Your clothes conceal much of your beauty...

 My 1/4 life-size sculpture of Verlena    

     Your clothes conceal much of your beauty,

yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

     And though you seek in garments the

freedom of privacy you may find in them

a harness and a chain.

     Would that you could meet the sun

and the wind with more of your skin and less

of your raiment,

     For the breath of life is in the sunlight

and the hand of life is in the wind.

     Some of you say, “It is the north wind

who has woven the clothes we wear.”

     And I say, Ay, it was the north wind,

     But shame was his loom, and the softening

of the sinews was his thread.

     And when his work was done he laughed

in the forest.

     Forget not that modesty is for a shield

against the eye of the unclean.

     And when the unclean shall be no more,

what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling

of the mind?

     And forget not that the earth delights to

feel your bare feet and the winds long to

play with your hair.

From "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) 

First Love

One thing leads to another. 

While reading Ian McDonald's classic 1969 Caribbean novel, The Humming-bird Tree I was reminded of Sheila Hyndman's poem, Lost Love. Both beautifully touch on the theme of adolescence first love. It was my good fortune to have know Sheila from her Virgin Island High School days and up until her sudden death at the age of thirty-two. I illustrated a collection of Sheila's poems, one of which, Lost Love tells of her first love. Two of the verses read as follows:

Down by the seashore where mangroves thrive,
We visit our dream world, Peter and I.
And once when storm clouds blackened the air,
He held my hand and I didn't care.

Round Christmas time, I stole ham and tart
And we had our little feast.
Peter gave me a bat'n ball and I told no one,
For I knew they would surely tease.

I also encouraged Sheila during the early stages of her first novel, sadly unfinished at the time of her death. The novel followed four generations of Virgin Islanders and the island of Virgin Gorda, from slavery to the present day.

Recollections of the days we spent together collecting material on Virgin Gorda led me to search through past portfolios for the sketches that I made to illustrate Sheila's novel. The opening watercolour and the pen and ink sketch below are from that series - albeit that they show signs of having since weathered three major hurricanes.

Studio Retrospective

I am always searching for information on the working methods of artists from the past. Sometimes my interest is aroused by images taken in the early days of photography, as those taken in Roden's studio over a hundred years ago. More rarely I find a painting or sketch made by a student at one of the 19th century French teaching ateliers.  

The painting that opens today's post was made by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) when he was a student at Gustave Morean's atelier in 1895. Gustave Morean was a painter of biblical and classical subjects in the academic tradition. Henri Matisse turned out to be the opposite. Until the advent of Cubism he was one of the most innovative painters in Paris. Although radically different in technique, the arrangement of his 1899 painting, Study of a Nude has a resemblance to the the painting of his student days. 

In the atelier painting my eye is drawn to the prop that leads to the model's elbow. It is a devise that enables the model to return to the same pose. I use similar props when my model has to repeat a pose, week in week out, for a piece of sculpture.

These days art students go to college to study for BA's and MA's. They no longer hone their skills working from the live model on the studio floor. 

Improvising in paradise

Living on a small idyllic island in the Caribbean has its limitations, not least that you can't pop into town and buy the tools and materials you need. Both as an artist and engineer I have to improvise. Making a lino cut to print the cover for a collection of my hand-made papers is a case in point.

The lino I used fifty years ago for similar projects is a thing of the past. So too are vinyl floor tiles that could be used as a substitute. As an alternative I resorted to cutting the leg off a pair of old wellington boots. And that is what I used to make the block you see in the above picture. The turntable upon which the block is mounted for carving is made from a heavy brass search light that I salvaged from the Maude L, a wrecked inter-island trading boat.The cutting tools date from my teenage years and I begged the ink from the island's printer.

Below is the first impression. I now need to fine-tune the lettering. Due to the texture of hand-made paper, I have to keep the entire design bold and simple.

My day began sedately carving the above block and ended, bruised and battered, in an attempt to restore the inlet to our water pump that was damaged when the river was in full flood a few days ago. Welcome to the paradise!

In search of gold

My search for gold takes me in two different directions: the first in search of inspirational models and the second in search for present day inspirational artists working with the nude figure.

For the first my eyes are constantly on the look out for future contenders in my series Daughters of the Caribbean. This morning as I entered a supermarket (or as super as it's likely to get in a small Caribbean island) I glanced a face and figure that ideally fulfills my needs. In my book Notes on the Nude under the heading "Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady" I refer to approaching likely candidates in the streets. After the initial shook has worn off I am usually well received. I now keep my fingers crossed that my new found gold will accept the challenge of modelling.

My search for inspirational artists involves trolling the internet for hours on end. One thing leads to another and once in a while I strike gold, as with the sketches below. It is the work of a young Russian artist by the name of Igor Krapar. They are sketches to which I can honestly say, I wish I'd have drawn them!

Igor Krapar's paintings display the same intensity and originality, as shown in the one below. The repertoire of the nude is limited. Since the fourth century the same postures have been used time and time again. Igor Kraper deserves credit for seeing the nude from a new angle. It is easy for the split second photographer but more difficult for the painter no matter how adept at capturing the fleeting moment.

Interestingly, many followers of this blog are from Russia where at present there seems to be a revival of interest in the figurative.