#8. New year's resolution (aka "All the small things")
The giclee print for sale on the site called “New year's resolutions” was published alomgside the article “All the small things” in the end of year adition of the magazine
I unashamedly admit that “New years resolution” is a homage to Maurice Sendak’s enchanting children’s book “In the night kitchen” (see illustration from his book below). I don’t recall being read it as a child, although I’m sure I was, but I do remember being captivated by the book’s illustrations. Like all the best children’s books, an attraction lay in its sinister undertones. Perhaps it was just me but I always found the three identical “Oliver Hardy” bakers creepy with their beaming grins (not that I recognised them as Hardy at the time). Looking through the book’s illustrations now I love how they are so consumed in their task of making the next day’s bread that they remain totally oblivious when the little fella falls into their bowl of dough.
In this issue the writer goes off on one, sounding a bit tired and fed up with the way his life is going. His new years resolution is not to bother anyone with his problems anymore, to avoid what he considers the vulgarity of magnifying every neurosis into a crisis. He talks about wanting to keep things simple in his life during the coming year, to minimise, appear small in the world, downsize. Quoting the line “an unexamined life is not worth living” he counters that the examined life can end up unlived. He can write about it but risks not living it, get wrapped up in theological and philosophical thoughts about shame and sex while neglecting to hug or watch the clouds pass by. He writes how he wants to put more time aside to bake bread, discover the different varieties of olives, watch a full moon rise over a city skyline, try to make the woman in the corner shop smile, to spend more time giving his cats’ coats the comforting brush they love, stop to listen to the old boy play “The fields of Athenry” on his tin whistle on the way back from the cinema.
The two images that were conjured by my reading about how he wanted to make the time to bake his own bread and watch a full moon rise over a city skyline immediately merged in my mind, morphing into the memory of “In the night kitchen”, so straight away I had a fairly good idea how I wanted the painting to look. I always get a little concerned about focusing in on just one section of an article as the subject for the illustration. Its fine if I am happy that the imagery reflects the crux of the article, but in the case of “New years resolution” I had the nagging feeling that I was letting my desire to jump in Sendak’s boots over influence my decision making, a spot of making a square peg fit a round hole? I could have added more references to the various sections of the article however, to follow the gist of the article, its usually best to keep things simple. It’s easy to over egg the mix.
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