Sculpture Studio: December 2019

Friday, December 27, 2019

Subtlety suggesting the sensuous

When it comes to subtlety suggesting the sensuous, the rapidly drawn line comes close to a watercolour wash that is thrown down in the heat of the moment. Both allow viewers to enter the creative process and draw their own interpretation.

The opening sketch was drawn on a postcard and posted to my brother in England. As I remember it was meant to test a Post Office ruling on sending "obscene" material through the mail. Fortunately it was delivered with no bother at all. Tumblr please take note.

I wish the watercolour below was mine, but it's not.

Andrei Sharov is a Russian artist - as are many followers of my blog. For his sensuous figures he works spontaneously beyond the boundaries of the know, the familiar and the ordinary.

Sunday, December 22, 2019

A gauge to measure beauty by

In his introduction to Walter Rose's classic book The Village Carpenter Frank Kendon quotes the following poem:

No gas light ever lit his shop;
He has no wheels to start or stop;
No hot, metallic engines there
Disturb the shaving-scented air;
His hands were engines, and his eye
His gauge to measure beauty by...

The book and poem came to my mind this weekend as I was preparing drawings for a Sedan Chair to carry one of Dominica's Carnival Beauty Queen contenders. The chair will be made by a couple of young carpenters and it will test their skill in terms of workmanship.

These days carpenters rely on machines rather than hand tools. To guide them on their way I took the opening photograph of a small number of hand tools from my own collection, tools that they will need to produce the mortise and tenons and stopped chamfers. Most of my tools are almost as old as I am and some date back to my grandfather's time. The mortise saw and handsaw in the picture I bought with money that was given to me on my fourteenth birthday. They have served me faithfully ever since.

I wonder who will care for them and work with them after my time. Will they one day build another boat, a house or a handcart like the one pictured below...or will craftsmanship and beauty go a begging?

Saturday, December 14, 2019

What might, or might not have been

Forgrove Machinery Co, Leeds. Apprentice Intake 1957

Leeds College of Art Students 1952

Regardless for my flair for art, on leaving Secondary Modern school at the age of fifteen and coming from a family of engineers, going to art school was not an option. Instead, I was indentured to a six year apprenticeship in mechanical engineering. Each day between work and night school I passed the Leeds College of Art, where I wished I might have been.

The first photograph shows me (circled) and my fellow apprentices on our first day at work: a dejected bunch to say the least. The second photograph shows Leeds College of Art students of the same era, looking considerably more cheerful.

Over the years I've kept tabs on my fellow apprentices and they all did well. By my mid twenties I also was doing well and working in the drawing and design office of one of England's major machine tool manufactures. But then I decided it was now or never. I gave up my job and, with a wife and young daughter in tow, declared myself as an artist on the pavements of France.

Since that day I have never looked back but I sometimes wonder how my envied Leeds College Art Students fared as artists. Moreover, I wonder....would I have fared any better as an artist had I been able to join their ranks.

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Tumblr's Flawed Recognition

I can understand Tumblr's automated algorithms mistaking a painting for a photograph but on appeal I am assured that a "real live human" will review the post. Alas, it seems that Tumblr's real live humans would not know a painting if one feel on their heads. Their flagging of posts that they claim contain adult content, and hence violates Tumblr's Community Guidelines is seriously flawed.

My post dated October 25th and titled "What a Community" delves deeper into this anomaly. The photograph that illustrated the post was flagged by Tumblr and their decision upheld when viewed by a real live human on appeal. Here is the offending picture.

I tried re-posting the above but to no avail. However, the picture below has been accepted, the only difference being that the photograph was taken after I had added the brass shims in readiness for taking a mould from the clay.

In my previous post I drew your attention to three paintings by Edouard Danton that were also were flagged and the decision upheld when viewed by a real live human on appeal.

To further illustrate Tumblr's flawed recognition I posted the following:

A Life Cast that I made of breast and nipple.
A painting by Renoir titled, Nude before the Bath.
A painting by Egon Schiele titled, Reclining Female Nude with Legs Spread Apart.
A fragment of one of my water-colours.

Not one of the above were flagged by Tumblr's automated algorithms and hence they did not come before the eyes of their "real live human"!

Understandably, Tumblr's algorithmic checks have difficulty differentiating between a work of art and a photograph, as with Edouard Danton's paintings and likewise when differentiating sculpture from real life. But it's a sorry state of affairs when real live humans can't tell one from the other.

What defeats automatic algorithms are nipples with a difference, as in my life cast close-up; indistinct nipples, as in Renoir's painting; and paintings that are impressionistic or expressionistic, as with Egon Schiele and myself.

Sunday, December 1, 2019

As a matter of fact

BE WARNED!

The post that follows has been recently banned by the Keeper's of Public Decency at Tumblr.

Their message reads: This post was flagged because it contains adult content which violates our Community Guidelines. THIS DECISION CANNOT BE APPEALED.

It appears that social media in general wants us to be more comfortable with war, violence and foul language than with innocent paintings of the nude.

I trust that Edouard Danton's paintings will not shock or offend followers of this blog.

Casting from Life

The painter Edouard Danton (1848-1897) came from a family of sculptors and the paintings he made in his father's studio to my mind perfectly capture the matter of fact business of working from the nude model. I stress "to my mind" because one critic from the world of art academia - having I'm sure, never worked from the nude - considers his paintings mere titillation.

In my book Notes on the Nude I delve deeper into the working relationship between artist and model. In particular the titillation of the dressed model as against the matter of fact undressed:

The human body is less sexually alluring nude than when it is dressed. If one of my regular models had posed in the fetching flimsy white dress she wore on arrival, I would have been lost beyond recall. But as soon as she took it off we were back to our matter of fact working relationship.

Below are two more of Edouard Danton's masterly paintings. As a sculptor I can recognise every detail, from the tools on his workbench to the temporary rail alongside the modelling stand.

Coin d atelier

My Father's Studio

As with the model depicted in the painting, my models are likewise fascinated by the work in progress. Furthermore,at the end of a session I can sense my model's reluctance to exchange the freedom of the nude for the restrictions of being clothed.

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July 22nd 2000

With my family I arrived in England five years ago. The first two years were spent working on the building and applying for Arts Council lottery funding. Alas, the Council considered figurative sculpture elitist and of no interest to the general public.

After three years our savings were spent and in desperation I began doing what I came to England to do: to work as a sculptor. In our impoverished state the odds were against us. A year passed with not a single commission and not a penny of income. Then the tide turned. If two years ago it had been predicted that my studio would today be bursting at the seams with work, I would have dismissed the notion as a complete fallacy.

Sculpture for the City of Leeds

The end result for those of us working in the visual arts is something that is capable of being seen. In the long term the success of a piece of work is, to a large degree, measured by how many people look at it. But in the beginning the work cannot be seen by anyone on the outside. It exists only in the mind's eye of the artist. That is where the figures for Leeds have been for the last three months. During that period there hasn't been a day - or night - when I haven't worked upon them. I've moved them through every position imaginable: standing, sitting, leaning, squatting, huddled together, set apart. I've added figures and switched males for females. My couple - for that's what I finished up with - then gave birth to a child. The toddler peeps at the Frenchman playing boules from behind his/her mother's skirt. The work has been created and torn apart a hundred times. But as yet I haven't set down anything on paper or built up anything in clay. My successes and failures have gone unseen. And as much as I want to open up the creative process through these diary pages, the first stage is too elusive be put into words.

Trina's Portrait

"Have you nearly finished, my neck aches". After five minutes Trina, my youngest daughter, has had enough of modelling. Actually her impatience works to my advantage. I know I have to work fast, and working without a second to spare usually produces my best work. I started today's session started by wiping out half a day's work. I had previously added her hair but the result didn't please me. I had invented a head of hair and not paid close enough attention to the real head of hair. The first attempt looked like something out of a hairdresser's window. Maybe that is why Trina liked it the best!

So much to learn

In this day and age there is little in the way of guidance for aspiring sculptors. There are no schools that teach the disciplines as fully as they were taught a hundred years ago, there are few books and precious few masters alive to train the next generation. One must learn as best one can. Ton after ton of clay must pass through the sculptor's hands and hour upon hour must be spent working from the live model. It isn't easy and a lifetime isn't long enough to learn all that must be learnt. There is nothing more difficult to model convincingly than the human hand. If the hand is done well the observer doesn't stop to count the fingers.

Church Window Layout

In between modelling sessions I have been drawing the millennium church window full size. This will help me to come to terms with the daunting scale of depicting Christ Triumphant. My Christ Triumphant unleashing a flock of doves has been rejected. The church has requested that I keep to the more familiar vision of Christ with arms beckoning. At least my model will be pleased that he hasn't to contort himself into that pose anymore. Michelangelo had his fair share of rejections from Church Councils. Once, in an attempt to please, he went so far as to devise a statue that incorporated a barber's shop within the figure’s lower extremities and - as a master-stroke - put a chimney coming out of its head!

Mould Divisions

Three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles are nothing new: sculptors have been doing them for hundreds of years. But this is no game. The problem is mind boggling. Somehow, the three standing figures have to be divided into sections of a mould. The seams are made with lengths of brass shim that are pressed into the clay of the figures. Eventually the clay will be covered with plaster to form what is called a waste mould. At the moment this may sound very confusing but over the next couple of months you will learn a lot about the process. This is the most complex mould that I have ever made and one to test my ingenuity. I was awake thinking about it at three o'clock this morning. If I get it wrong the figures will be entombed like a mummy. As I work I imagine the skilled moulders of earlier times critically looking down on me and laying bets on the outcome of my work.

30th June 2000

I've managed to dodge colds all winter. Just my luck that I get one now! This I could have done without. Maybe if I worked in advertising or accountancy I'd have taken the day off and stayed in bed, but in this line of work you don't even think of it. The molds have to be at the foundry in two weeks and at the foundry they will be. The picture shows Denise - on her one day off from college - chipping away at the waste mould of Samantha. In the background Richard, my assistant, is working on the mold for the Bond Court figures.

4th July 2000

So much depends on the model, and with models I have always been fortunate. Elizabeth has dedicated herself to the task and that dedication shines through in the finished work. The pose has been painfully difficult but she's never complained. Furthermore, she's fitted the modelling in between moving house, looking after her family and driving the truck for her husband’s business. She always shown up on time and has never missed a session. Thanks Elizabeth. In turn I've given my best. It's all I can do.

Portrait Demonstration - Megan

For the Allen Gallery I did two demonstration portrait sessions before a live audience and television. Two models on consecutive days, starting at ten in the morning and finishing at four in the afternoon with an hour for lunch. The models, Megan and Jag, were the winners of a primary school art competition. Their prize was a portrait session. A portrait from start to finish in no more than five hours, before an inquisitive audience and the press, is a tall order. I doubt if there are many sculptors that would dare to take it on. I did and here are the results. Thanks Megan and Jag, for making it possible.

Patina

It seems that a successful patina, like a good watercolour, is the result of a happy accident. On my fourth attempt Xander's bust turned out to perfection. It in fact put Trina's in the shade and gave me a hard act to follow on the torso. I can well imagine that, if I keep at it, in twenty years I'll be experienced enough to understand every subtle shade of the business. Just like the episode of Pooter painting the bath in "The Diary of a Nobody" I got quite carried away with applying patinas. Switching from bronze to the plaster I gave Elizabeth’s figure a coat of burnt umber.

Henry Moor Institute

I got quite a shock today on visiting the current exhibition at the Henry Moor Institute in Leeds. The gallery was actually thronged with real people. By real people, I mean those you'd expect to see in everyday life. Usually the only sign of human life is the ever present black shirt attendants. The exhibition of portrait busts is aptly titled "Return to Life". I hope that the attendance figures don't scare off the institute from ever doing such a show again. Being popular to the masses is not exactly in their remit. It would have been nice to have included a photograph so as to encourage even more of the public at large to visit this excellent presentation. I asked a black-shirt but was told that photography is strictly forbidden.

A Ray of West Indian Sunshine

On Saturday I attended a Postgraduate Seminar on Portraiture at the Henry Moore Institute. Even at its most informal, events at the Institute are lodged at the higher end of the scholastic scale. As such its presentations are totally at odds with my premise that: with sculpture, as with sex, intellectual thought only screws things up. For this particular seminar it was even doubtful if I would be allowed in. As with many working sculptors, my academic education amounts to no more than secondary modern school. But Saturday turned out to be a rare and rewarding day. To find a West Indian in the audience is a rarity, even rarer to find that - my God - she's one of the presenters! Charmaine Nelson brought a wonderful ray of Jamaican sunshine into a lecture room that normally has the feel of an Icelandic family mausoleum. Her paper "White Marble, Black Bodies and the Fear of the Invisible Negro: Signifying Blackness in mid-Nineteenth-Century Neoclassical Sculpture" wonderfully linked with all that I have been working for over the years in my adopted Caribbean. Charmaine, for the first time in five years of lectures, you made me miss my train home. Thanks!

At a fleeting glance

Waldemar Januszczak, art critic for the Sunday Times, wrote recently about painting quickly. Both as painter and sculptor, the faster I work the better. What is seen at a glance has to be captured in a moment. A climax cannot be sustained forever. But as Januszczat says: "Painting quickly is still seen in academic circles as a threat to civilization. Those artists who appear to breeze in and do it without a proper amount of effort still seem to us to be breaking all the rules. With other art forms the ability to work quickly is recognised as a sign of genius but a quick painter remains (alas) a slap happy painter." Alas, a slap-happy painter and sculptor I remain. This little sketch was completed on the run in Grenada's market place.