In the beginning

 

A Fallen Tree Truck by Roger Burnett aged two and a half.

The forthcoming retrospective collection that I mentioned some weeks ago should really begin with the original of the work of art that illustrates toady's post. It dates from 1945 and was drawn in crayon, along with hundreds of other sketches, on the blank pages of an old invoice book that my father had rescued from the garbage where he worked. When I had filled every page the book was again put in the garbage (dustbin in English). In those days parents didn't pin their offspring's creations on the wall. Although the originals are long gone I have a vivid recollection of many of them and the above reproduction is one I liked the best. 

I saw this and thought of you

Rick Slabbinek (1914-1991) Belgian Painter

A link to the opening painting and a rare copy of Noel Coward's Collected Sketches and Lyrics were passed onto me with the message: I saw this and thought of you! Both relate the censorship of the nude in all art forms.

Noel Coward's book had weathered earlier hurricanes before it came into my possession via a good friend and the secondhand book stall in the early years of Dominica's Literary Festival. It has since survived Hurricane Maria, the worst hurricane in the history of the Caribbean. Hence it's sorry appearance.

It was published in the 1930's but this quote foreshadows today's social media's restrictive community guidelines. 

OFFICAL. Excuse me, this little lad must have a top to 'is bathing dress.  MRS. F. Why - what for?   OFFICIAL. Corporation's rules.   MRS. F. Lot of nonsense - the child's under age.    OFFICIAL. Can't help that madam. The Corporation's very strict about indecent exposure.    MRS. F. Well, it's coming to something if a child of ten can't enjoy a state of nature without giving a lot of old ladies ideas.  OFFICIAL. England don't 'old with states of nature.

One skill leads to another

Earlier this month l mentioned that I know of nothing more therapeutic than working with hand tools at my carpenter's bench. The results of that therapy is the rocking chair that illustrates today's post. 

The chair is still a work in progress but days of breathing shaving scented air cleared my mind to ponder on what it takes to be an artist. I am not sure how prospective students are judge for entry to an art school or college, but if it was up me I would place eye-to-hand skill high on the scale of requirements.

The skill I use as a sculptor relates to the skill I use as an engineer which in turn relates to the skill I use as a carpenter, etc. etc. One skill leads to another and all of them enable an artist to survive. 

A wood shaving straight from the plane is in itself a work of art.

Mood Indigo

 

It takes four years in art school and a MA degree in art to create the colour subtleties and finely balanced composition of today's painting....or does it!  

I have titled the painting Mood Indigo. It was painted this afternoon by my eighteen month old grandson in four minutes. 

Research has shown that we are born with 98% the creative potential of genius. By the time the majority of students leave college it has been reduced to less than 2%.

Where have we gone wrong!

While you mull over that one, here's Ella Fitzgerald's 1957 recording of Mood Indigo from her Duke Ellington Song Book LP. Incidentally, I bought the LP the year it was released with my first week's wage. You might also add this recording by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra.

Smart Art :(

River Esk, Whitby. An original "painting" by Alan Burnett 

I am taking the content of this post directly from my brother's blog News from Nowhere. I quote:

This is my entry for the 2021 season of Sky TV's Landscape Artist Of The Year.  Watching the show on a regular basis I have become intrigued at how the artists use their smartphones to compose and record a scene, which they then go on to paint. Once painted they use the same smart phones to photograph the painting to submit it for consideration by the program. My approach is slightly different: I cut out the middle man. The smart phone records the scene, paints the picture and then submits it. Saves time all around.

My brother's satirical post exactly corresponds to my own views on the cowardly copyists who attempt to pass as "artists". The painter J M W Turner (1775-1851) must be turning in his grave. To capture the effects he needed for his painting Snow Storm: Steamboat off the Harbour's Mouth he instructed the the sailors to lash him to the mast so he could observe it.

Christ on the Cross

A few days ago I had a request from the Catholic Church for a six foot sculpture of Christ on the Cross. I received a similar request last year. My response to both was: thanks but no thanks. In both cases the proposed fee would not have covered a fraction of the material costs, let alone the hundreds of hours of work involved. Furthermore, my image of the most cruel form of death ever devised by man would not be the idyllic vision that the commissioners had in mind.

Having said that, I have always been tempted to portray Christ on the Cross on my own terms. The opening sketch was made years ago with that in mind. I do not have a name to which I can attribute the sculpture shown below. Like many images I find on the internet, the source was not given. What I can say is, I wish I'd done that!

UPDATE: !5th March 2021

Thanks to Goggle Image Search, I now do have a name. The image below is of a bronze maquette by Jacquire Binns for a life-size sculpture for St. Peter's Church, Plymouth, UK.

"Crucifixion" by Jacquie Binns

As often happens, both with my own work and that of others, I find the Jacquie Binns's maquette to be more dramatic that the final sculpture.

Rescued in the nick of time

Throughout my fifty years in the Caribbean I have lost more paintings by way of termites than by hurricanes. The same is true of my collection of books and rare jazz LPs. As I mentioned in a post years ago: termites have taste!

Today, as I was searching through my drawing cabinet, I found that the troublesome little creatures were at it again. Luckily I discovered their attack in the nick of time and rescued scores of paintings. These two pastels dating from the 1990's are amongst those I managed to save.  

#frofriday

I am proud that the students at one of my island's secondary schools choose natural hair styles as their theme for Black History Month. Their action proclaims pride of identity for the race from which they were born and fulfills Marcus Garvey's plea: "Take the kinks out of your mind, not your hair".

All to often those of African decent mimic foreign concepts of beauty, especially in terms of disguising their natural appearance: they bleach their skin, straighten their hair and modify their facial features. Two contestants at last year's Carnival Queen Contest wore wigs!

The Caribbean male fares no better. In recent times the fashion has been to shave every inch of hair from their heads. Sir Kenneth Dwight Vincent Venner (1946-2016) past Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank was a refreshing exception. 

Somebody’s boring me; I think it’s me.

The title of today's post is a quote from the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) and the 30" handcart wheel is the kind of thing I set my hands and mind to for therapy when I my paintings, sculptures and fashion designs begin to bore me.

I know of nothing more therapeutic than working with hand tools at my carpenter's bench. In comparison my other forms of creative endevour come a poor second.

I believe it was George Orwell who, when giving a talk at a Women's Institute a member of the audience ventured to say, "How nice it must be to be able to write". 

He responded: "Madam, writing is the worst punishment I can possibly devise for myself".