The opening picture is a page from my book Townscapes. The sketch is one of thousands I've made from the pavements of towns and cities during the course of my life. It was a life that began in the darkest days of WW2. The townscapes that escaped the bombs in the 1940's were demolished by developers in the 1960's, thus my passion for recording buildings individually and collectively.
My message to my fellow artists for the New Year is, Let there be life!
Let there be no slavishly copying from photographs.
Let there be no social media censoring of the nude.
Let there be no carefully contrived compositions.
Let there be no constraints.
Let there be no erasing.
The painting above was made at 3.00am in a Leeds night club, and the painting below was made from life on a beach in the Virgin Islands. It is one of hundreds of illustrations in my book Notes on the Nude. No photograph, no censoring, no constraints.
Thirty-five years ago, the only way I could get a Christmas message to my three children was to pay for the following to be published in the island’s newspaper.
I have just spent a day searching for Christmas
presents for my three children. The burden of the task has been on my mind for
weeks. As I feared, it was a fruitless day and I came home empty-handed. Money
was not the restraint, nor the selection of toys. The problem was one of
circumstances.
My children are aged three, five and six, against
their wish, are separated from me through a marriage that ended in divorce.
Father Christmas, no matter how laden with toys, cannot substitute my
children’s right to a real father. Even the toys lovingly created for them by
my own hand - as they always used to be - cannot fill the void needlessly
created in their lives.
But against overwhelming odds, some measure of
justice prevailed. A few months ago, the court awarded them what was to have
been their real Christmas present - a better deal. But the order was never
allowed to take effect. The present was taken from them before they had a
chance to experience it.
A child's fairy-tale world demands miracles,
especially at Christmas. They expect immediate results, with angels and bright,
shining lights. Their reasoning takes no account of court orders, the mischief
of lawyers and the conniving of government ministers. All they know is that,
for some unaccountable reason, love for them manifests itself in restrictions,
resentment and revenge.
“I wish you a Merry Christmas..." in the
circumstances, even the message on the cards is a fallacy. They cannot honestly
be sent. My children can do better. On the card my son made at school for
Father's Day, he drew a picture of an exploding volcano!
Perhaps for Christmas, they will show similar
insight. The story of Jesus, if honestly told, would do quite well. Beneath the
façade of romanticized stables, cute nativity plays and comforting carol
services, nothing has changed.
I'm so sorry my sweethearts...Love Daddy
The story of my fight for access is told in my book: For the Sake of the Children.
The book is my personal account of parental alienation. There are millions of similar cases worldwide, but mine has the distinction of being one of the worst. My story begins on an island in the Caribbean forty years ago and continues up to the present. My fight for the right of my children to have access to their father was fought under the most difficult circumstances. Other than to attend court hearings, I was for the most part forbidden to set foot on the island that was their home, and which had previously been my home. By fighting for a basic human right, I was deemed an undesirable person and a menace to the public good. For a period of five years, I had to wage my campaign from the cabin of a small boat while sailing from island to island. The term parental alienation had only just been coined when my problems began. There were no books on the subject and no guidance for those expected to advise and judge.
If artists make love
with the same restraint that many of them paint pictures, it must be a boring
business. Making art, like making love, is 99% passion. Tie it down to a
set formula and you screw up.
Notes on the Nude is available as an eBook and can be viewed and purchased at: https://www.studiopublications.org/
The boat shown in the opening picture played a significant role in the tribulations. I designed her for working and living aboard in the tropics and built her in a farmyard in the heart of Constable's Suffolk countryside. During the two years I spent building the boat we lived in a cottage that is included in one of Constable's paintings of the village of Higham.
I began my journey into self-publishing sixty years ago when I sold my prints door to door in England. The price tag was ten shillings and within a week I had sold a thousand copies. In the 1980's, I hawked my book Virgin Island Sketches from boat to boat in the Caribbean. By these means - person to person, face to face - the book sold over 14,000 copies.
Although selling eBooks online lacks the personal touch, it enables my work to reach a worldwide market from my small island in the Caribbean - just as my blog posts are followed by thousands of artists and art students in over eighty countries.
Studio Publications is virtually a one-man band. I am publisher, author, artist and general factotum rolled into one. Computer mastery, an essential requirement for E-publishing, is beyond my octarian dyslexic capabilities. But my computer savvy son helps me with that.
In the days of hard copies, I had to contend with the gremlins that infiltrate printers ink. But they are tame in comparison to the gremlins that frustrate the conversion of Word Documents to eBooks. We fight them off on one page on one day and by the following day they have creeped back on the next.
But the final appearance of an ebook depends on user preferences and the receiving device. The recipient can alter fonts, text colour and line spacing, and hence enter into the creative process - just as my models share the creative process of my paintings and sculptures. The books that contain illustrations are in PDF format to ensure precise layout and quality reproduction.
Below are images of the front covers of my books. Further information about contents and ordering can be found at: https://www.studiopublications.org/
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Today's picture is a still from a video I am making, the purpose of which is to show work in progress. What the still fails to show - but the moving picture does - is one colour running into the next. What I'm trying to get across to the viewer is the importance of allowing watercolours freedom. They rightfully resist being constrained.
Looking at the picture you might well say, as has been said of my work on occasions, "He's made a mess of that!" But when a watercolour appears to be going wrong, it is invariably going right.
Making the video has not been easy. I am struggling as both artist and cameraman and working in the absence of a model. Whist help would be appreciated, the following offer, via the contact form on this blog, is not what I'm after.
Hello,
I hope this message finds you well.
My name is Araz, and I am writing to express my strong interest in joining your team as a Content Writer.
I believe that my skills and experience would be a great fit for your team. As such, I would like to inquire about any potential opportunities available.
I would be happy to discuss my qualifications further and answer any questions you may have.
Araz
On the other hand, my models have stood in behind the camera, and on occasion, stepped down naked to help me bend steel for the armature of the initial clay sketch of their figure.
I am preparing for publication a book titled, "The Calderdale Portfolio". It features paintings and sketches I made over thirty years ago of the towns, villages and countryside of my youth. The portfolio has survived storms at sea and hurricanes on land. In recent years it has languished unopened on a shelf in my studio. Most of the contents can I remember as if they were painted yesterday. But the one above took me by surprise.
How evocative is a painting that is fleetingly jotted down from life! Even in the warmth of the tropics, I can feel the searching wind and the expectant cold shower of rain.
In earlier times, painters were adept at allowing a tantalising glimpse of the nude in the most innocent of subjects. In both of the above paintings the hand demurely covers the breast. But tantalisingly, the fore and middle fingers are parted to reveal the delicate beauty of the nipple.
My love affair with the nude dates back to 1971. In that year I was seduced by Enzo Plazzotta’s sculpture, Jamaican Girl. The infatuation was such that I followed my temptress to the land of her birth, and thereafter, the Caribbean became my adopted home. Little did I realise that, in my search for my seductress, she had sought me in my native land.
But alas, my seductress, like her African forefathers, has yet again suffered the indignity of being sold. This time around, it's the Yorkshire Sculpture Park that has put her on the market for thirty-six thousand pounds inc. vat. They in turn acquired her at auction in 2019.
One a brighter note, the sculpture was originally cast as an edition of nine and I understand, from one of my models, that the University of the West Indies has one of the casts. I hope they ensure that she remains in the region of her birth.
Regrettably, I never met Enzo Plazzotta's model for the Jamaican Girl, but over the last fifty years I have had the good fortune of working with equally inspirational models from most of the Caribbean Islands. They are depicted in hundreds of paintings and scores of sculptures in my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. The image below shows my clay sketch for a life-size sculpture of my Dominican model Annabelle.
Hans Silvester's images and the following account from his book Natural Fashion: Tribal Decorations from East African puts our westernised dull concept of fashion in the shade.
Body painting, as practiced here in East Africa, the cradle of humanity, seems to me to represent a way of life that dates from prehistory and once enabled humankind to overcome the hostility of nature. Art was then a means of survival.
The images above are of the Surma and Mursi peoples, two of the fifteen Ethiopian tribes indigenous to the Omo Valley in Southern Ethiopia. Both nomadic communities living close to and with nature, and placing great importance on decoration of the body over the spatial environment. Bright minerals for paint to embellish the skin, flora and fauna for ephemeral adornments . Whereas the Surma often draw from the varied “closet” of the plant world, the Mursi predominately adorn themselves with items derived from the hunt such as tusks, skins, shells and the like.
As Silvester describes in his book Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa, no underlying systems seem to exist. Mothers begin painting infants, and from there adolescence frolic in this pastime avidly dedicating themselves to this activity. One’s skill at bodily adornment is not judged by viewing ones own reflection as these are communities that are said to live in the absence of mirrors. Not even the waters of the Omo river provide a reflection in their muddy waters. The image of self, in particular, the adroit body ornamentation is deemed through the reaction it elicits in others, thus body painting amongst the Surma and Mursi is a group activity. Often boys will paint boys and girls, girls or one might paint themselves several times within a day. Lounging by the river, applying expressive, gestural quick strokes with natural pigments of red ochre, yellow sulfur, white kaolin and grey ash in a multitude of patterns and combinations. Motifs emblematic of families exist.
This ephemeral art form elevates and celebrates the body making it the ultimate canvas. The dextrous individual is the one that sees beyond the obvious, that perceives a leaf can transform to become a hat or a necklace, a reed becomes a ribbon, a branch with pods rather a head ornament.
I get terribly bored viewing most paintings of the nude. Although they may be anatomically correct in every detail, they lack what Sir Walter Scott claimed for the artistry of the 13th century troubadours:
To delight the senses, arouse the passion and excite the imagination.
If the artist is devoid of passion, there is no way that his work can arouse the senses in others. The painting that illustrates this post was motivated by the passion and presence of my live model.
The novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) writing with reference to an author's rough notes says:
If they are interesting enough when enlarged to the size of an article, what must they have been like in their concentrated form? Pure rectified spirit, above proof; before it is lowered to be fit for human consumption.
That is all the more true with a sketch before it becomes modified as a finished painting.
The bare minimum applies to the sketch as it does to my concept of dress. A few lines says it all. With the patina that fifty years gives to a random sheet of cheap paper, the effect is all the more enhanced.
The image and
reality of the West Indian father.
There can be few
images saintlier than that of a West Indian father and child. It conjures up
hope that the inherent good in man will survive against overwhelming odds. There
are those who claim that the vision is a rare sight, and others who scathingly
dismiss as an illusion. But as always, the greatest condemnation comes from
those who prudishly hold themselves aloof.
Generally, the
West Indian mother who has been through the mill is less critical. Through practical
experience, sees her man in a kindlier light. Understanding is the crux of the
matter.
First, we must
understand and come to terms with a terrible fact: At least 95 percent of all
West Indian children are unwanted at the time they are conceived. The lyrics of
the popular Trinidadian song tell a lie: “I wanna have a baby with you” is not
a sentiment of the West Indian man. Sex, yes; a child, no! The West Indian woman
shares his needs and his aversion. Her body, like his, urgently wants the one
but not the other. Within a month the baby in her womb has become a hateful
thing to them both.
The seed that
they carelessly planted becomes a barrier between them. Their relationship
cools considerably. There is no real love to sustain it, only a fleeting ecstasy
which soon gives way to shame, anger and - so often for her - sexual revulsion.
Other than a tacit understanding that she is pregnant with his child, they do
not talk about it. The tension heightens as the weeks go by. Their main worry
is that of revealing the pregnancy and the reaction of others. For that reason,
no one must know, or at least not until the secret can be concealed no longer.
But not much
escapes the notice of the West Indian extended family, least of all a pregnancy
in the confines of a yard space. The father is found out, rather than
proclaimed by his own initiative. Any strength that the couple may have found in
each other is soon invalidated by domineering parents or siblings. Instead of
insisting that the father be accountable, they collectively undermine his responsibilities.
Marriage is rarely considered by anyone as a way forward.
Fathering
children within a happy marriage is the ideal, but in this region not the
reality. If a marriage fails the court can ruthlessly deprive the father of any
function other than that of providing money. He can be denied all reasonable
contact with the child. His love is not considered a necessity.
In a society
where marriage is the exception rather than the rule, the accidental pregnancy
that we have so far assumed should not go unchallenged. More often than is realised,
fathering a child is intentionally used as a means of securing a woman without
the commitment or complication of marriage. This form of bondage uses the child
as a means to its end and is vulnerable to the father abandoning, or
threatening to abandon, his support if the relationship breaks down.
From such
troublesome beginnings, the West Indian father must materialize. He does so,
but slowly and grudgingly. In the months before the birth, he does not take the
girl out any more, and even if he offered, she would be reluctant to be seen in
public. Her belly is an embarrassment to them both. He might occasionally drive
her to the doctor or clinic, providing that it does not interfere with anything
he had planned to do with his friends. He would not consider staying by her
side for the visit itself. He will give her money to buy things for the baby,
but not help her shop for them. At the time she goes into labour he may not be
found.
With the birth of
the child there emerges the first timid assertion of the man as a father. He
visits the hospital. He feels awkward and conspicuous and can think of nothing meaningful
to say. There doesn't seem to be much he can do. Her family have attended to
her needs. He does not stay long, but before he goes, he gives the mother a
small screwed up paper bag that forever redeems him. It contains a present for
his child.
In an attempt to
pick up life where she left off, the mother returns to work as soon as she can.
That is assuming that she is fortunate enough to have a job to go back to. Her
family looks after the baby. The father's life continues without interruption.
His family may help with minding the child when it gets older. In the meantime,
he contributes money toward the child's upbringing. The amounts vary. In true
West Indian fashion, the arrangement has no hard and fast rules. They rekindle
their feelings for one another, and from each develops a love for the child.
It is from this
period that we owe the saint-like image of the West Indian father. In reality,
his role as a father leaves a lot to be desired. His love tends to be possessive.
The child that began as their child, in conflict becomes her child or his
child. His commitment is minimal; his understanding is sometimes shallow; his
support spasmodic; his interest in the child’s schooling is often slight.
But at the end of the day, the miracle is, not so much that a child is born, but somehow, out of the most unlikely set of circumstances, a father evolves.
There are two films about the sculptress Camille Claudel. One that has won the awards and one that hasn't. Of the two, the latter is true to life and the former, a portrayal devised for box office success. As you might guess, box office success is all the more readily attainable if you throw in sex and action. But when the sex predominates and the action resorts to scenes that in terms of accuracy are laughable, then the total effect is lost. With a multi-million dollar budget, you'd think that they could employ a sculptor to advise on working methods.
I find that most films that depict artists at work suffer from the same defect. In life we don't work like that!
Below are the films: watch them and judge for yourself.
Alice was the very first model in my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. She then worked for a year as my studio assistant. During the course of that year her daughter Oceana was born and I became her Godfather. The pleasant surprise is that after all those years I'm back in touch again with both mother and daughter.
By this time tomorrow, I will have been on this earth for eighty years. My life began in the back of an ambulance in the middle of a WWII air raid and has since taken many adventurous turns; almost all of which have been for the better, with only a few for the worse. In the words of Henry David Thoreau:
My life has been the poem I would have writ, but I could not both live and utter it.
