Subtleties

In this evening's fading light I captured today's image. It expresses better than words the subtlety I am searching for in my Bare Minimum designs: a fleeting veiled glance of the figure complimented with a touch of spontaneous decoration. 

The material is cotton voile and the design is hand painted with fabric dyes. No polyesters, no computerized printing techniques or graphics are involved. It's all natural, all original and non-repetitive.

“The nude alone is well dressed.”

 

Photograph by surrealistic photographer Josef Breitenbach (1896 - 1984)

The sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840 - 1917) claimed that the nude alone is well dressed. After trolling through thousands of images of the work of today's fashion designers, I could not agree more. Today’s designers appear to be more concerned about the style of their dresses rather than in revealing the beauty that lies beneath. No wonder that their models look so miserable.

Snow, ice, fog, floods and storm force winds.

 Photo Credit innews

The naming of storms and hurricanes used to be limited to the tropical Atlantic but more recently England has taken up the device. Storm Caroline is expected to hurdle across England this weekend bringing with it snow, ice, flooding and storm force winds.

Although there are many who perhaps feel envious of my tropical location I doubt that there are many who would relocate if given the chance. One winter, many years ago, I put this to the test. My 16 ton gaff cutter was securely anchored in an idyllic cove in the Virgin Islands. I needed to spend two months in England and came up with the idea of a swap: my boat for your house. But you know what... my advertisements in the UK press didn't bring in a single solitary response!

While my UK followers have been battling with adverse weather, I've been adding the barest minimum to my Bare Minimum fashion label. This includes more designs in hand-tied cotton net and more...or should I say less!  My experiments in one-off painted dye decorations have extended to designs for bikini bottoms in cotton voile. I consider tops superfluous. 

Remember, my designs are for keeping cool in the tropics, rather than keeping warm in colder climates

A blank canvas

My recent purchase of a full bolt of 100% cotton voile has enabled me to add more designs to my Bare Minimum fashion label. I have also perfected a technique of painting with dye that ensures the colours stay subtle and permanent.

The three quarter sleeve cropped top in the opening picture began as a blank canvas. I then added designs to the front and back. Being reversible, you can alternate between the two. 

The semi-sheer nature of cotton voile allows the beauty of the female form to be subtlety revealed rather than shamefully concealed.  If given freedom, painting with dye has the suggestive qualities of painting with watercolour. 

I was about to give up

After the disastrous Tropical Storm Erica five years ago, and then Maria, the worst Caribbean hurricane on record, three years ago, and now the Corona Pandemic, I was about to give up.

One way or the other these trials and tribulations have done their upmost to put a stop to my work. First, they deprived me of models and now, due to suppliers and shipping companies grinding to a halt, I am deprived of the fabrics I need for my fashion designs. 

But yesterday, amidst the ruined and overgrown pavilion that once was the teaching studio for my life classes, a white hibiscus blossomed alongside an abandoned sculpture. I took it as a good omen. And low and behold, this morning when I begged my local fabric shop to search their warehouse yet again for white cotton voile the assistant returned clutching an entire bolt of the material. I can now go back to my sewing machine and continue my foray into fashion. 

This evening, while re-reading D. H. Lawrence's novel The Rainbow, I came across this reference to a sewing machine:

She was triumphant and happy as the darting needle danced ecstatically down a hem, drawing the stuff along under its vivid stabbing...

Surely the guardians of morality cannot have had that sentence in mind when they ordered all copies of the one of the most beautiful books in the English language to be seized and burnt at the 1915 obscenity trial.

A small act of resistance

Focusing on the parts of women's bodies that are supposed to be hidden feels like a small act of resistance. It is part of this strange dichotomy that culture has been created for women: reveal and conceal. On one hand we are supposed to reveal enough of ourselves to be sexually attractive, but simultaneously we're expected to conceal our bodies. 

(Jacqueline Secor) 

The anomaly is all the more applicable when it comes to dress. 

The nude figure is less sexually provocative than one that is scantily dressed. After the initial shock of the nude, the eye takes in the beauty of the body as a whole rather than being drawn to the parts tantalisingly hidden in the name of decency. If I wanted my models to look sexy, I'd dress them in a bikini and have them pose seductively, hand on hip.

Creative garb

The opening picture beats the efforts of all the world's fashion designers and catwalk models hands down. The young lady has natural poise and her garb (meaning clothing, especially of a distinctive or special kind) has texture, colour and subtlety. It puts today's lackluster fashions in the shade. 

It is what I am after for my Bare Minimum fashion label. My latest experiments along that route have involved collecting seed pods from a tree that I pass on my daily walk to the river and making netting from cotton twine.

My experiments with materials and textures include the hemp scrim that I use in sculpture for reinforcing plaster casts and allowing cotton twine to fray and tangle as it may. 

  

The picture below shows work on a similar theme that I'm envious of. Both designer and model are unknown to me so alas I cannot credit, .

I'll leave you with a 1964 live recording of the incomparable Sarah Vaughan singing Baubles, Bangles and Beads from the 1953 musical Kismet. As most of my follows were not born in 1964 is serves as an introduction to the mastery jazz we had in those days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc0mL1ro0W4

In the time it takes

For my followers that yearn - as I do - for my return to painting the nude, here is a sketch of one of my models tying back her hair after a painting session. For the most part it comprises of a single wash that runs from her arms and gathers intensity at her thighs. Only watercolour offers the means of capturing such a fleeting moment. In the time it took my model to tie up her hair my sixty years experience was thrown down with a number 12 brush in a matter seconds. 

Beyond my control

I spend my days in longing to get back to painting. But circumstances beyond my control - first a major hurricane and then this Corona Pandemic - have deprived me of my models, and without models my work cannot exist. 

Looking back through past work is all I can do. In doing so I find some pleasant surprises in work that I had cast aside. Today's painting is one of them. For the records I had simply titled it "Collean 4". It records the transition when a model moves from reserved to relaxed. The "4" refers to the forth modelling session and that is usually the time it takes for the model and artist to throw off restraints and begin working with one accord.  

It's a pity you've travelled Collean because I could use you right now as the model for my latest Bare Minimum dress design.

When I Goggle "Caribbean Fashion" I am told that the mix of cultures in the region and the tropical climate influence the identifying features of bright colours and natural fabrics. It also adds: The Caribbean Attitude. 

These trends may be a feature of the catwalk but they are certainly not present on the ground. For bright colours insert tartan madras and for natural fabrics beyond tartan madras, forget about it. And other than the sexual connotations of the catwalk, the decorous Caribbean attitude to dress is the more restrictive and heat retaining layers the better.

This is where my fashion label Bare Minimum comes into the picture.

Side tracked

Since my last post I've spent most of my time crawling under my fifty year old Land Rover in an attempt to replace a leaking oil seal. I stress the word "attempt" because after spending the best part of a day getting to the offending seal I found that they'd sent the wrong part from the UK. I then had to spend the best part of another day putting it back to a leaking square one. 

After that it was a pleasure to continue the work in progress on my tattered harlequin design. Below are pictures of the end result. It is a dress that will look its best when wafted by a gentle tropical breeze.

Now to continue developing my designs on the theme of poetry and calligraphy.

The human body was not designed for clothes

The Beauty of the Female Form. 

Nude study by Danish photographer Benny Rytter

No matter how I contrive to adhere to the Bare Minimum concept of my fashion label, the fact remains that the human body was not designed for clothes. Apart from keeping warm in a cold climate and protecting against insect bights in the tropics, the two other principal reasons for wearing clothes are contrary to each other: modesty and sexual attraction.

Designs are governed by what you can hook on to to prevent everything falling down. On the female figure the key anchor points are over shoulders, above the breasts, and around the waist. 

A woman's breasts are the most beautiful of God's creations and it always puzzles me why we have to truss them up and deform them into a shapeless lump. I understand that the first bikini top was fashioned from a couple of handkerchiefs tied together. A strip of cotton voile thrown down on my sewing table seemed anxious to take up the form of its own accord.

 As a watercolourist I have learnt to allow the medium to be my guide and I am finding that the same holds true for fabrics.

It was a collection of dyed off cuts that tempted me to use my last strips of my cotton voile (I've now used up all there is on the island) to create a multicoloured version of my earlier "tatters" design.

Below is a picture of the work in progress. Piecing it together is as challenging as a complicated jigsaw puzzle. As with my first "tatters" design I've placed the seams to the outside to create texture.

Confronting the real thing

The Polish born artist Felix Topolski (1907-1989) had a passion for confronting the real thing. His mania for drawing from life resulted in thousands of sketches that collectively resulted in a remarkable record of life as it was lived in the mid 20th century. But by their shear numbers, his drawings were denied a proper stage. In his own words:

...books and exhibitions were too precious and selective for their numerosity-impact; the contemporary periodicals jealous of their spaces. Hence the natural conclusion: a paper/broadsheet of my own...I meant it to propose itself over the heads of tastefulness and in the manner of old broadsheets...

From initially selling copies at street corners - a sales technique from which hurried commuters turned away in embarrassment - he retreated to the stolidity of subscribers' support. His prolific Chronicles appeared fortnightly from 1953 to 1979. They were self published, without advertisements or subsidies.

Perhaps the prolific internet and blogs such as my own, have taken over where Felix Topolski left off. The essence of which is confronting the real thing.

Nigeria's Leaders from Topolski's Chronicle

The sensuous similarities of petals

Petals

 

A dictionary definition:

Petals are modifies leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often brightly coloured and shaped to attract pollinators.

While a flower's petals are accepted as beautiful to reveal the human equivalent is considered shameful. 

These thoughts came to mind as I was working on the latest design for my fashion label Bare Minimum. 

Petals

Envy and Censorship

 D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

Those of us that sailed oceans in small boats over fifty years ago would swap books for something new to read on a long passage. One book that came my way was a well thumbed paperback edition of D. H. Lawrence's poems and short stories. In the forward the author makes mention of the negativity that comes from those who want to create but can't. Their envy turns to censorship and the closer the relationship, the greater is their attempt to thwart. 

If the truth of D. H. Lawrence's statement struck me fifty years ago it strikes me all the more so now. A good friend once advised me not to expect those I had known to be pleased if I made a success of life - they'd rather not know.

In comparison, I received these words from a good friend who is talented enough not to begrudge the talents of others. 

I am glad we met in this lifetime. I have already learned so much from you.

William Holt (1887-1977)

Going back even further, the author, artist and adventurer William Holt was once a neighbour of mine. Towards the end of his book "I Haven't Unpacked" he relates how, after travelling the world, he returned to his West Yorkshire home town impoverished and had to go back to working in the mill. 

Guess who I saw today, and him wearing clogs too: Billie Holt. I always said Billie Holt would come down in the world.

I remember William Holt showing me some sketches he had made at a life-class. One in particular remains in my mind. It was of the nude model warming her hands between poses before a one-bar electric fire. 

After the artist's death I tried to organise a retrospective exhibition of his work, but the surviving family members were not supportive. Perhaps they considered that Billie Holt had hogged too much of the limelight during his lifetime. I have found that negativity, envy and censorship from those who want to create but can't, sometimes continues after the creative person's death.

Life Force by William Holt

Creepers and Calligraphy

 Creepers. My latest Bare Minimum Design

I have used an invasive creeper that grows in profusion on the land that surrounds my studio to decorate the latest dress in my Bare Minimum collection. It was an experiment in applying fabric dye with the speed that I paint in watercolour. By working fast, and not let my brush linger at any point, I avoid the dye bleeding against the surrounding fabric. As with my watercolours, speed and timing are critical. The splashes are all part of the effect that I am after.

Design Detail

I have finally found the best way of adding text to my designs. After experimenting with pastels and permanent felt tip markers, I've gone all the way back to the traditional brush techniques of master Chinese calligraphers. Again speed is of the essence.

Sample brush script painted with fabric dye on cotton voile.

Whereas not many artists are fortunate enough to have had a talented calligrapher as a model, I have. But until Verlena returns from her studies at the University of the West Indies, I must do the best I can. Below is the clay sketch for a sculpture I made of Verlena before she left.

As strange as it sounds

The British and French brought the madras fabric to the Caribbean in the 1600s and it became a currency of slavery: made in India, sold to traders in London, and then used to barter for slaves in West Africa and to clothe slaves in the West Indies. 

As strange as it sounds, the tartan madras has since become the national dress of many Caribbean islands, including my own island of Dominica.

What interests me is the material's link to the banana plant. It is the fibres from the stem of the banana plant that were spun, dyed, and woven to make the early madras fabric, a fabric which is now very rare and sort after.

The same fibres are an ingredient of my handmade papers.

Samples of my handmade papers.

Weird or not weird

 

Comparisons by Jan Saudek

Jan Saudek, art photographer and painter, is an holocaust survivor who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1935. His art work represents a unique technique combining photography and painting. Many of his images depict the transition from puberty to adulthood. In his country of origin his work was considered pornographic and oppressed by the authorities. He is now recognized as one of the leading fine art photographers of the 20th century. 

For many his work is still considered weird. To counter their claim I can do no better than quote Paul McCartney of Beetles fame:

I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is people who call others weird that are weird.

The theme of this post came about by way of a prospective model that visited my studio this morning. She began by considering my work weird. But as she was about to leave she had a change of heart and decided that the nude figure was not weird after all. 

For an excellent introduction to Jan Saudek's work go to: https://artnorth-magazine.com/news/2019/3/4/consuming-pleasures-the-art-and-life-of-jan-saudek

A touch of colour

 

On a rainy day in the Caribbean I decided to add a touch of colour. 

Up to now I have been content to contrast white cotton voile against the dark skin of my potential models. I am still undecided if colour should be added and what form it should take. My experiments have ranged from batik, to dye, to ink, to pastel and back to dye - as in today's picture. 

Fortunately a lifetime's experience of throwing down watercolour washes helps when it comes to throwing down uncontrollable brushfuls of dye. As with watercolour, speed is the essence. The above design took me fifteen minutes from beginning to end. As with my paintings, risk is involved. And this time, it is not an expensive sheet of watercolour paper that's at stake but a completed dress.

Incidentally, a job lot of fabric that I bought recently as "cotton voile" turned out to be "cotton lawn". Hence the problems I've experienced in getting it to drape with gay abandon. Cotton lawn has a higher thread count which makes it a little stiffer and not quite as sheer. 

I live and learn! 

I will repent...tomorrow!

 

The Yorkshire Keel Barge "Brookfoot" discharging her last cargo of coal to the Thornhill Power Station.

 If you repent, the parson said,

Your sins will be forgiven.

Aye, even on your dying bed

You’re not too late for heaven.

 

That’s just my cup of tea, I thought,

Though for my sins I sorrow;

Since salvation is so easily bought,

I will repent…tomorrow. (Robert Service 1874-1958) 

I've lost count of all that I have done in my life, but my adventures really started on the day I gave up my job in engineering design and bought for £200 the canal barge shown in the opening picture. In the years that followed, it was one thing after another. If it is true that in the next world nothing happens and it goes on for ever, I'm happy where I am.

My unconventional lifestyle was recently brought home to me in an email from my daughter in the UK. She said that when she was growing up she wished we lived the same as all other families. Now that she is grown up and she tells her friends of her upbringing, they are green with envy. 

The photographs below span twenty-seven years of Trina's life. 

Trina had an easier start in life than her sister Tania, who at nine weeks made a stormy ten-day sail from Bermuda to the Virgin Islands in a cardboard box wedged on the cabin floor of my gaff cutter Born Free. 

The cardboard box had previous held eggs and was appropriately marked "HANDLE WITH CARE".

 

 

 

The cheek of it!

Work in progress on one of my lace-up designs.

Fifty-five years ago I declared myself an artist on the pavements of France and more recently I declared myself a fashion designer. 

The cheek of it! How dare someone who had spent his teenage years at an engineer's workbench and never a day in art school believe he could earn his living as an artist. And how dare someone approaching the age of eighty have the audacity to believe he could influence the dress of those in their teens and twenties. 

However, very few of those that went to art school made it as artists and I doubt that many of those who have studied for a degree in fashion design have become fashion designers. I learnt more about developing my talent for painting on the pavements of France than I could ever have done at art school, and a lifetime spent depicting the beauty of the female nude gives me a head start on subtlety revealing the beauty that lies beneath the dress.

My approach is specifically directed to the tropics and in particular to my "Daughters of the Caribbean Sun". I am not after flaunting yards of silk nor the sexually skimpy. What I am after is a cool feminine alternative to tee shirts and jeans that welcomes the attention of a fleeting glance.

A few weeks ago I began tentatively sharing my ideas at random with others. Whereas I expected a non-committal response, the feedback has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. As one of my respondents said: "I like it! While the rest of the world grows older you grow younger."