LIZA DIMBLEBY
  • WRITING
    • Writing on Drawing >
      • Along the Canal d'Ourcq, a Drawing Walk
    • Writing on Art and artists >
      • Chagall's Box
      • Gogol and Chagall:Holding Words and Lines of Flight
      • What to Do After a Death in Scotland: paintings by Andrew Cranston
    • Other Writing >
      • KinkintheArc
      • Cartwright Gardens
      • Morning
      • Attention
      • Almost Like Any Other Saturday
      • Everywhere is Somewhere
      • In the basement flat opposite somebody is practicing a trumpet
      • Painting and Naming
      • Days and Pages
    • Publications
  • DRAWING
    • Drawings from the City >
      • Whitechapel market (1)
      • Whitechapel Market (2)
      • Waterloo Subway Series
      • Moscow subway (Jazz band)
      • London Drawings
      • Moscow Drawings
    • Drawings from the Studio
    • Drawings from the House
  • PAINTING
    • Domestic series
    • Give Generously Series
    • Tom Thumb
    • After Image Series
    • Vuillard Series
    • Degas series
    • From Film
  • ARCHIVE AND UPCOMING
  • CONTACT/LINKS
A Matter of Attention

It is a matter of paying attention. If I pay attention to my thoughts then I must pay less attention to yours. If I am thinking about what I am thinking then I cannot pay attention to what you are saying. The less time that I have for my own thoughts the more that I need to spend time with them, even when in company. Especially when in company, I find company is very conducive to day-dreaming and I take great pleasure in the company of my own thoughts when spending time in company. Sometimes that is just what I am missing, the company of good friends who allow my thoughts out to keep me company. My imaginary companions. 

If you are paying attention to your own thoughts, you can forget to pay attention to other things; even to those things that you consider it valuable to pay attention to, for example, your children. 
And then there is the matter of paying attention to your book, or to the light through the spring trees and the blossom blowing. And there are more and more things that you could choose to pay attention to but already you are being distracted by the other things that you didn’t pay attention to yesterday, or a month ago. Something forgotten, mislaid, or insufficiently observed.        
 (April 25th 2011)