an imagined conversation with an estranged friend for a future article in a lifestyle magazine about the failures of a creative life

do you still draw?

no.

how come?

i’m not sure. as a boy it used to be like eating. i wish i remember what the drawings were for. 

what they were for-

i watched my son draw and he either showed me the page afterwards or he just threw it aside and started another one. 

you feel one was for you and the other for-

for himself, for nothing, for itself?

do you still draw? 

yes. 

do you draw from compulsion still?

yes i suppose i maintained the practice of drawing. not always for the same reasons though. increasingly they’re like notes for me. 

and who are the notes for?

for me i think mainly and ideas for work.

do they look much different - the drawings for you and the ideas for work?

probably. i’m not always convinced i have a popular taste but I can sometimes recognise what might be popular.

you might draw yourself an apple and then a pear that people might like.

yes. or i usually draw something and decide if I like it. if I decide i like it I then decide if only i will like it. 

and if you think its only for you?

i think I show it to the world still.

you dont think about how it should look for others first?

i think im always aware of it. do you feel that as a burden?

yes.

and you’d rather make something that you think only you’ll like and if others like it then-

then joy!

you know da vinci filled notebooks that he never published. he solved problems and kept them to himself. do you think this brought him joy?

i don’t know. I admire it so maybe yes.

i think even our best efforts to have something seen result in it still being unseen nowadays.

i agree. but creating for others tastes is still borrowing from the pile in which it’s being stuffed.

and you’d rather make something original that’s never put anywhere?

it’s not original. it’s just a doodle that’s not yet become a face. and whether it’s seen or not has to be out of the equation for it to be interesting I think.

but what if all art was done privately and nothing shared?

it would be awful.

ha!

that’s a nice lamp.