An alternative to getting up tight

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Lady's underwear hasn't been around for all that long. Even the well-to-do only started wearing drawers 200 years ago and the first brassiere dates from 1889.  For ladies of lower rank underwear came at a more recent date. In earlier times a long linen shift served for both top and bottom.

In 1849 American women's rights activist, Amelie Bloomer, came up with the idea of knee-length loose-fitting pants to promote freedom of movement. In their original form they were not meant as underwear. As such they were healthier and more comfortable than today's tight fitting jeans.

Many of Egon Schiele's paintings show his models wearing either drawers, pantaloons or pantalettes. Drawers were thigh length and less frilly, whereas pantaloons and pantalettes were more decorative and came down to the knee. Pantalettes were in two pieces, one for each leg, and tied around the waist. Hence the derivation of the term, "a pair" of knickers. briefs, or what have you.

This preamble leads to what - if anything - goes beneath my Bare Minimum range of dresses. You can be assured that, whatever I come up with, it will be an alternative to getting up tight and as provocative as Egon Schiele's paintings.

 

Egon Schiele  

 

Draperie mouillée

Venus Genetrix (2nd Century BC)

Clinging drapery on the nude figure is the sculptor’s equivalent to the photographer’s wet tee shirt. It is a sensuous device that reveals rather than conceals.

The scantily clad figure is more sexually provocative than the nude. By partially concealing the model’s attributes by what the French call Draperie mouillée the nude form becomes all the more alluring. It is also a device that suggests movement.

The sculptor’s most difficult task is to create in clay or carve in stone the delicate trace of drapery. It is a skill that takes a lifetime to learn, whereas the camera can capture the same in the split-second click of the shutter. However, as the second pictures proves, through the eye of a good photographer and with the aid of a good model, the end result can can be equally as beautiful. 

Model and photographer unknown

This leads me back to my Bare Minimum fashion label together with my work as a painter and sculptor of the female nude. What I am after is suggestion rather than definition: the allurement of the fleeting glimpse. 

For this reason I have decided that decoration must also be kept to a bare minimum. Natural cotton voile offers the perfect foil for dark skin tones. Decoration is superfluous - or at the most, kept as light and loose as the dress itself: a mere hint that does not distract from the silhouette of the body beneath.

Here is the voile alone, draped as true Draperie mouillée.

To allow the silhouette of the figure to be seen, I have cast aside my experiments with bold distracting designs and reverted back to next to nothing at all. 

Bamboo (Detail). Sketched in ink and painted with fabric dye

Seated Nude (Detail). Sketched in ink and coloured with pastel.

Note: My experiments have shown that pastel becomes indelible when applied to cotton voile.

Or it can be calligraphy in the form of poetry, either Shakespeare's or your own.

The creative potential of genius

 Enoch the Second

Research has shown that a child is born with 98% the creative potential of genius. But as the years go by that potential goes rapidly down hill. At the age of eight the percentage has dropped to 30%, at thirteen peer pressure has brought it down to 10% and by adulthood, conformity has reduced it to less than 2%. 

The opening picture of my grandson Enoch was taken a few days ago. On each of his visits he makes a beeline for my woodwork shop, no amount of plastic toys can satisfy his creative curiosity to the same extent: there are wheels to turn, off-cuts of wood to improvise with and shavings that can be sent flying in the air. 

For the last ten years I have been intent on proving my theory that the graph of creative potential can begin to climb again after the age of seventy. This is due to not giving a damn to what others think. Now that I am rapidly approaching eighty, the curve is pointing skyward: after all, what have I to loose.

One of my models has just returned after spending three years overseas. Saryta's "I'm back" email asked what I had been up to since she left. My list of crazy creative doings out of the ordinary prompted the reply: ha ha I love it!!!! You never stop growing and that in itself is an inspiration.

The painting below is of Saryta inspiring me from over three years ago.

Please get back to me!

Late this afternoon I had an unexpected group of visitors to my studio. The visit was rushed and I had no time to take names or contact details. 

One of the visitors would be a perfect model for my paintings and sculptures in the series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. I gave the young lady my card with contact details so I am hoping that she'll get back to me either by Text or Email. 

A Glimpse of Stocking

Cole Porter’s 1934 original lyrics for the musical Anything Goes were more daring than today’s censored version. If you think we are more permissible almost a century later, here is a verse that nowadays we seldom hear

 If bare limbs you like,

           Or me undressed you like,

           Why, nobody will oppose,

           Anything goes.

Alas, these days it's not a glimpse of stocking but a scuffed knee in torn jeans. 

But if torn is what you like here is the latest version of the torn dress for my Bare Minimum fashion label. You'll notice that my Mk 2 offers more tantalizing glimpses than my first version shown in an earlier post. 

While I go in search of a slender Caribbean model brave enough to wear my creation let me leave you with a sepia photograph (circa 1915) of Ruth St Denis, modern dance pioneer, whose time on this earth (1879-1968) almost exactly matched that of Cole Porter (1891-1964). I dare not say that I wish she was here to inspire young dancers in Dominica as this would be taken as a rebuff by a lady from overseas who's been sent to teach dance - as was my mention of Christopher Gable in an earlier post on dance - but I would like to add Ruth St Denis's dress to my Bare Minimum collection. 

And to end, here's a rare clip of Cole Porter at the piano singing his uncensored version of Anything Goes.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd1w5tn040g

Ena de Silva. A mischievous rebel in the art of batik

 

The Sri Lankan artist Ena de Silva (1922-2015) re-established her country's batik industry. She has been described as a playful and mischievous rebel and the epitome of beauty, class and elegance. In the 1980's she spent two years as a Commonwealth consultant on handicrafts in the British Virgin Islands. 

She set up a rudimentary workshop and taught a number of young ladies the art of batik. Towards the end of her assignment she staged a spectacular fashion show. My studio was based in the British Virgin Islands at the time and my only involvement with her project was to capture her models and creations on stage...  

and behind the scenes...

Although Ena visited my studio on a number of occasions, at the time I had no interest in batik and I missed an opportunity of learning the art from one of the world's experts. If I could turn the clock back it I would spend every minute in her workshop. 

It was the same when I spent months anchored below Randolph Johnson's studio in the Bahamas. At the time I had no interest in sculpture. More recently the head of a famous French family of handmade paper makers visited my studio. That was just before my interested in paper making. Thus, another golden opportunity to learn from a master was lost. And I grieve at the number of potential models I have lost through not daring to ask.

This is not to say that I was idling my time away in those far off years in the BVI. Apart from building a house and studio I was developing my skills at rapidly sketching figures. At the time I thought I was getting nowhere, but in retrospect I now realise that I had gone beyond where I thought I should be. The sketch below dates from that period. 

I wish I could add that the seeds Ena de Silva planted during her tenure on the island took root. But as far as I am aware, the initiative faded soon after her departure. 

From a period piece to plastic

I doubt that Isaac Merritt Singer, strolling player, theater manager, inventor, and self-made millionaire would recognise the sewing machines that today bear his name. In appearance they have been transformed from period pieces in cast iron to sleek plastic, but for the most part the ingenious mechanism remains the same.

As an engineer I have an affection for sewing machines. In my time I've repaired and sewn on various models - and cursed a few. I recently restored a hand operated Singer similar to the one in the opening picture. It dates from the early years of the last century. It entered my workshop as a wreck and left looking and working like new.

My favorite machine, and one that is in daily use, dates from sixty years ago. Although a little more modern in appearance its mechanism is still contained within a metal casting. It sews like a dream and never lets me down.

More recently I was tempted to buy the "modern" Singer pictured below. It certainly would not win a Design Center Award and it's reliability leaves a lot to be desired. 

It's no better than a machine that I wasted money on fifty years ago. The manufacturer claimed it to be suitable for sewing sails. Thank goodness that I never had to resort to it in an emergency. Alice, my irreplaceable studio assistant in the BVI, did however manage to coax it into sewing new bunk cushions for my gaff cutter Born Free. 

I do not have a picture of a machine I had use of in my early days in the Caribbean. It was a huge cast iron affair that had served its time in a Puerto Rico brassier factory. Its flywheel was turned by hand and the machine could have sewn zigzag stitches through a sheet of plywood. As a friend remarked: it says a lot for Puerto Rico women!