To Whom It May Concern

I Had An Idea:

To create a painting, in the spirit of ().

Painting Description.

I would begin on a ()() x ()() stretched canvas.

I would layer this with () coats of () which would be hand sanded between each successive layer.

The finish would be () and () to the touch.

I would start the first layer of () () Colour as a base coat before adding () which I would have () from (). This process would take some time to position and () to a ().

I would then begin to paint () in and around the (). Building up a (), that I would then layer () () paint over.

The fine painting of () would require many weeks in order to () the ().

Every () of the surface would be () and the (), would be very () and () to today’s () ().   

Hopefully whilst creating the piece I too would have reached a () about () and can feel that I have () a () that will () () some () () to the ().

The final () will be () and consist of two () of () although some areas will still be () and () () so that the (), and () contrast () () ().

The finished painting would be () and a thing that () () (), but that is of little consequence.

Hanging Instructions

The painting would be titled ().

I would choose to () the painting with it’s () () pressed to the () denying the () an (),
and denying the () a ().

Both the (), and the (), should feel () by their inability to () the (), of their () denial.

Although they will be made aware that at () time during it’s (), () ()-()-() member of the (), will be allowed to see the () for a () period before it () to its position () the ().

It is hoped that they will () it.

Oh well it was only an idea.

Letter to Theo

“What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.” 

Amanda Geftner..

“If reality isn’t, at bottom, mathematics, what is it? ‘Maybe someday we’ll encounter an alien civilization and we’ll show them what we have discovered about the universe,’ Greene says, ‘they’ll say, ‘Ah Math. We tried that. It only takes you so far. Here’s the real thing.’ What would that be? It’s hard to imagine. Our understanding of fundamental reality is at an early stage.”

Amanda Geftner quoting Brian Greene a Physicist at Columbia University NewYork

To Whom It May Concern II

I Had An Idea:

To attempt to make a painting that could be transmogrified into a conceptual artwork.

I envisage a square stretched canvas 1m x 1m.

I would prepare its surface with 7 layers of gesso, sanding between each layer.

I would then apply some good oil paint in indigo blue.
At this stage it may well look very similar to my ‘abstract’ painting but I would intend for you to think about it differently. 

I would then take it out from my studio to a tree lined, well populated park, and would loop a rope around its square neck and hang it from one of the trees.

There it could remain until it was ‘found’ and removed by a trolley or taxi or bus or bike or by foot or by dump-truck, to another location, that had nothing to do with the making or hanging, of art.

This may have been one of my more successful works, but I discovered I had used mineral oil paint, which wasn’t what I thought I originally had.

Oh well it was only an idea.

Those cold theologians

I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm - but that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.

Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, You can't do a thing. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of `you can't' once and for all.

Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily. He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, “defiles” - they say. Let them talk, those cold theologians.

http://webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/14/378.htm.

To Whom It May Concern:

I Had An Idea:

To paint a sublime abstract painting.

I envisage a square stretched canvas 1m x 1m.

I would layer it with 7 coats of gesso, each one sanded before the next coat.

The surface would be very smooth in appearance, and in feel.

I would then brush on indigo oil paint, layering the paint thinned with medium, until the surface was perfectly and deeply covered. This will take many weeks. 

I would use a fine bristled finishing brush on each layer to minimize and disguise from view, any visible brush marks. 

It would be as if I had never been there.

Finally when it was nearly dry, I would hand burnish it with my palm to further remove any trace of the maker.
Then I would imagine it to be ready.

Within the painting, the atomized matter of its objective existence would, possibly, for the observer taking a moment to contemplate its surface, contain the sublimity of an idea. 

You could by a stretch of the imagination say that it contains within the atomized blue materiality of its surface, its own sequence of infinite numbers.

The finite appearance of the shallow depth within the layers of paint, and the breadth, of the blue paint across the face of the canvas both belie the truth of the layers and layers of fractal shapes that replicate infinitely within the substance of the painting.

At its edges and within its shallow core, the particles in the space endlessly divide into the numbers that lie between the finite numbers we use to count the layers.

The work if I made it, would have a simple title such as
‘A Painting’.

Oh well it was only an idea.

“DID I HAVE ANY IDEA?”

To Whom It May Concern:

I Had An Idea:

To ask; “Did I have any idea?”

Does an idea matter?

Does an idea have matter?

Does an idea exist as ‘something?

Does an idea exist in the realm of ‘nothing’?

Is an idea a ‘something’ that is fully formed and in the atomic realm?

Is an idea closer in substance to the sub atomic quantum world?

Is an idea certain?

Is an idea uncertain?

How can you be certain of an idea when at the quantum level, below our atomic mass of which we feel so certain, two states exist simultaneously, certainty and uncertainty?

Can we be any more than possibly, probably certain about our idea?

Is it probable that an idea will become effective and affect something?

Is it only possible that an idea will become effective and affect something? 

Is an idea once articulated, the end of the idea as it was first formed? 

Does the idea, post-original articulation, become collaboration?

Is an idea always in a super position of neither, dead or alive, until the box in which it is placed, is opened?

Does the idea become one way or the other after it is observed? 

In that case what was the idea that first went into the box? 

Can it ever be bracketed and isolated as an entire fully realized ‘something’?

Is an idea amorphous?

Does the idea appear, disappear and reappear continuously in the way that positive and negative quarks instantly appear inside a vacuum of what should be nothingness?

Can you hold onto the idea?

Does it have a beginning and an end?

Is an idea finite?

Does an idea arrive in our minds, bracketed within a vast fuzzy field of infinite probability and improbability?

What makes it probable that an idea will exist?

What takes the idea from the amorphous vacuum in which it is generated and makes it effective and therefore affecting?

Does the idea pick up matter?

Does it materialize?

Does this happen after the idea was first formed?

Does the idea still exist within the brackets of its initial inception?

Has the idea leaked?

Has the idea been altered by contamination?

Can an observer in a world external to the originator of the idea, now open the box to observe the idea?

Does the idea have a material presence so that it can be placed into the box?

Is the idea now an object?

Does the idea have matter?

Does the idea now matter?

Did the idea have matter before it was placed into the box?

Was that matter the originators, own electrons and neurons and protons, particles and sub atomic particles…?

If it took matter to cognate the idea, then is the idea made of matter?

Does the idea have its own matter?

Is an idea particulate?

Can the senses of the observer disseminate the particulation of the idea, without the originator expanding the size of the particles and therefore altering the idea from inside its original finite bracketed state?

Can the idea be a fractal?

Can the expansion of the particulate be a precise repetition of its shape and therefore retain the integrity of the idea at every scale?

Does the original idea need to be enlarged into a form that can be observed?

Does the idea need matter?

Does that matter need to be altered?

Does the idea exist?

Does the idea need an external form to show that it exists?

What is the matter the observer takes from the box?

Is it still an idea?

Or is it an object of an idea?

If the material matter of an object exists infinitely in itself but finitely within the containment of the universe, does an idea exist if it is immaterial?

Do we have any idea, of whether an idea exists?

Is an idea immaterial?

Is an object immortal?

Can I be certain of your idea?

Can I believe your idea with certainty?

Can I buy one?

If I bought your idea, did I buy the idea or a physical manifestation of your idea?

Is the idea’s matter transmogrified into the ink particles?

Has the material substance changed the idea?

Does the idea still exist?

Or is it an object that exists?

I’m not certain.

Can I possibly buy one?

Oh well it was only an idea.

Delia Woodham