happy doing it. And realised that was all that mattered.

I wrote a couple of catalogue essays for a friend — a very talented artist. And I think on some level just having a go at this very freeing art was my way of connecting with what he did, and appreciating it on some extra level, before trying to write about it.

In my mind, I had gone through the process. I understood on a primitive level some of the time involved, physically — the toll it took on a body, the thinking, the acting.

A few years on, when I gave up drinking, I started making these intense scribbles with pastels and pens. I didn’t know it at first, but eventually I realised this was my replacement for having a glass of scotch by the couch while I watched a film or listened to an album.

Some of these scribbles are okay. I photographed them and shared them about. Some people said nice enough things. I don’t think anyone thought they were great. And I didn’t need that. But there was encouragement. Even a couple of offers to buy them — which of course I was flattered by and promptly gave away the pictures; would have been churlish to put a price on them.

But the one painting that hangs in my house that comes from my hand is a tribute to John Cage.

It’s a small white square, and painted into the corner is 4’33” — after his famous composition where he notated silence, and demanded a pianist (or orchestra) ‘perform’ it by following the score, timing it exactly, and allowing for the murmur of the moment and any other imperfections to create a unique version. There are recordings of 4’33” that vary, a cough here, head scratches and other noises there. The lifting of the lid on the piano, or the slamming down of it at the end. The awkwardness of the audience adjusting themselves to and in the silence.

My painting in tribute could have just been the white square out of the box but instead I layered white paint over it, not particularly textured, but if you look closely you can see it has been painted. White on white. And with 20 years on a wall it has some dust and marks.

I painted silence.

My friend, the artist, once told me that this was as pure as I got with my attempts at painting. I stripped everything back to its very essence.

I did not need that validation.

But everyone needs some validation sometimes.

I think about that, the mere gesture of him saying it, now and then. In the silence.