It’s always nice to finish some new work, and doubly so to print it.

For many years I have always anticipated that style, if one is able to have it, is something that surfaces over time. Initially it’s not so clear, there are just hints and suggestions, but as one’s own confidence (and I really mean experience and awareness) improves over many years of creating work that we are happy with, I think ‘style’ if we have it, become more apparent.

I have also thought that progress is not linear. Sometimes we stagnate, other times there are big leaps in our development, or sometimes a radical change whereas other years we may feel we are chasing our own tail. But if we zoom out far enough, I would hedge a bet that most of us can see some kind of long-term evolution in what we do.

I’ve been pretty happy with my progress over the past decade. There have been a few moments where I really felt I had hit some new kind of look to what I do. Those kinds of times are very satisfying where the final result tends to exceed what you had hoped for. They do happen.

But I have also wondered when I might feel that my style becomes more ‘embedded’, more a fixture, and that any continuation in work is really an exercise in ‘more of the same’. I think it inevitable that this will happen. But we really never know when we reach a point where we aren’t going to change much more, and it’s just a case of fine tuning our skills, or whether it is just a period where we have hit a plateau for a year or five.

I think all one can do is just keep creating work, and not to dwell on such matters. After all, I never really ever set out to create the style I have : it just happened. Creativity in my view is the act of submission. Rather than the act of ‘forcing’ or ‘striving’ to get to a pre-determined destination. To move forward, you have to let go, and see where it will go under its own steam.

I feel that the last 3 years have been a stagnation, brought on primarily by the response to the covid thing. It halted any momentum that I had. I still feel like I’m picking up the pieces. I’m not entirely back on the horse as it were, and I still feel a sense of ‘not being fully present’. I think for me, it’s because I have lost trust in the future now. The world I thought I lived in does not exist any more, and so I suppose, I am still pinching myself that I am still here. There were far too many moments where I thought I wouldn’t be. I’m still coming to terms with what happened to myself, and how I feel about going forward. This has impacted me in ways I’m still trying to figure out. And when I write these words, I know that I am speaking for many of us.

So with that in mind, I am giving myself a free pass on the work I’m creating right now. To me, I’m just glad I’m creating new work at all. And I think to have any ideas about where it’s going in the long run, is simply too early to think about. I’m still finding my ground, after being groundless for a few years.

So ‘welcome back Bruce’ is all I can say to myself. And boy, it feels very nice indeed to create something new after all so much wasted time, and years that you and I will never get back.