'Time-Sheets'

Curiosity drove me, in 1997, to record the number of hours I spend on each image I paint.

I began to keep the little cards on which I record the numbers thinking they were an interesting artifact of my process.

It helps to know how long it takes to complete the average painting when planning for upcoming shows. It’s also enabled me to passive aggressively imply to galleries that my paintings are being given away, considering how long it takes to paint them.

I can also torture myself with the fact that the paintings are now taking four times longer to complete than they once did.

In a continuing effort to expose my painting methods I began sending copies of the ‘time-sheets’ to O.K. Harris with the paintings in 2005 and now affix them to the back of the framed painting. I’m not sure what anyone makes of them.

For the statistically minded, the longest I've spent on a painting was my most recent: ‘Parkside Bar’, 2009, 8 X 12” at an astonishing 682 hours.

The most time consuming image for its size was ‘Munt’, 2007, 8 X 5.5” at 387 hours or 8.8 hours per square inch!

Not that I’m counting.

Projection

To a degree I've always recorded or documented my process for some imagined future greatness. Won't they be glad I was so diligent at recording my journey?

At the same time I'm prone to eliminating all traces of my existence: deleting MySpace pages; tearing decades old journals to shreds with a feeling of 'What does it matter?'.

Lately I lean more towards erring on the side of overexposure. My paintings are about laying myself bare so I've begun to be more explicit.

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The video.

Two things I hate: framing and projecting.

Without a studio everything is temporary, makeshift.

I felt the need to record our last apartment in Victoria: three hundred and fifty square feet which served as studio and living space for both my clothing designer girlfriend Hayley and me.

To say nothing of the dog or the cat.

It was a long six months.

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Music is 'Time to Pretend' by MGMT.