Etching (Approximately 5 versions existing)

From a series of etchings which took sixties film stills as their starting points.

The stills were drawn, then worked into with amendments or additions which were integrated into the original image to expound further ideas. A section of written text was added at the bottom of the image.

'Procrastination' was originally based on a film still from 'Morgan A Suitable Case for treatment' - featuring David Warner dir.Karel Reisz 1966..

The image was modified to deal with themes of artistic ennui, creative block and procrastination and includes a quote from Wilde.

The additions in this etching include cartoons by Furr. A smiling face saying "I'll do it later ' 'That's right', A man slumped in an armchair watching 'Neighbours' (written on the screen) with evidence of snack detritus by his chair on the floor. Watching Neighbours was a popular communal student activity at the time. A man snoring in bed with written 'ZZZ's.

The phrase 'Blank Canvas' is added on the right next to the depiction of the blank canvas on the easel with its negative and positive associations of 'creative block' and creative potential.

The text at the bottom of the image is not related to the film but is taken from "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde which Furr had recently read. It is spoken by the character Lord Henry Wotton in Chapter 6:

“Once more he had relapsed into his old vice for which she had so often chidden him at school – procrastination. When a man’s nervous system is badly undermined by a succession of anxieties and troubles, the devil in spite of good resolutions, steals into his mind every morning to whisper the thought; “Why not take a rest today and forget about everything ? There will be time enough this evening to polish off all the urgent jobs in one go”. – and then Knight comes and one feels terrified at the thought of all the accumulated arrears of work: a crushing melancholy reduces want to impotence and the next day the same comedy is enacted, all in good faith, with the same confidence and the same seriousness”