Letting nature take its course

Detail from "Meditation". 

A life-size seated nude in my series "Daughters of the Caribbean Sun".

The sculptures in my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun begin life in clay. I work from the live model and the process involves weeks of work. From the clay image a plaster cast is made as a preliminary to casting the figure in bronze. Until a bronze cast is commissioned, the plaster image is remains as the final form. Plaster casts are permanent for indoors but unsuited for outdoors. 

On occasions I have experimented with a polymer additive to plaster as a means of enabling a sculpture to withstand the elements. My sculpture titled "Meditation" is a case in point. For over twelve years this life-size figure has survived all that the elements could throw at it - and not least, a major hurricane.

The surface of an unblemished plaster cast is deathly white. Sculptors in past times had a saying: clay is the life, plaster the death and bronze the resurrection. In this case mother nature gave life by applying her own masterful patina. 

The picture below shows the sculpture in its original pristine state.

Will there ever be another?

One of my many paintings of Annabelle from times past.

Somerset Maugham, in the preface of his third and final collection of short stories, writes: I do not expect ever to write another.

With the limitations posed by the pandemic in terms of working from the live model, I am beginning to feel that I may never paint another. If that proves to be so it would be unfinished business. For while I can never recapture the Caribbean landscape and townscape as it was fifty years ago, there is more that I need to unrestrainedly say about the beauty of The Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. 

My means of expression is not the repetitive posed photograph of the nude but the of the unguarded moment captured in a matter a minutes by way of the suggestive subtlety of watercolours. 

It's difficult to do that from behind facemasks and at a social distance of six feet.

Dear Nikon

My troublesome 2020 Nikon Coolpix B500 

(Plus two springs from the action of my 60 year old piano that are needed to make it work)

My cameras have ranged from a classic 1939 Kodak bellows to a 2020 digital Nikon. The Kodak, shown below, was one of the best and the Nikon shown above, one of the worst. 

Kodak Vigilant 620 roll film bellows camera.

Between the two I've owned a much loved 35mm Kodak Retinette 1A and a dubious Soviet SLR. My association with digital cameras began with the earliest one made by Kodak - simple and dependable - followed by a superb but less dependable Olympus 5.1 megapixel Camedia. I replaced the Olympus with a marvelous Canon Power Shot A2500. Most of the pictures on this blog were taken with that little camera.

The problem with the Nikon is not picture quality but the brittle stainless steel strip contacts for its 4 AA batteries. And four AA batteries are its only mode of power. Nikon tell me that the reason for battery power is that many users will be travelling to remote regions that lack mains electricity, whereas suitable AA batteries are always available wherever you are. I stress "suitable" as the camera is fussy on what it accepts. Alas, on my "remote" island in the Caribbean compatible batteries are seldom available. 

However, by replacing the broken contacts with two redundant springs from piano, hey-presto, the camera works!  

Dear Nikon, I have a further 86 surplus old piano springs. Let me know if you need them. 

Painting by eye and playing by ear

Imperceptible variations between colours together with a suggestive line says 

all that needs to be said about the subtle beauty of the female breast. 

Detail from a 20" x 30" watercolour of the reclining nude.

The painter James Whistler (1834-1903) on looking at the work of an aspiring artist asked, whom she had studied with. Apologetically, she answered that she had never studied under anybody. Whistler unhesitatingly replied, "You couldn't have done better".

If sixty years ago I had attended art school, instead of learning my trade and earning my living with a sketch book on the pavements of France, my work would be indistinguishable from tens of thousands of others. I would have been taught formulas for mixing colours instead of finding out for myself by experimentation. 

Many of the best musicians in jazz are similarly self-taught. The renowned saxophonist Charlie Parker gave this advice: "You must know your instrument; practice, practice, practice...and then forget all you have learnt". 

In painting I have put in over fifty years of practice. I instinctively know my colours and how they interact. Of late, my evenings have been spent at the piano learning by trial and error how one note interacts with another. If only I had another fifty years I might gain the same creative proficiency in music as I have done in painting. 

The colour wheel for artists and the cord wheel for musicians are contrary to my dyslexic way of learning and my passionate approach to painting and music.