Stuff You should know, January 2025
Mixed media (charcoal, ink and oil) on canvas
77cm x 102cm x 4cm
$400
Last night I went to a party hosted by some old friends and a couple of them asked me if I had been painting recently as they hadn’t seen me post anything on social media for a while. These lovely people (you know who you are so I won’t tag you but just hope that you see these posts organically…..) said that they liked my painting posts, so I thought I’d better post some more, because (in the last two weeks) painting is what I’ve been doing.
Painting hasn’t been a priority as much of my time this year was taken up by a different sort of navel gazing. I’ve been doing a Masters in Counselling involving much self-reflection and building emotional, perceptual and cognitive awareness with the aim of helping people at some point in the future, hence the concept of ‘self as instrument’.
Regarding painting, I’ve often used myself as an instrument in a visual way in the form of self-portraiture, of which this latest painting is one of many. I always come back to self portraits when I’m lacking in ideas or inspiration, or want to play in a non-committed way, or can’t decide what to do next. It’s a good way of starting again after stopping for a while. It gets the juices flowing. This painting started as an ink drawing where I was focusing on expressive lines.
As I was working on it, and reflecting on the year that’s been, I was thinking about the stuff I’ve learnt and/or relearnt and coincidently that coincided with me looking through the government published booklet entitled “Stuff you should know” that my daughter had received with her Year 12 Certificate. I flipped through it over morning coffee. Very well intentioned, but I was reminded of the expression ‘you can lead a horse to water…… ‘ I thought it should be retitled as “stuff we (the system) want to tell you”.
What also interested me about the brochure was the graphic design on the cover which was very ‘faux ‘80’s’ in styling. Ironic circularity. I graduated Year 12 about the time this form of graphics was last chic.
Disappointing, I thought to myself, but given that I was reflecting on stuff I should know and also how ‘should’ is a bit of a dirty word in counselling as it implies doing stuff that you feel obligated to do, that often conflicts with your values and causes some emotional and cognitive dissonance, it seemed sensible to add the words “stuff you” to my self-portrait. I then felt that was a little misleading and not really suitable for a 55 year old who wants to help people, so I added the ‘should know’ as an after thought and left it at that.
I’m now working on four new paintings so, no doubt, more posts from me will follow in the next couple of weeks.
Painting hasn’t been a priority as much of my time this year was taken up by a different sort of navel gazing. I’ve been doing a Masters in Counselling involving much self-reflection and building emotional, perceptual and cognitive awareness with the aim of helping people at some point in the future, hence the concept of ‘self as instrument’.
Regarding painting, I’ve often used myself as an instrument in a visual way in the form of self-portraiture, of which this latest painting is one of many. I always come back to self portraits when I’m lacking in ideas or inspiration, or want to play in a non-committed way, or can’t decide what to do next. It’s a good way of starting again after stopping for a while. It gets the juices flowing. This painting started as an ink drawing where I was focusing on expressive lines.
As I was working on it, and reflecting on the year that’s been, I was thinking about the stuff I’ve learnt and/or relearnt and coincidently that coincided with me looking through the government published booklet entitled “Stuff you should know” that my daughter had received with her Year 12 Certificate. I flipped through it over morning coffee. Very well intentioned, but I was reminded of the expression ‘you can lead a horse to water…… ‘ I thought it should be retitled as “stuff we (the system) want to tell you”.
What also interested me about the brochure was the graphic design on the cover which was very ‘faux ‘80’s’ in styling. Ironic circularity. I graduated Year 12 about the time this form of graphics was last chic.
Disappointing, I thought to myself, but given that I was reflecting on stuff I should know and also how ‘should’ is a bit of a dirty word in counselling as it implies doing stuff that you feel obligated to do, that often conflicts with your values and causes some emotional and cognitive dissonance, it seemed sensible to add the words “stuff you” to my self-portrait. I then felt that was a little misleading and not really suitable for a 55 year old who wants to help people, so I added the ‘should know’ as an after thought and left it at that.
I’m now working on four new paintings so, no doubt, more posts from me will follow in the next couple of weeks.
Simone Annis Paintings 