Doubt

Random quote of the day:


"All serious artists have doubt about themselves, about their work. I was particularly struck by Picasso. I observed his face as he looked at his work and there was such an expression of anguish and doubt, of fear even.

—Alexander Liberman, interview in Sculpture, March-April 1994



( Seriously illustrated version. )

From the notebooks: West Kennet Long Barrow

(From my notebooks, August 1992)

On a cold day in late September with occasional showers of rain, I was pretty much alone on the A4 highway driving from Marlborough towards Devizes in Wiltshire, England. I passed the small sign marking West Kennet Long Barrow and had to double back. A little red brick farmhouse sat right beside the road, and next to it was a turnout large enough for maybe four cars. A metal gate led to a footpath that curved around the farmhouse and into the empty fields beyond to disappear over a low hill. As I entered the gate a white goat in the farmyard eyed me with wary curiosity. The only other creature in sight was a man on a green tractor far, far across the golden fields harvesting the grain.

Once the path entered the fields, it was fenced on both sides to keep the tourists from getting into the farmers’ way. It seemed to go on for miles, most of it a steady incline, but the guide book reassured me it only traversed a half mile. I couldn’t see anything remotely resembling a Neolithic barrow, just more hill and more. I began to wonder how such an invisible thing could possibly be as impressive as I'd been led to believe. Then I noticed a section of uncultivated field pop over the horizon, autumnal wild grass and field flowers that, I guessed, the farmer had missed. But only one long snake of field was overgrown, and as I drew nearer I saw a little track of fencing around it. As if the sight of the fence conjured them, the stones appeared, popping over the top of the hill.

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