Tell me about it, but say something nice

The vexation that prompts the request, tell me about it, can answered by the artist by way of music, painting, poetry or prose, providing the recipient isn't necessarily expecting to hear something nice. And therein lies the problem, for as artists, more often than not, we are expected to say something nice. 

To fulfill that expectation, my book Caribbean Sketches would have had to contain sanitized drawings of palm fringed beaches, rather than an uncensored record of life as it was lived in the islands.

Field workers on the island of Grenada

And in the higher enclaves of jazz, this is Billie Holiday telling you about it.

 

A Cottage For Sale

Our cottage after renovation in the village of Higham, Suffolk

The poignant lyrics of the 1930's jazz standard A Cottage for Sale came to my mind today when my daughter Di sent me the above picture of the cottage that we renovated while we built our boat Born Free. The "we" being, my wife Norma, our daughter Di and myself.

                                      

My account of finding the cottage reads as follows:

In a last ditch attempt to buy a boat we rented a camper and toured the boat yards in the South East of England. On our journey through the Suffolk countryside we drove past a cottage displaying a For Sale sign. We were weary of looking at boats and out of curiosity stopped to take a closer look. From the call box in the village I telephoned the estate agent. The asking price was within our means and the agent offered to be there in an hour’s time with the keys. He couldn’t find the keys but brought along a gentleman whose skill at opening locks had earlier earned him the pleasure of serving time at one of Her Majesty’s prisons. After viewing the one room downstairs and the one room upstairs, we agreed to buy and secured the deal there and then with a cash deposit. We didn’t need a survey. Years of renovating boats and houses, told me that all was sound. The agent said it was the fastest sale he’d ever made. 

This is Chris Conner's 1954 recording of A Cottage for Sale.

By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed

This pastel sketch came by chance. It was meant to be no more than a means of testing the suitability of a new batch of handmade paper. I didn't have a model at hand; the suggestive lines came at random. The sketch is relevant to my present task of setting down - not in pastel, but in words - my life's changing course untrimmed.

The quoted line from Shakespeare's sonnets, has made me realise how much chance and life's aging cycle, has contributed to where I am now and what I am attempting now.

She's still a hard act to follow

                              

This is the first painting I made of Denise, my wife and model. The image is from a blurred photograph taken just before a buyer whisked the original away. Thirty-three years later she's still a hard all-round act to follow. 

Today she'll be cutting grass, harvesting and planting, pumping water from the river, milking her goats and working on her latest carpentry project. 

The garden that surrounds the studio has a bronze cast of the first sculpture I made of Denise. 

The title of this post relates back to my blog post A Hard Act To Follow from fifteen years ago.

One thing leads to another

 September Morn. Paul Émile Chabas  (1869 -1937)

An internet search for one thing, very often leads to another. In my post When the natural becomes stilted I questioned an art critic's interpretation of William Stott's painting Wild Flower and his model's credentials. My search for similar misinterpretations led me to this video by the Gammell Lack Institute of American Art. The video delves into the scandal caused by Paul Émile Chabas's innocent painting September Morn and the assumptions made about his model.

It brings me back to what painters of the nude - and their models - are up against, and serves to illustrate the adage: He who thinks evil, sees evil.

A passionate love affair

Today's image is of work in progress on the largest sculpture I have ever created. It weighed 16 tons, measured 37 feet long x 12 feet wide x 48 feet high, and was made between 1978 and 1980 on the banks of England's River Stour, just a couple of mile away from where Constable painted his Hay Wain. The model that inspired my creation first saw the light of day 1924 and has since attracted those of my beloved that came in her wake. 

In the eighteen years that the sculpture remained in my possession it was exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic. 

When the natural becomes stilted

William Stott (1857-1900) Wild Flower (Gallery Oldham)

My interest in this painting was aroused when it was exhibited in the 2001 Tate Gallery exhibition  "Exposed: The Victorian Nude". At the time the Times Art Critic, Richard Cork, described the painting as, A full-length painting of an adolescent nude girl looking downcast and possibly abused.

Regardless of Richard Cork's perceived age of the model and her state of mind, I see it as a beautiful painting. I am always cautious of a critic's why, when and wherefore of a painting. A number of my models have looked adolescent when in fact they have been well into their twenties, and on a bad day they might look depressed.

My only reservation has been the stilted appearance of the model's waist. I am therefore grateful to Gallery Oldham's Art Collections Assistant, Louisa Krzyz for her correspondence on the subject. She writes:

Stott may have painted the face of this little girl from life but used a lay figure, a jointed wooden mannequin, for the body. This could explain the rather 'wooden' appearance of the torso and arms compared to the face and legs

I feel sure she is correct for on researching other paintings by the artist I have found the same wooden appearance. It is particularly apparent in his painting titled, Venus Born from the Sea Foam shown below. 

 Venus Born from the Sea Foam (Gallery Oldham)

These inaccuracies almost always occur when an artist takes reference from a photograph or mannequin, as against working from the live model. The same red-haired model is featured in a number of his paintings, together with clues that he may have used of a wooden lay figure.

John Kruse's blog post, Victorian Venus - vice or virtue, gives further insight into the work of William Stott. 

Stott, it must be admitted, was a patchy painter. Another classical scene of his, Diana, Twilight and Dawn, which was painted in 1889 has the same strange stiffness and unlifelike poses that his Venus displayed; plus some faulty perspective too. A similar stiff and slightly unnatural pose can be seen in his Nymph of 1886. His Wild Flower of 1881, displayed in his home town of Oldham, by contrast proves he could just about manage a decent nude when he was in the right mood.

Unknown models

 

Undated sketch of an unknown model

Although I try my best to make a note of dates and the name of models, in the process of making one sketch after another of one model after another, I sometimes forget. 

It was only this morning, in correspondence with an art gallery assistant in England, that we were bemoaning the absence of such records. And my models are of no help. After the passage of time, they cannot with certainty identify themselves in my work. Sometimes, a bracelet or necklace gives them a clue, or for me, the paper the sketch was made on. 

But the omittance does not lesson the value of my unknown model's contribution to the creative process.

How little can I get away with

As I've ofttimes said, it's not what you put into a painting, but what you leave out. The model's face and right breast drift into nothing, while a runaway wash embraces her left side. The darks at her head, nipples and pudendum punctuate the figure. To add more would be less.