Lucian Freud

Martin Gayford
(art critic)


It is my intention to include portraits that I actually saw.

A journey to London by train and a walk around the Lucian Freud Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery was a lovely time spent. I realised only later when discussing the exhibition that I hadn't had any strong desires to possess any particular piece of work. Interesting. As usually there are several that I just want to have with a longing.
Discussing this with A and B, after B asked whether we liked the exhibition or not was interesting in itself. I''m really not sure if I did like it. I found it interesting. I did like the way he captured Kitty, his first wife but I felt it was very much more symbolic. The way she was holding the cat b y the neck was somewhat disturbing and the flowers seemed t have more meaning. The cat looks at us whilst Kitty looks at something else and she seems to be throttling it.The way he paints eyes is seemingly over exaggerated. It's very much more representational than likeness.

Perhaps because I've seen it so often, this is one of my favourites. I find it unusual how there are some specifics within any painting that he seems to pay a lot of attention to, almost getting it accurate and yet other elements are almost cartoon-like. My gosh! Wouldn't he have hated that? Or would he.


A commented that his paintings were as if abstract using the human form to convey the abstract. If she kept that in mind she went on to say, she could really enjoy them. There were paintings that I could agree with an earlier comment of hers, that they looked like dead pieces of flesh. After all he was concentrating on flesh and bodies. Did anyone ever say that he was trying to get to the emotion and soul? No. It was the outer parts he was concentrating on surely. And apparently his daughters have said that he was distant - a remote island. I wonder when he closed down? I wonder what caused him to distance himself from people? ow true is the hearsay anyway? Wouldn't it have been good to have had some time to get to know him and his thoughts on life, the planet, the universe and everything.


 An early self portrait in which he was holding a feather and other symbolic shapes and figures, which had meanings but that he never revealed to anyone.

According to others, the Queen did  not like the version of herself painted by Freud. It's hardly flattering so I can't say I blame her. I wonder if it was destroyed?








I felt as if I was at the scene of a murder enquiry when I looked at this one. The floor seemed to be very alive, the body not.



I loved this painting of Caroline Blackwood. Apparently she was the woman who his heart was broken over. And this painting shouts emotions despite his apparent lack of ...

Something I fund disturbing was the use of his daughters in paintings of nudity. It just doesn't seem OK but that's probably my own personal influences at play.

Bella Freud


This painting of his children was intriguing, the play on perspectives especially the hands and feet. Even the children seem out of perspective with each other. The woman I think is a lover at that time. Why is it artists think it's OK to have many lovers and partners. It seems so painful to me. But to be bohemian means that one would have to accept it? They were and probably still are still the same?? Or am I cynical. I suppose that the relationship between the artist and the model is pretty intense. However apparently his paintings took many long hours with him requiring his models to go into an inner state. He painted them as if they were shut down and deadened. Is this what he wanted? However in this painting of his children there is life and movement, despite the oddness of enlarged hands and feet.




The detail of the man in the foreground is painting exquisitely in my opinion. His suit, his hands. And the view through the window is very detailed and precise. But the guy standing seemed as if at some point he got bored and just bodged it. Apart from the hand in the tail of the suit. I liked that once A pointed that out.

There were so many paintings, a large collection being exhibited. I was chronologically displayed.
I think it took about 2 hours all in all. So worthwhile. I'm glad I went to see it. At this moment I'm not sure what I have taken away from the experience. I learnt more again about him, art and little details.

In English, the borrowed Italian word impasto most commonly refers to a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface (or the entire canvas) very thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provides texture, the paint appears to be coming out of the canvas.

It was lovely spending the afternoon with A and B. I think it was useful starting out this long weekend doing something away from work. However, they insist on speaking about the situation. As they do about my food. They and others seem to have more problems dealing with what I can't have than I do. I am so relieved to have freedom with my food. I am grateful for the structure and certainty. This used to be so out of control and I was terrified of that. It was not getting better either, it was worsening. Now though I know what and when precisely I will be eating. Today I have eaten more cheese than I am supposed to. I weighted 2 oz but then as I was re-weighing it I was thinking 4 oz. I noted to myself that it seemed so much more than usual. But having sat down and started to eat it I suddenly realised it should be 2 oz. I stopped eating it but think I have probably eaten over the 2oz permitted. Of course now I am feeling fat which is all in the mind. I will tell my sponsor in the morning.

Thank you Lucian for painting. Thank you collectors for allowing the viewing. Thank you National Portrait and curator for organising the event. Pity I have to pay when I am so poor. However I am grateful for the experience as I love the stimulation. I didn't feel exhausted afterwards as I easily made the meeting and despite it not being such a laughter-filled meeting it was meaningful and helpful.
I need to call a few people I think.

Bliss
XX

Mise en scene

Mise en scene - a little phrase I hadn't heard or retained before last evening when someone asked me the mise en scene.
T said she had written a whole long text on bi polarity and FA. Here's my response.
Oh I wish I had been able to read your text about bi polar and FA. I have been thinking about it some more actually. And I am remembering my own theory that diagnoses are always only moving hypothesis. Something to start out with and that the symptoms can always be shifting. So for instance the umbrella term of a mental illness can manifest in many different ways. I think with me it can manifest in many different ways. And to give it a name is a convenient starting point to seek treatment forms. Addiction too is a mental illness and I think it ebbs and wanes depending on how I a or am not dealing with life issues. There is some brain wiring that has been affected genetically (i.e. I have a predisposition towards functioning in a particular way) and also there are the things that happened in my childhood that infiltrated the brain wiring of mine to be received in a particular way sort of reinforcing the wiring. Neither exist without the other. And so - depending on the way my brain is chugging and the life forces of my daily environment is how this all comes together. I think it's problematic to call it a mental illness. But I suppose there is some sort of level that appears to be a norm - the problem is I truly don't believe any single person has perfect brain wiring - everyone to varying degrees has some kind of mental illness in that case. The difficulty comes when the "wiring" and therefore the ways of dealing with life situations becomes dysfunctional or in other words there are harmful consequences - harmful to self and/or others. It is then that change is needed to minimise the harm. Therefore if the "illness" is addiction and it starts to cause problems there needs to be a change. I can see that with my food. It has been problematic for years and causing me health problems at times but also increasingly contributing to mental difficulties - self-esteem, cognition to varying levels and at different times. There have been times when I will simply accept size and deal with the lack of self esteem that brings. And other times size will be so crippling I barely function in the world - skulking along in the dark shadows rather than be seen.
It's similar with the highs and lows. There have been times when I've relished the highs, enjoying the craziness and the risk taking. The crazy relationships have all brought adventures until the pain hits. But none of these things stand alone. They are not separate illnesses or rather one label doesn't mean that the symptoms are stand alone. No I think that the symptoms cross over each other and probably trigger each other. I am certain that my highs augmented my drinking so that I would keep uppping the extent of risk I would take. And similarly the lows were the necessary brain rest but almost obliterating life completely, feeling trapped and suffocated.
The funny thing is FA people do talk about this being a mental illness and so as I listen and really listen I see that they are saying "I'm a food addict and this is a mental illness". And I know that I have mental issues. Illness in my perception is something that then makes a person different from others whereas more and more I am believing that everyone is just on a spectrum of variation, no one in other words is entirely "well" if we use that ill well determinant. It's a continuum of varying and some are worse or better than others along that continuum.
The thing is when people use labels it tends to create a stigma. It's the same with racism or any other prejudives, it's people making other people different from and the same as. It could be linked with the days of living in tribes. There's my tribe and there's the other tribe and we become protective of ourselves in our own tribe for the Darwin theory of survival of our gene. Dawkins The Selfish Gene theory.
Anyway keeping it with the labels and so as not to digress too far down the evolutionary explanation - these labels or diagnoses can be helpful except when people then get stuck in the diagnoses. Using the label to explain everything away rather. I can use the bi polar one to excuse risk taking behaviour or even to excuse the desire to do absolutely nothing, the depression where I simply do NOTHING and therefore my house gets messy and I do not want to face the difficult situations in my life such as the fear I have around this woman at work - it's obsessive - this is all mental dysfunction whatever label I put to it - addiction, bi polar, psychosis, etc etc.
I am praying for you. I am certain you will be taking in useful information that someday - maybe tomorrow, maybe in years to come will be a part of your growth and enhance the already wonderful beautiful you I see.
I have to be careful because I can easily convince myself I'm not an alcoholic or drug addict. Especially as I am dealing with my primary addiction to food. I really, really know this is it as I feel a lifting of the compulsion and obsession. However it leaves me with the issues I have with life and people. I hear the messages of self hatred and doubt all the time. Now I think these are linked with being wired so that I am on the very sensitive end of that continuum. I guess that continuum can be at one end highly sensitive and at the other completely desensitised
both extremes can be as dangerous for a person in the sense that behaviours and attitudes can cause problems for the desensitised person (psychopath would probably be the extremest extreme). The highly sensitive or nervous person is caused problems by receiving behaviours and attitudes from others. And I feel sure we can all bounce from one extreme to the other bt often default at one extreme. Again theories but not evidenced through any research
So remove the plasters I have used i.e. food, relationships, alcohol, narcotics, hedonism or any form of escapism and there I am exposed to the things I've been trying to cover up - high sensitivity. It really doesn't matter anymore how or why I am like this. I also theorise that it doesn't start of as chronic as it ends up. We get to that point gradually through the wearing of way of trying to deal with life.
So here I am highly sensitive - a form of mental illness. And feeling totally vulnerable and scared.
T: Hi I love reading what you write. I am at NLP course now and over the weekend. And have forgotten my Norwegian adapter to my English computer - meaning I will not be able to go on the computer till I am home if I don't find adapter - which is very difficult - already phoned shops. Well addiction. I feel lost now with no sponsor and no contact with FA except you. I love the break even if I am a bit scared where it will end. But I know I can go back whenever I like.
T you will be OK whatever happens. Of that I am certain. If you want to go back to FA it will be there.
T: Need to know more about my brain and mental illness as I have huge problems accepting - so find it mot=re intriguing and OK when you say that everyone has some kind of mental disorder.
You may find another way. It may be that you just become at ease just the way you are.
By the way I'm sorry for writing out my theories and thoughts as I have done this morning. It helps me to get my thoughts into order writing it and especially knowing someone else will read it and add new ideas to my ideas
T: I am wondering if NLP works on me at all. I did a commitment to not eating chocolate last time - but that didn't work. Previous in my life I have tried hypnosis to stop smoking - that didn't work either. I think these techniques don't get deep enough in me. It's like they just flush off the surface. I'm not bothered in a way. Scares me when other people come back and said that the NLP techniques of seeing chocolates as something disgusting kept them off eating it while I just didn't care thinking of it as disgusting when I wanted it..
Hmmm interesting. I wonder if it depends on what you want from NLP. Again this is simply a theory but if you want something to take the responsibility for the action then maybe you/I don't let the NLP in deep enough.
I see people come into treatment expecting the treatment to take away the desire to drink
T: Keep writing to me - i like reading your theories.. gives me something to think of.
of course that doesn't work - the treatment gives people information and helps them look at what the addictions have actually resulted in to strip away the euphoria
then they have to decide whether they are willing to go to the lengths required to stay stopped
T: Yes I want to stop being obsessive. But its like I am not interested anymore but just have to be here because it costed me a fortune and I can't not try it. But I don't have all of me in it - if you see.
Knowing what the "illness" is or the consequences of eating chocolate or talking about issues from the past are all just providing more self awareness
T: It's like I don't have all of me in anything. It's like being numbed for the time being. I'm not here if you see.
 the desire to stop has to come from deep within and then if open to that I see the info drop in too
T: Gosh how difficult to explain or maybe you just understand. I am here but I am not here
I really do understand that feeling of being numbed and not entirely present in any area of my life. I want to be but just can't seem to be.
I truly do understand that
just functioning. So many times I went to see SC my therapist and it was sitting in his room that I could really see how I was knowing how I should be but just wasn't totally with myself
I described it as being like a shell and my soul wasn't there anymore
I can still get like that of course. Difficult issues at work have switched off a part of me. It's as if I completely detach
I also know that going through menopause magnified that. It's as if I was blanketed because of an excess or maybe a decrease of hormones
And the hunger for food I had was just a power I had never encountered before.
T: Yes true. Shell without soul. And people kept asking me yesterday at the course where I was - hello Tone are you here? So I really understood that I am not present this time. And that it is affecting others. Shall I leave today?
It was worse than ever I had known it and it's been bad for as long as I can remember
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO don't leave
T: Bliss do you know why we disappear like this - you said you had the same feeling sometimes - why do you have that feeling or do it?
See it through. Keep showing up, take in what you can even if it's merely at an intellectual level. Don't give up on yourself
I think I disappear in this way because I am afraid. Afraid of what I ask myself?
I think it's also a way of dumbing down the emotions. I no longer have food, alcohol, drugs, men, partying etc to dumb down the feelings. I am a person (mental disorder perhaps) that has heightened emotions, I am very sensitive to the world and this brings on LARGE emotional reactions
T: Thanks I will be there even if it affects the others - they can take responsibility for themselves and just don't care with me. It is the most aware people that see that I am not alert.
I get overwhelmed by my emotions because I seem to over react - i.e. I behave to extremes in reaction or my attitude is massive or my beliefs become extreme which create catastrophising thinking or black and white thinking
so the only way I can deal with this it seems or in my belief system so deeply buried to the point of being unconscious is that I detach from my emotions. BUT
there is a price - the price is I am an almost an empty shell and then I cannot emotional respond to anything. If I let even a little emotion out I go back to explosion and extremity
T:Yes I am afraid of over reacting at work especially. There is going to be a meeting on Monday and I am scared but not willing to accept I am scared. I can't be scared coz I have to show up. But of course I can be scared and show up - as I will.
So what I am realising is that I have this mental disorder - mental that affects emotional and spiritual and physical. The physical comes out as addictive behaviours
You can be scare and take your fear to other people that can listen and even relate. I relate absolutely. The problem is I don't have solutions from my experience yet that I can share with you.
What am I afraid of? I am afraid that I will be seen as under qualified and incompetent. Is this pride? I am as qualified as I am. But I tell myself that I am dealing with peoples lives and so how can I possibly be doing this job with the little knowledge I have.
I have theories but the truth I truly see is that everyone only ha theories - no one knows absolutely
there is evidence to support that everything and anything works or doesn't
But other people don't know they are only working with theories. Their pride tells them they know. But to know that often means they have to show that others are wrong
I am glad to know I don't know but it leaves me afraid of being spotted as not knowing
I am then afraid that they will want to get rid of me
worse than that I am afraid they will be conspiring behind my back to get rid of me or reduce my salary which then taps into my fear of financial worries. I am struggling so much in this are. And I like to have things or be able to do things. And if I have no money I will absolutely bored. Boredom is a killer for me. I go into a deeper depression when bored or explode out of myself and build up debt which then causes me to worry more - you see nothing stands alone it's all so interconnected
I am afraid too that I will be a failure. And to fail means I am not respectable. I am afraid what others will think of me. If I have no money I cannot do things with other people and they will abandon me. If I am a failure at work people won't want anything to do with me. I have to have proof that I'm not a failure because I do not believe I am enough. And I need other people to see that I successful because otherwise they won't have any value of me and confirm that I am not enough. I would also add this perception of failure is external. Failure is simply a word for something that hasn't worked. That happens. Everyone has failure at some points or other. It eems that so many people use this word meaning that's it everything is over. So I might fail an exam. That's it for now but it doesn't mean to say that's it life over. There are many ways of dealing with a failure - get up and try again, try something else until finding things that I can succeed at more easily, take a break. Look at the elements that have gone well. Failure is used as so utterly defeating. It's not. Everyone makes mistakes, has strenghts and weaknesses. everyone is different. Some people have a btter capacity to remember than others - does this mean that one is a success and one a failure. Society has developed the world based on particular measures. It doesn't mean to say people falling under those specific measures are worthless and failures. It's the measure that set that up! The problem is people are people and if only we could lvoe each other for being who we are rather than what a few think everyone should be and if not dispose of them. Poop!
How intricate my thinking is and adds to my fear.
The problem is that before I turn on myself I turn on everyone else that I think is attacking me. I get resentful first and then in my defensiveness I get aggressive - verbally, or in my attitude and then I hate myself for being like this and then I turn that hatred on myself - evidence that I am a terrible out of control nasty person.
How much effort can one person put into all of this no winder I'm so exhausted
And I HAVE to prove that "she or he" is the baddy because then I'm not. But they are just being who they are. I am the one with a mental disorder. I just need to learn how to be OK. I think at work you see that they will find out they employed an incompetent. Someone just meddling my way through. I was like that in my last job and had made it through the ranks to the dizzy heights of middle management. Thought I was a somebody but inside was scared they'd see really I was a nobody.
Phew T. I relate to your fear at work. Hence I need to keep talking about it so that I can keep finding the energy to face it and learn. Learn how to take action and just be OK being me. If I keep running ( addiction, off sick, leave etc) I will never ever learn.
I am praying for you. I am certain you will be taking in useful information that someday - maybe tomorrow, maybe in years to come will be a part of your growth and enhance the already wonderful beautiful you I see.
Thanks for letting me ramble my thoughts. They get stuck in my head otherwise and I go mad. I am scared that people will just think this is the mental illness I have and none of it really is of any consequence as I'm just crazy. But actually I believe that my theories do have substance. I suspect my psychiatrist will have an opinion on this.
The problem is that I work in a unit that has a philosophy of the Minnesota model based on 12 step and there's little lee-way for me to present it with my understanding. I need to substantiate it somehow or find ways to present this to a paying public. This would be a part of my workshops for therapy groups. It's just using the info already gathered - big book, research etc and then creating the presentation. Any help? We could do this together. :) using art in workshops too.