I am anxiously awaiting the moment when this tyrant summer rolls off the earth like a sated beast from a fetid carcass. I don't like the heat, at all. It's very distracting.

The Shape of Colour show at the AGO was quite good. The collection was small but there were some exceptional works. Robert Motherwell's demanding but serene Open No.149 hung in the first room, and fully dominated that space. Its great size and calculated composition successfully absorbs the viewer and I returned to it several times. There was a fantastic sense, when standing in front of that work, that one was bearing witness. There were several other notable paintings in the exhibition, a few striking Frankenthaler works on naked canvas, a Rothko which I found less interesting than I thought I would and Frank Stella's rather engaging 1963 metallic painting Hollis Frampton on a boldly constructed open-centred square canvas.

The focus of the exhibition was Colour Field, which the famed New York art critic Clement Greenberg claimed (arguably) to be the conclusion of Modern painting, but despite this I found myself far more enthralled by the few works included from related movements, most of which weren't paintings at all. One space allocated for two exceptional Minimalist pieces was certainly the most impressive corner of the exhibit. On a centre wall, interrupted by a doorway, was Sol LeWitt's absolutely brilliant Wall Drawing No.46. Hundreds of intermittently broken vertical pencil marks were rendered so delicately across the surface of the entire wall that there was a small notice posted nearby, letting visitors know that there was actually a work of art in front of them. As one's attention drifted from the work it would cease to exist, but violently appear again when acknowledged. The effect was quite powerful. The other work in this space was just as striking and a perfect compliment. Fred Sandback's Untitled (Two Part Construction) conceived of in 1983 was composed of strands of yarn pulled into rectangles that bordered the whole of two opposing walls; one length a bright blue in colour, the other salmon. Standing between the walls, the viewer is amidst the work. It was light, even whimsical, and yet another example of Greenberg's folly in proclaiming that Minimalism was too cold to evoke either emotion or mystery. The work was both emotional and mysterious.

Life is adequate. Aside from the appalling weather, of which I currently have no control over. There was rain the other morning though, which was nice. I've started several new paintings, one of which I had a dream about, so it's half finished even though I haven't stretched the canvas. I am satisfied with the direction of my work over the past year. I've found a thread and I'm emerging from the labyrinth, if you know what I mean.