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.