A Creative Health Warning

  

A detail from a painting in my pregnancy series.

An overdose of instructional videos on "How to Paint in Watercolour" can seriously damage your creative health. This health warning has been brought about by looking at too many carefully contrived, tame insipidies that have been drearily painted to rule. They lack very essence of the medium: that being spontaneity and freedom.

I remember one such regimented practitioner shaking his head in despair at my work. His advice was that I should use a smaller brush, less water and paint more carefully. 

The Colour of her Soul

 Raw Sienna, Indian Red and Ivory Black.

At one of Dominica's Literary Festivals my daughter and I were competing against each other in the poetry category. Tania's poem was The Colour of her Soul and mine, The Colour Black. Both poems related to the range of skin tones found in the Daughters of the Caribbean Sun.

The same subtle colours are mirrored in the island's vegetation. The picture below is of a variety of banana known locally as Cou Cou. The bananas that grow in the grounds surrounding my studio are different to those that are grown commercially. Ours come in all shapes, sizes and flavours, and they grow in abundance. 

Today's crop of Cou Cou. In  Raw Sienna, Indian Red and Ivory Black.

The indignity of being sold - yet again!

The Jamaican Girl 

A life-size bronze sculpture by Enzo Plazzotta.

My love affair with the nude dates back to 1971. In that year I was seduced by Enzo Plazzotta’s sculpture, Jamaican Girl. The infatuation was such that I followed my temptress to the land of her birth, and thereafter, the Caribbean became my adopted home. Little did I realise that, in my search for my seductress, she had sought me in my native land. 

But alas, my seductress, like her African forefathers, has yet again suffered the indignity of being sold. This time around, it's the Yorkshire Sculpture Park that has put her on the market for thirty-six thousand pounds inc. vat. They in turn acquired her at auction in 2019.

One a brighter note, the sculpture was originally cast as an edition of nine and I understand, from one of my models, that the University of the West Indies has one of the casts. I hope they ensure that she remains in the region of her birth.

Regrettably, I never met Enzo Plazzotta's model for the Jamaican Girl, but over the last fifty years I have had the good fortune of working with equally inspirational models from most of the Caribbean Islands. They are depicted in hundreds of paintings and scores of sculptures in my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. The image below shows my clay sketch for a life-size sculpture of my Dominican model Annabelle.

Tribal Decoration

 

Hans Silvester's images and the following account from his book Natural Fashion: Tribal Decorations from East African puts our westernised dull concept of fashion in the shade.

Body painting, as practiced here in East Africa, the cradle of humanity, seems to me to represent a way of life that dates from prehistory and once enabled humankind to overcome the hostility of nature. Art was then a means of survival.

The images above are of the Surma and Mursi peoples, two of the fifteen Ethiopian tribes indigenous to the Omo Valley in Southern Ethiopia. Both nomadic communities living close to and with nature, and placing great importance on decoration of the body over the spatial environment. Bright minerals for paint to embellish the skin, flora and fauna for ephemeral adornments . Whereas the Surma often draw from the varied “closet” of the plant world, the Mursi predominately adorn themselves with items derived from the hunt such as tusks, skins, shells and the like.

As Silvester describes in his book Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa, no underlying systems seem to exist. Mothers begin painting infants, and from there adolescence frolic in this pastime avidly dedicating themselves to this activity. One’s skill at bodily adornment is not judged by viewing ones own reflection as these are communities that are said to live in the absence of mirrors. Not even the waters of the Omo river provide a reflection in their muddy waters. The image of self, in particular, the adroit body ornamentation is deemed through the reaction it elicits in others, thus body painting amongst the Surma and Mursi is a group activity. Often boys will paint boys and girls, girls or one might paint themselves several times within a day. Lounging by the river, applying expressive, gestural quick strokes with natural pigments of red ochre, yellow sulfur, white kaolin and grey ash in a multitude of patterns and combinations. Motifs emblematic of families exist.

This ephemeral art form elevates and celebrates the body making it the ultimate canvas. The dextrous individual is the one that sees beyond the obvious, that perceives a leaf can transform to become a hat or a necklace, a reed becomes a ribbon, a branch with pods rather a head ornament. 

A man I am proud to have known.

Peter Penfold CMG OBE (1944-2023)

I quote from my forthcoming book "For the Sake of the Children".

"After a further three months in limbo, we decided to sail back to the Virgin Islands and challenge the immigration ruling in the High Court. As no lawyers in the British Virgin Islands would represent me, our only way forward was with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my Member of Parliament in England and the Governor’s Office. We were fortunate that Peter Penfold, a man of courage and high principles, was at that time the Governor of the territory. With the help of his aide Alan Penrith, he ensured we received fair treatment. 

After serving as Governor of the British Virgin Islands Peter Penfold was appointed High Commissioner to Sierra Leone where he was widely considered a hero for his controversial role in restoring Kabbah. While he was giving evidence to the UK inquiry, 20,000 people took part in a demonstration demanding his return to Sierra Leone, and upon his arrival he was appointed an honorary Paramount Chief."

Peter Penfold is a man I am proud to have known. I deeply appreciate his courage to stand by me during my fight for access to my children. Ironically, my stand for a basic human right in the British Virgin Islands, and Peter Penfold's stand for human rights in Sierra Leone, resulted in us both being deemed persona non grata in some quarters. 

The world has lost a remarkable man, to whom the Times Obituary gives deserved credit.