Colin Turner

Model Behavior

I’ll continue drawing Lisa as long as she lets me. It takes a while but, since I’m happy to study the subject, it’s easy to persevere. I spent four hours on the latest, too long for her to hold a pose. I had to rely on a photograph. When she saw the result, she wasContinue reading “Model Behavior”

Potential

As the words encroached on the images, I found a passage that described the latter: “My work is good, it has potential”. Given how badly I had doubted myself, it may be the closest that I ever came to praising what I had done. In the rest of the paragraph, I displayed my usual ambivalence:Continue reading “Potential”

A Story Born Again

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a painting of mine from the mid-1990s. In A Pivotal Piece, I described its abstract imagery as a way of abandoning the figure and freeing myself from the heavy baggage of the body. I’ve always had a complex relationship with the nude. There’s a line somewhere betweenContinue reading “A Story Born Again”

Like Anywhere Else

“That desolate place, not even a town but a corner — the intersection of two roads on their way somewhere better — that was home. The street names are Jackson and Bradshaw but that doesn’t really matter. On my last trip into the area, I discovered every landmark gone. The city that used to castContinue reading “Like Anywhere Else”

Making Amends

Last week, I had the best luck with drawing that I’ve had in a long time. I considered the awkward sketches a breakthrough. Lisa was supportive (luckily for me since she was the unwitting model). I used a photo of her that I keep on my desk as the source material. Her one complaint wasContinue reading “Making Amends”

A Pivotal Piece

Creatively speaking, I haven’t decided where to go next. Understanding where I’ve already been, it seemed to me, would help. Pouring over my old work, I stumbled across a couple of photographs. Both were out of focus. Why had my camera refused to cooperate? In 1996, if you took a picture, you had to waitContinue reading “A Pivotal Piece”

Different Windows

The plastic sheets had sat in a wooden wine box in the closet for years. It wasn’t until I began to compile a record of my work that I dug them out. They were from the early nineties. To exhibit your art anywhere back then, you submitted your slides. What I needed were jpegs forContinue reading “Different Windows”

Mixed Reviews

In April of 2021, I clicked the “publish” button. IMAGE: An Illustrated Novel went live on Amazon. What drove me to that decision was largely a positive editorial review that I had paid for the year before (thank you government stimulus check). Kirkus Reviews, a famously harsh and widely respected judge of literary merit, hadContinue reading “Mixed Reviews”

A Few More for the Gallery

Some were newly photographed. Other shots were older. I chose seven as sufficiently mature to include. With their addition, I have forty pieces (or their digital equivalence, anyway). The ones under glass have a camera and tripod reflection. It wasn’t a big enough issue to warrant taking any frames apart. A theme has emerged. IContinue reading “A Few More for the Gallery”

Launching a Novel

After a while, it was sort of funny how little seemed to work. From erratic e-book formatting to low toner levels on the first batch of printed copies, a licensing dispute and the title getting attributed to a different Colin Turner, there were so many complications that I had to laugh at the latest. Admittedly,Continue reading “Launching a Novel”