From her shoulders down

My bathing figure is gradually immerging from its waste mould, from her shoulders down. You last saw her over a month ago as a clay sketch in my posts If it were any easier and Can you guess. 

The process of making the mould and revealing what lies beneath has been thwart with difficulties, all of my own making. It serves to prove the maxim: If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment. 

My first mistake was omitting to reinforce the mould in the vicinity of the figure's waist. This resulted in the mould breaking when separated. My second mistake was to brush too much clay wash on the flick coat, thus causing insufficient adhesion to the outer plaster casing. The sections broke away had to be delicately glued back in place. My third mistake was to miscalculate the amount of plaster needed for the pour. Not filling the mould in one go may have created voids and weakness in the cast. These will become apparent as I carefully break away more of the mould.

 The broken rear cap of the waste mould.

An appeal for models, paintings and photographs from the past

For a catalogue of my life's work as a painter and sculptor I am trying to trace models, paintings and photographs from the past. 

I have kept in touch with Alice, my model and assistant who worked with me in the 1980's when my studio was located in the Virgin Islands, but I have lost touch with others, namely: Hemo, Annetta, Gretel, and the twins, Pearl and Pearline. They must all now be in late middle age, just as I am now in old age. but I would be happy to hear from them.

Hemo and Annetta

Gretel

     

                                                                 Pearl and Pearline

Almost all the hundreds of paintings I made of the Caribbean between the years 1975 and 1995 sold to eager buyers. If you own one of those paintings I would be grateful if you could send me a photograph. The same applies for the scores of sketches I made on the pavements of France and Belgium in the 1960's, and the paintings I made of the Norfolk town of Kings Lynn in the early 1970's. 

Over the years onlookers have taken thousands of photographs of me at work. Perhaps someone, somewhere, has one tucked away in an album.

Please contact me via the contact form listed on the sidebar of this blog if you can help with any of the above.

Life-Classes with a Difference

My wife Denise models for a life-class held along the river that flows by my studio. 

The life-classes that I occasionally teach from my studio are different to the structured life-class taught in art schools. My students are more likely to find the model bathing in the river than posing on the modelling stand. Furthermore, the model remains nude from the beginning to the end of the session, including breaks for rest and refreshments. Thus, the nude figure becomes the comfortable norm rather than the disconcerting exception. And the nude is nude. The model is not sexualised with the distraction of a bikini.

The images below, with Denise again as the model, show the steps from the model, to the preliminary sketch, to the sculpture of my life-size reclining figure. 

My book Notes on the Nude and the related video delves deeper into the challenges of working from the live model. 

Mans obsession with fakes

Leonardo's painting of Mona Lisa isn't a fake, but the background behind the sitter is. 

Man's obsession with fake backgrounds was carried over from painting to photography, as evidenced in the studio portraits of the 19th and 20th century. The image below is from my brother's collection of vintage studio photographs.

The obsession continues today with virtual off-the-shelf backgrounds for videos. The presenter of a Caribbean podcast on the theme of the region's culture, is shown in the virtual surroundings of a wealthy western world study. By contrast, the distinguished guest speaker contributes from his unpretentious West Indian home environment.

To Hell With Culture

Next Tuesday, over 3000 guests are expected to visit Tortola as part of the Ubersoca Cruise’s inaugural visit to the British Virgin Islands. The Premier and Minister of Tourism described the event as a milestone for the territory’s tourism and cultural industries. The island's Junior Minister for Culture and Tourism said the event would provide an opportunity for visitors to experience the authenticity of Virgin Islands culture.

To put the visit in perspective, one must bear in mind that the total population of the British Virgin Islands is less than 40,000, and up to the advent of mass tourism, the island's cultural industry was fishing and farming.

If the Ubersoca visit reflects the authenticity of Virgin Island culture, times have certainly changed since the early 1980’s when I published my book Virgin Island Sketches, a page from which is shown below. In those days the islands proudly boasted, ''Yes, Were Different''. More recently, they have become intent on being the same as everywhere else.

When will Caribbean leaders realize that culture is not a commodity to be flaunted and sold. Its true worth lies deep in the hearts of the people.

My recent video has more to say about the changes brought about by mass tourism in the Caribbean.  

I have taken the title for this post from Herbert Read's book To Hell With Culture.

Delving into the archives

Detail of the finished clay beneath the dramatic roof of my studio.

These images are of work in progress on my sculpture, ''Ýou Must Believe In Spring''. They are from a collection of over 600 that date from the 1990's to the early years of this century that record work in progress for my original website diary. As that was before the convenience of blogger, I depended on my computer savvy brother posting the pages daily by way of a ''sculpturestudio'' website. In those days computer hard drives had limited capacity and to save space the images were later saved in low resolution. I am now delving into those images and the pages of text that went with them. The content warrants reissuing in one form or another for my present day followers worldwide.

The armature for the clay and Denise applying the flick coat of plaster for the waste mold.

Lifting the waste mold and the completed plaster cast 

of my model Geneen emerging from the mold.

The story behind this sculpture, and sculptures in my series ''Daughters of the Caribbean Sun'', can be found in the book Notes On The Nude.