Raining on the Sun, Clinton Kirkpatrick
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| Raining on the Sun, woodcut print 1/6, Clinton Kirkpatrick, 2013 |
While feeling drained and conflicted at the moment, it is a good time to look in detail at some artwork in my life. In early December I went to Clinton Kirkpatrick's open studio sale and bought a couple of his woodcut prints. I connected with Clinton initially through his involvement with the Amabie Project curated by Johanna Leech, and we spoke for the first time when recording an episode about his work for Audiovisual Cultures Podcast nearly two years ago. I have followed the development of his characters and methods since and always feel enriched by our conversations.
The pictured image Raining on the Sun is one of two woodcut prints I bought after pouring over a great many of Clinton's paintings and prints that morning. I was focused on finding something I could bring to Newcastle without getting mangled in my hand luggage as well as something that spoke to me. I think throughout the whole of my life I have felt dualism and internal conflict, always caught between being this and wanting to be that, doing this but feeling I ought to be doing that. As people share their new year's resolutions or previous year's reflections, I have felt numb. I have begrudged feeling that I have to say 'happy new year to you too' when I can only imagine the continuing of extant struggles. It was a challenging few months in the last quarter of 2022, and 2023 only brings fresh challenges. They may be good or bad to varying degrees, but they're all tiring.
Early in 2022 I was going all in on taking my work life in hand and was determined to make something happen. Good things came of these efforts, and in September I was ready to begin drafting a book manuscript I'd been developing and planning over the summer. Then I had a nasty dose of Covid which has done damage. Before I had somewhat recovered, my mum fell and her injury led to months in care. She is home but still in need of attention. The situation is complex. Of the two prints I bought from Clinton, one spoke to this ongoing situation and also maps well onto previous times in my life. I aim to tell you about that one another day as it hasn't been hung yet and I want more time with it.
Raining on the Sun is looking over my renewed workspace. I have more light and storage, and less of an excuse to procrastinate. My worries about not being good enough are laid bare, exposed. The image speaks to me because it does feel that every time in my life I've tried to be optimistic and positive, something has knocked me back. And not maliciously, just part of life happening. The rain on the sun. But sometimes the sun needs to be rained on. It gets too hot and needs to be cooled. It gets too bright and needs to be shaded. The rain also needs tempering from time to time. It rains too much and needs to be dried. It gets too dark and we need the light. In short, we need dichotomies. We need contradictions to make balance. We need the rain on the sun and the sun on the rain.
The rods of rain in the print are bold, as are the sun rays. The rain seems to strike downwards as the rays reach up and out. The visual style could be taken as childlike, and yet the simplicity is deceptive; I don't think I'd achieve that clear direction of the rods and rays, the dark and the bright coexisting, the layering of paints showing in the gaps. The defined separations and concurrent unity say something to me about being an individual as well as part of something bigger, a cycle or community. The colours are also at opposite sides of the colour wheel: the blue/indigo and yellow/red parts of the spectrum. I always find such combinations pleasing. Blue is somehow all the more calming to me when set against its glaring opposite of orange.
Because I need signs where I can find them, I'm taking Raining on the Sun as a reminder that there cannot always be pure light, and being rained off is only ever temporary and necessary. The sun will shine all the brighter for it having rained. I hope.
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