Tagged!

Thanks to VallyP, I am about to transcribe the fifth, sixth and seventh sentences from page 123 of the book nearest to hand when I read her latest blog entry just now. (I wonder what would have happened if the nearest book had fewer than 123 pages? Fortunately, my Andy Pandy annuals were well out of reach).

So here we are: mine is a long out-of print book, which was on the computer desk because I was checking the publisher so we could search for more copies on e-Bay. It's a book my father Ronald Millar wrote in 1975, called "Civilized Magic - An Interpretive Guide to Australian Painting."

(Clears throat, deep breath, fingers ready ...)

"This gesture, this unrepeatable magic moment, is often seen as the most basic of all elements of painting. Whole schemes and schools of art have been based on this premise, notably the American abstract expressionists of the nineteen forties and fifties, but also some surrealists who wanted an uninhibited flow, a trance-like creativity that exposed the innermost images of the artist without any formal or technical hindrance.

The action of the moment, the actual event and adventure of attacking a blank surface, an encounter between the painter and the marks he makes ... all this suggests that the canvas is an arena where the artist mourns or celebrates as nakedly as possible his experiences and feelings, the private statements becoming public the moment he puts them down."

So what have I learnt from the experience? Two things; firstly that I still like listening to Dad on the subject of art, and secondly that I hate typing from copy. Think I'll stop typing at all now and give him a call.

Thanks for the tag Val!

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