Made in Dominica as against Made in the Far East

The shaping machine in today's picture did service during World War 2 and continues to do service - to an accuracy of 1/1000" - in my engineering workshop today. Like my fifty-year-old Land Rover, the chances are that it will still be going strong in another fifty years time. 

The same cannot be said for a succession of digital cameras and other electronic equipment that have been my lot over the past twenty years. The latest failure being a Nikon camera that my brother kindly purchased and hand delivered to my small Caribbean island less than a year ago. Not only did the Duracell rechargeable batteries leak but a minuscule metal contact for one of the of the batteries - deep inside the camera - broke in two!

Fortunately, like many of the Renaissance artists before me, as well as being as being a painter and sculptor I am also an inventive engineer and much of my time is spent making things "Made in the Far East" work in Dominica. 

Mitsubishi manual change gearboxes are a case in point. They contain a spherical bush that fails within a couple of years of the vehicle being on the road. Mitsubishi will not sell the part as a single item but only as a complete gear change assembly. In my workshop I've made hundreds replacement bushes that never fail. The non-original points in the distributor of my Land Rover failed within a few months and cost me the indignity and expense of being towed home. While waiting for genuine "Made in Great Britain" points to arrive I made replacement parts for an old Land Rover set and they are still going strong. 

As you might guess, I have now made a modified and improved replacement part for my camera. Needless to say, everything created in my workshop proudly bears the stamp "Made in Dominica"!

Whatever is that?

I predict that the next person that visits my studio and workshops will ask, "whatever is that?". The question will refer to the structure pictured above which shows work in progress on my latest project: a dress maker's mannequin. What you see is the armature; the next step is to build up the contours with wire mesh and fabric.

The mannequin relates to a fashion label that I created some years ago. The intention was keeping cool in the Caribbean and it featured a collection that ranged from classic evening dresses to swim wear. I named the label Bare Minimum.

A couple of hurricanes pushed the project onto the back burner. But each time I see young ladies dressed for autumn in New York rather than the heat in the Caribbean, I consider the label worth resurrecting.

Although I need live models for fitting my final creations, a mannequin serves well enough for the creative stage. In fact it can serve better because I can stick pins in a mannequin whereas I can't stick pins in my models. As a sculptor I have hundreds of measurements from scores of models and life-size casts in the studio to compare the mannequin against. I can therefore pick and choose bits from one or the other.

To keep me cool I make my own light weight cotton shirts and shorts, including making my own buttons . My latest creation being modeled on Marcella's torso.

Subtle Suggestions

The advantage of watercolours, if they are given the freedom they deserve, is to subtlety suggest rather than minutely define. Initially, I cast this painting aside but now I realise that it captured the mood of the moment.

My book “Notes on the Nude” says more about the sensuous subtleties of the nude. 

We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves...

Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, 
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!

The opening lines of Humbert Wolfe's poem sum up the weather we've been experiencing over the last few days here on my supposedly tropical island of Dominica. As you can see in the photograph, the river below my studio is in full flood, hence my ritual daily bathing is out of the question. 

As is also painting from my models. With temperatures down to the mid 70's it's too cold for that. Mind you, when my studio was in the North of England my models bravely worked in freezing temperatures from within a circle of blow heaters. The pictures below are of my life-size sculpture of Ganeen and dates from that period. Ironically, it is titled: You must believe in Spring!

Leonardo da Vinci would have felt at home

Leonardo da Vinci would have felt at home with me over the last week. Like him, I've had to put painting aside and concentrate on designing a float for a Carnival Queen contender, inventing a device for processing plantain for a poet and using my engineering expertise to make replacements parts for my fifty year old Land Rover. 

The following photographs tell the story.