Blu Tack

I’m battling with blu tack at the moment.

I find paint sits best where it’s not meant to be,

so I paint on scraps of gridded math notes and the tired backs of tired books and limbs of old moving boxes. These mediums don’t fit into the strict conventions of a frame and I adjust my art wall far too often to commit to the paternal commitment of nails,

So I unfortunately have to resort to blu tack to display my creations.

I don’t quite understand what blu tack is.

Maybe it's my fault, the cause of my conscious ignorance because I never made any time to sit with blue tack, make it a cup of mediocre tea and ask what on earth has created material so grotesque and unworldly.

Or maybe I know I probably am better off not knowing, for how could I look at it the same? Why would I consensually rip off the warm duvet of ignorant bliss, especially when it’s a full day of forecasted rain outside?

I often wonder if my works are far too clunky and odd for blu tack. I need to start picking more sensical modes of presentation, a canvas, perhaps. It comes in pre-measured inches and pre-woven fabric with a pre-determined structure.

Canvases sit upright and pretty, weakest in the middle, whilst the middle is all my works have as they curl and crumple at their edges.

Canvases announce their potential with their immaculate bareness whilst the beginnings of any good work of mine is spent painting over the ‘fragile’ sticker, unrealised by everyone else in its original state.

Canvases are what are found in the walls of any reputable museum or yacht whilst cardboard is reliably in ones nearest dumpster fire.

Canvases don’t need blu tack, god they would never swoop that low! They would sit behind a glossy glass cage, as a spectator does at the zoo, and know that they have the protection of a frame and the promise of nails to keep them levelled and shown off.

I really like blu tack. I appreciate how it’s been there for me.

But it seems to do better with my lighter works, the careless doodles on A4 paper, lightly coloured in, nothing too drastic.

But it is my bigger works, the ones with layers of acrylic paint to cover the mistakes before it, the material that makes sense only to me to paint upon, the rips and cracks all throughout its body,

Blu tack never seems to understand those works, let alone hold it up in pride and admiration.

And it is those works I always find abandoned on the floor, trampled on by my dogs paws.

And it is only recently I have realised that it is not my works that are far too strong and abrasive for blu tack, but it is blu tack that is too weak and fickle for my paintings.

What is outside of the world of blu tack and canvases?

Why haven’t I yet painted a vase or a wall or garage door?

I haven’t found the right one!

But I know that the universe is aligning inspiration, paint brushes and a willing medium as we speak, that hold promise to liberate me from the confines of a sketchbook and a single bedroom wall.

But until then, I’m battling with blu tack.

God, I don’t actually mean blu tack.