A different kettle of fish

For the last twenty years I've been saying that if sculptors of the past, from Michelangelo to Rodin, visited my studio they would recognized every process, from clay, to plaster, to wax to bronze: in 500 years nothing has changed. 

But what I am working on now is a different kettle of fish. My experiments of taking an impressing from the initial clay sketch in handmade paper have now progressed from high-relief to a torso in the round. The first photograph shows the life-size torso in clay and the second the thin film of polythene to which the paper will be applied. The tie from the sash clamp is to prevent the torso from leaning to far. The body weight in clay is far more than the body weight in life and the metal supporting armature has its work cut out to prevent it from toppling over. 

I have based this experimental torso on the full figure of Geneen that you can see in the background but simplified to prevent deep undercuts. 

Incidentally, this isn't the first time that my life-size clay figures, regardless of supporting metal armatures, have taken on more than the intended lean. Perhaps Rodin's controversial leaning figure of Balzac initially came about by accident rather than intent.

Rodin's monument to Balzac (1893) 

Social Distancing in the Arts

For those of us that toil upon the forge of art, physical social distancing has always been part and parcel of our work. It has been so for centuries before the corona virus and it will remain so for centuries after. We work in isolation. 

It is an aspect of the visual arts that art colleges overlook; the master/apprentice relationship came closer to the mark. While some artists yearn for an environment of like minds, art communes do not breed artists. Creative minds are not alike. The same applies to poets and writers.

Working as a painter and sculptor on a small island in the Caribbean adds to the isolation. With the exception of working from the model, I go days without seeing a soul. Even the occasional one and a half hour modelling session hardly qualifies as social intercourse. For the most part we work in silence and at a distance of eight feet between the model's turntable and the work in progress. 

So while the rest of the world struggles to adapt to social distancing, for me it is what I have always known. I am told that even as a child I always wanted the beach to myself. This is not to say that I don't welcome visitors. I do with open arms. But all the better if they've arranged their visit beforehand so that I can put time aside for them. 

The photographs were taken from my studio this morning: one looking towards the solitary Caribbean Sea and the other looking down to the river and my solitary bathing pool. 

A ray of hope

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Over the years I have become wary of art societies and associations, and especially group visits from such. Generally I have found that members are content in doing what they do and the last thing they want is a wake up call from outside their ranks. 

This "mutual admiration society" approach is all the more prevalent within the thousands of on-line groups. The feed back is usually couched in terms of:  Very Nice...Amazing...So Beautiful...How Lovely...Wonderful...So Sweet. My posts dated September 17th and 21st 2019 delve deeper into this "say something nice" approach.

https://sculpturestudiodominica.blogspot.com/2019/09/state-of-art.html
https://sculpturestudiodominica.blogspot.com/2019/09/state-of-art-part-two-photocopies.html

From the above you can understand that I was dubious about accepting a request for a studio visit from a local group of artists, even though I know some of their members as good friends. But I am so glad that I invited them along yesterday afternoon, for within their membership lies a ray of hope. They were ready to accept a "different way of seeing" and willing to break out of the painterly comfort zone. 

You can find out more about them at: Waitukubuli Artist Association

I have illustrated this post with the work of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). Like many artists before and after, he had a different and controversial way of seeing. The opening pastel and the closing watercolour painting were made after the famous court trial - a case that he fought in defense of his work - had left him bankrupt. They illustrate to perfection how a little can say a lot: detail is superfluous.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Working with one arm tied behind my back

Working without a model is like trying to work with one arm tied behind my back. The French sculptor Auguste Rodin is quoted as saying: I can only work from a model. The sight of the human form feeds and comforts me. I agree!

Forty years ago in the Caribbean, I could find potential models at every turn. But fast food, together with no longer having to carry bunches of bananas down steep hillsides, has turned my slender Daughters of the Caribbean Sun into figures of obesity. These days, I search in vain.

I am now ready to attempt creating a sculpture in the round from my handmade papers and paper pulp. The opening sketch, put down in charcoal a matter of seconds on a 5 cent sheet of newsprint, gives you an idea of what I an after: arms, legs, hair thrown in all directions and the figure twisted from hips to shoulders through forty-five degrees.


The live model is needed not for defining the frozen moment but for instilling life. The latest installment of my book Notes on the Nude continues this theme:

When I painted landscapes I waxed lyrical about the view, now that I work with the figure I wax lyrical about the model. Just as I allow my watercolour washes the freedom to do what comes naturally, the model must throw off all restraints.  The formal pose offers nothing to get excited about. Gay abandonment is more inspiring than decorum.  


I have prepared clay for the initial sketch and a new batch of banana pulp. All I need now is the model. 

Freedom from restraint

For twenty years I have been trying to give my sculptures the freedom of my watercolours but with limited success. My endeavors to retain the freedom of the initial clay sketch become restrained through the complicated and lengthy transitions of casting in bronze: from clay, to plaster, to wax, to bronze. The textures and patiners of bronze are limited, along with the constraints of the final form. Furthermore, the final cast has to be made thousands of miles away and beyond my direct control. Time and cost are also major limiting factors.

My watercolours do not end in a hard line but drift into nothingness and the colours do the same, as with the opening painting of Verlena. 

By way of my experiments with hand made paper, I have finally found freedom from restraint. The natural colours of my papers reflect the subtle skin tones of my models, the textures are dramatic and the outline of the cast is not hard and fast. The details below are from sculptures shown in recent posts.

The challenge now is to develop my technique from high relief to sculptures in the round. It is a challenge that has given me many sleepless nights. But I'm working on it and I think I'm getting there!

The subtlety of colour

The indistinct outline 

Resisting temptation

Continuing from yesterday's post, I have resisted the temptation of adding more to my reclined torso. It is a lesson that I learnt long ago as a watercolourist: the last brush stroke is best left on the bush. To add more would diminish rather than improve. What you see is what you get.

I captured the same stretched torso in the first painting I ever made of my model Pearl.

In a darker tone

This reclining life-size torso was made from the same strain of banana plant as shown in my previous post. But this time processed differently to give a darker tone. It is still a work in progress and I may decide to vary the surface by subtly adding tints from different papers.

The reclining torso, with arms stretched above the head, is a subject that I've used on many occasions. Below is one version, cast in plaster from a clay original.

Going Bananas

Since this photograph was taken we've eaten the bananas and the tree converted to handmade paper. The handmade paper was then converted to my sculpture of the life-size torso shown below.

Below is the clay sketch upon which the paper was laid. As with taken a plaster cast from clay, the original is lost in the process of removing the cast from the clay. Three layers of paper create an incredibly strong form at a total thickness of less than 1/16". 

It's Me!

The photograph is of me taken 76 years ago when parents saw nothing wrong in photographing their beloved offspring naked. 

In earlier times artists decorated their paintings and sculptures with putti (naked children, sometimes with angel’s wings) but I doubt if any artist would dare do it today, and certainly not as Titian did 500 years ago in his painting “Putti Cavorting in a Landscape”

Flaunting the sexual as against revealing the beauty

Photo Credit Dominica News on Line

Thirty years ago, through my work as a painter and sculptor, I attempted to extol the natural beauty of the Afro-Caribbean woman, unadorned by foreign concepts of beauty. To achieve my objective I had to go beyond Marcus Garvey’s plea to “take the kinks out of your mind, not out of your hair”.

The nude figure is less sexually provocative than one that is scantily dressed. After the initial shock of the nude, the eye takes in the beauty of the body as a whole rather than being drawn to the so called "private parts" tantalizingly hidden in the name of decency. I know that this is something that many people have difficulty getting their head around, but it is a fact. If I wanted my models to look sexy, I’d put them in a bikini and have them pose seductively, hand on hip.

The opening pictures are of this year's Dominica Carnival Queen contenders. They are all attractive young ladies and it's not their fault that they feel obliged to flaunt for the audience the sexual as against revealing their God given beauty. 

Elsewhere in the Caribbean my work once convinced the judges to give credit to natural appearance. And a few years ago one contender wrote in my visitor's book, "You have opened my eyes and mind to true beauty".

The sculpture shown below is of my model Verlena: the epitome of true beauty.

Searching for colours and textures

For using hand-made paper as a casting material for my sculptures I am for ever searching for new colours and textures from what grows around my studio. The Royal Palm grows in profusion, as can be seen in the above photograph of my driveway. But it's fronds have a prickly sharp center and are difficult to convert into paper. 

However, the results are worth the effort, especially as the colour comes close to some of the purple skin tones that I'm after.

Pudendum

This cast is taken from the clay sketch shown below. It indicates the potential of handmade paper - banana, sugarcane, pineapple and Royal Palm - as a medium for sculpture. Here are exciting possibilities in terms of colour and texture.

Pudendum Definition: The external genital organs, especially those of the female. From the Latin, “that whereof one ought to feel shame”.  

The full-figure

The painter Lucian Freud (1922-20110 had an obsession for models with flesh, and lots of it. 

If only I could be attracted to "the full-figure", or in Caribbean terminology "the thick figure", I would have plenty of choice for models. But try as I may, I cannot. This week I did try, as shown in the sketch below. I give credit to my model for also giving it a try.

Alas, too much Kentucky Fried Chicken, as against carrying bunches of bananas down steep hillsides, has converted many of the slender "Daughters of the Caribbean Sun" that I painted in earlier times into ample figures that would have done Lucian Freud proud.

Spewed out of the furnaces of Gomorrah

Page 80 in my book Notes on the Nude is headed Tame in Comparison to Rodin. It reads as follows:

Despite every effort to resist finish, my torso of Marcella is tame beside how Camille Lemonnier, Belgian, writer, poet and journalist, describes one of Rodin’s sculptures:

At the Maison d’Art there is a torso that seems to have been spewed out from the furnaces of Gomorrah. It has been savagely torn and splayed the way a fissure in the earth cracks open, as though a crucible were exploding in its depths.

But Marcella can quite literally claim to have brought down the curtain. The curtain in question being the neutral canvas backdrop that I judge my models against. One gust from the tropical trade wind and it was gone. But my models are made of tough stuff and I doubt that a hurricane would deter them. 

Perhaps the life-size torso that I've cast from handmade paper pulp comes closer to Rodin's torso. It was released from the mold prematurely, not by me but by the same tropical trade wind that brought the curtain down on Marcella. 

With shades of Jackson Pollack

My latest experiments in paper making have extended to throwing dyes onto a sheet while still in the mold. The result suggests shades of Jackson Pollack. The sheet size is 20" x 24".

The picture below shows the dyed sheet drying and alongside is one of my experiments of casting paper pulp in a mold. In this case the rear of a life-size torso. 

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) was a leading figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement. His technique centered around throwing paint on canvas.

New Dimensions

Continuing from my previous post; the above picture shows the completed torso and the one below shows the surface finish.

Now that I found that it is possible to cast with hand-made paper I can explore new dimensions with my sculpture, in particular colour and texture. Furthermore, the raw materials - banana, sugar cane, pineapple, exotic grasses, palm and bamboo - grow in profusion right outside my studio.

Coincidentally, my handmade papers match my watercolours and hence the shades of my models.

Avert Your Eyes

In my last post I warned you that my mind was racing towards other sculptural possibilities of hand-made paper. The above picture shows work in progress in converting a portion of the cast of figure from plaster to paper. The sculpture that I have used as a form dates back to the mid 1990's and was my first attempt at a life-size figure. With the exception of the two images below, photographs of work in progress on the original have been lost on crashed computer hard-drives. Furthermore, I only retained the upper part of the plaster cast when I re-located my studio from England to the Caribbean.

It was an incident when work was in progress on the original that led me to title this post "Avert Your Eyes". My studio in the North of England had previously been a Church Assembly Hall and its dramatic features were listed with English Heritage. The listing protected the building from undesirable modification and church covenants on the sale of the building protected the building from undesirable usage. The covenants banned the sale of alcohol (but fortunately not the consumption) and lewd entertainment.  

My wife Denise modeled for the standing figure and while work was in progress a group of church elders asked if they might visit. On the day of their visit I draped the figure for fear that it might fall under the "lewd entertainment" category.

All went well until a lady, well into her eighties, began lifting the veil and asked, "What do we have here!" Before I could utter an explanation she had completely removed the covering. She then stood back and exclaimed, "This is beautiful!"

How I wish that all visitors to my studio could appreciate the beauty of the nude, as did that elderly lady. On occasions a decorous visitor - young rather than old - averts her eyes and departs the studio faster than she came in.  

In contrast to pictures of one of my earliest sculptures, the most recent pages of my book Notes on the Nude contain notes and images of two of my most recent. You will find the serialization of the book at notesonthenude.blogspot.com    

My harlequin dress-maker's mannequin

My dress maker's mannequin has developed into a multi-coloured sculptured harlequin. The colours originate from the various hand-made papers that I finally used to cover the wood, chicken wire and canvas armature. The pictures below show the work in progress.

Wood left. Wire Center, Canvas Right 

                                                                

      

The covering is a collage of scraps of various hand made papers shown in the picture below. This project has brought home to me the amazing strength of hand-made paper. Even sheets as thin as tissue paper are difficult to tear. My hands ache. 

And it is not only the strength of hand-made paper; its potential and versatility as a creative material has my mind is racing towards other possibilities.

Made in Dominica as against Made in the Far East

The shaping machine in today's picture did service during World War 2 and continues to do service - to an accuracy of 1/1000" - in my engineering workshop today. Like my fifty-year-old Land Rover, the chances are that it will still be going strong in another fifty years time. 

The same cannot be said for a succession of digital cameras and other electronic equipment that have been my lot over the past twenty years. The latest failure being a Nikon camera that my brother kindly purchased and hand delivered to my small Caribbean island less than a year ago. Not only did the Duracell rechargeable batteries leak but a minuscule metal contact for one of the of the batteries - deep inside the camera - broke in two!

Fortunately, like many of the Renaissance artists before me, as well as being as being a painter and sculptor I am also an inventive engineer and much of my time is spent making things "Made in the Far East" work in Dominica. 

Mitsubishi manual change gearboxes are a case in point. They contain a spherical bush that fails within a couple of years of the vehicle being on the road. Mitsubishi will not sell the part as a single item but only as a complete gear change assembly. In my workshop I've made hundreds replacement bushes that never fail. The non-original points in the distributor of my Land Rover failed within a few months and cost me the indignity and expense of being towed home. While waiting for genuine "Made in Great Britain" points to arrive I made replacement parts for an old Land Rover set and they are still going strong. 

As you might guess, I have now made a modified and improved replacement part for my camera. Needless to say, everything created in my workshop proudly bears the stamp "Made in Dominica"!

Whatever is that?

I predict that the next person that visits my studio and workshops will ask, "whatever is that?". The question will refer to the structure pictured above which shows work in progress on my latest project: a dress maker's mannequin. What you see is the armature; the next step is to build up the contours with wire mesh and fabric.

The mannequin relates to a fashion label that I created some years ago. The intention was keeping cool in the Caribbean and it featured a collection that ranged from classic evening dresses to swim wear. I named the label Bare Minimum.

A couple of hurricanes pushed the project onto the back burner. But each time I see young ladies dressed for autumn in New York rather than the heat in the Caribbean, I consider the label worth resurrecting.

Although I need live models for fitting my final creations, a mannequin serves well enough for the creative stage. In fact it can serve better because I can stick pins in a mannequin whereas I can't stick pins in my models. As a sculptor I have hundreds of measurements from scores of models and life-size casts in the studio to compare the mannequin against. I can therefore pick and choose bits from one or the other.

To keep me cool I make my own light weight cotton shirts and shorts, including making my own buttons . My latest creation being modeled on Marcella's torso.

Subtle Suggestions

The advantage of watercolours, if they are given the freedom they deserve, is to subtlety suggest rather than minutely define. Initially, I cast this painting aside but now I realise that it captured the mood of the moment.

My book “Notes on the Nude” says more about the sensuous subtleties of the nude.