Sculpture Studio: December 2022

Saturday, December 31, 2022

Seaweed, the entrails of worms and the hides of oxen.

Experiments with block printing.

The seaweed in the title of this blog is Gracilaria, the Caribbean indigenous variety of seamoss. When soaked and converted to a gell it can be used to thicken the fabric dyes I use for block printing. I am experimenting with incorporating block printed designs to my Bare Minimum fashion lable. The process is centuries old and getting it right is a steep learning curve.

While my hands are taken up with the task of carving the blocks my mind wanders on the subject of clothing in general and brings me to the "entrails of worms and the hides of oxen". On that score, the following quotation speakes volumns.

The horse I ride...is his own sempster and weaver and spinner; nay his own bootmaker, jeweler and man-milliner; he bounds free through the valleys, with a perennial rainproof court-suit on his body...nay, the graces have also been considered, and frills and fringes, with gay veriety of colour, are not wanting. While I - good Heaven - have thatched myself over with dead fleeces of sheep, the bark of vegetables, the entrails of worms, and the hides of oxen or seals, the felt of furred beasts, and walk abroad a moving Ragscreen, overheaped with shreads and tatters raked from the Charnel-house of Nature, where they would have rotted, to rot on me more slowly.

From Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher (1795-1881)

Outdoors in a cold climate I can well believe needing the felt of furred beasts. But in the Caribbean women dress for autumn in New York, and jackets and ties are derigueur for attending Government meetings. Missionary zeal and Colonial hand-me-downs have a lot to answer for.

Saturday, December 24, 2022

Freedom from Restraint

The subject of a painting should not be an end in itself, but a point of departure.

So many painters today, especially those working in watercolour, slavishly copy from photographs. If the medium of watercolour could speak it would surely say: For God's sake set me free.

For thirty years I have been hammering home this message to artists and art students throughout the world by way of my blog posts. For those working from the live model my book "Notes on the Nude" drives home the same message.

The painting I have used to illustrate my point was made there and then from life. The "there" being a hillside between rain showers, and the "then" being less than five minutes from start to finish. Rather than spoiling my painting, the rain aided and abetted it.

I don't expect my painting to garner the "beautiful", "lovely" and "nice" comments, but it honestly speaks of life and it's not "just like a photograph".

Friday, December 16, 2022

Facebook and the Fine Art of Censorship

Work in progress on a life-size reclining figure.

Todays image is just one of thousands that have been deemed as inappropriate for the eyes of Facebook subscribers. Since their inception in the mid 1990's blogs have served as a valuable record of artists' work in progress. But alas, links on Facebook to blogs such as mine are ruled as spam by the administrators and immediately deleted. Appeals on the ground of legitimate art content, fall on deaf ears.

Why the majority of art societies favour Facebook as their preferred means of communication is beyond me. No organization has done more to censor artistic expression.

Nothing serves better to bring this message home than this brilliant YouTube video.

In trying to find ways around this ban I was reminded of Guinness Brewery takeover of Bells Scotch Whisky in 1985. At the time, publication of the slogan "Guinness Is Good For You" was prohibited on health grounds. In order to attract Bell's shareholders, Guinness used the ban to their advantage and took out a full page add in the Times Newspaper. Other than the heading "Message to Bells Shareholders", the page appeared to be completely blank. But on closer inspection, in the smallest type size available, were the words: Guinness Is Good For You.

My attempt to evade the searching eyes of Facebook censors hasn't the subtlety of the Guinness ploy, but it seems to work. The permitted image shown below enables Facebook users to copy the link to this blog.

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Larger than life

In my book Notes on the Nude, under the heading "A New Visual Experience", I mention that I am forever searching for different ways of presenting my work in the belief that there has to be more to exhibiting paintings than static pictures on walls. If, as been said, my paintings represent a different way of seeing, it follows that there needs to be a different way of viewing

One variation that I have been experimenting with is fast-moving audio-visual presentations of images for the large screen. A watercolour no larger than the page from a newspaper takes on a completely new visual experience when projected to the size of a house wall. My video Body and Soul represents a first step in that direction.

For a second step I have created a collection of small watercolours, no larger than 4" x 6", specifically for enlarging into 16" x 24" prints. The larger than life effect is dramatic. I give credit to William Shakespeare for inspiring the theme for the paintings.

Prints of paintings can be viewed and purchased at: https://www.saatchiart.com/antrimstudio

Incidentally, had Shakespeare lived today, rather than 400 years ago, he would most likely be regarded as a persona non grata on Facebook and doubtless would have resorted to blogger for getting his message across.

Saturday, December 3, 2022

Painterly Painters

A clip from a YouTube preview for my book Notes on the Nude

For many artists it's not just my paintings of the nude that shocks but my way of painting. This particularly applies to those watercolourists who seek to achieve a photographic likeness down to the last minute detail. If the paint itself could speak it would say: For God's Sake Set Me Free!

One of the notes in my book Notes on the Nude refers to this dilemma.

Painterly Painters

My paintings suggest rather than the defined detail. I leave it to you to interpret them as you may. The American painter and writer, Charles Movalli has this to say about those he terms painterly painters.

The painterly painter uses the viewer's experience to give life to the work. Instead of being a passive receiver of information, the viewer becomes a participant…Painterly painters believe that an abbreviated style is best suited to capturing elusive effects. But although they consciously strive to develop a rapid execution, their detractors often criticize this characteristic, dismissing their work as little more than sketches…The painterly painters labour under a disadvantage, since their idea of finish is not that of the general public.

This link takes you to a YouTube preview of my book and this link enables you to preview and purchase.

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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.