When viewed through a different lens

 

Today's picture is the first painting that I've photographed with my "new" camera. I say "new" whereas actually it's a fifteen year old Olympus E -500 SLR. It has interchangeable lenses and a host of settings that I have yet to get used to. 

The background to my figure paintings is the white of the watercolour paper, and this is something that gives digital cameras a problem. Fortunately the Olympus E -500 SLR has the means of getting around this - when I've figured out how to set its sophisticated "white balance" features.  

With lenses and accessories, it is not the camera you would want to carry on a twenty-mile hike - I took my son along to help me carry it home from the shipping company - but on a tripod in the studio it's size and weight is not a problem. 

Since writing this post I've been able to delve deeper into the camera's 216 page Users Manual. The picture below is of a painting from eight years ago. It has been restored since suffering water damage in the hurricane. I photographed today without having to remove it from its frame. The challenge it to avoid reflections.

Jessica reading

 

My Olympus E - 500 SLR

Since you left...

The footpath that led from Doty to Wind Hill before it was blasted and bulldozed.

Soon after I left the British Virgin Islands in 1995 I had a call from an island friend begging me to return with the words: Since you left the government think they can get away with anything! She was referring to my efforts to preserve the island's intrinsic identity. 

Those efforts came to my mind yesterday when the editor of the island's newspapers sent me a copy of one of my many "Letters to the Editor" that they published over thirty years ago.

My letter was headed "Lamentations" and it read as follows:

On the last day of 1988 it was my miserable task to view the remains of a loved one. Her innocent beauty was the victim of a cruel crime. The features that I had known so well were mangled and mutilated beyond recognition. I speak of the footpath that led from Doty to Windy Hill – the footpath that has recently been blasted and bulldozed into a road.

I was not told of her impending doom, although I understand it had been premeditated for years. And after all, I had no legal right to her: she did not belong to me. My status was simply that of an illicit lover, and on quite afternoons we enjoyed our secret affair together.

But those to whom she was vowed did not cherish her. Her charms were lost on them, even though their very ancestors had labouriously fashioned her beauty. Did they know, or care, about the unique paved section, about the ruins at Arundel, about her flora and fauna?

But don’t mistake my lament. People should have the right to access their land. The concept of freehold is, to me, as inviolable as the concept of free speech. It must be so. In our economy, taxis and tourists have to be catered for. I am no more in favour of turning the whole island into a National Park, than I am bent on seeing it smothered in concrete. But oh, for some sensitivity and long-term planning to temper our materialistic short-term gains.  Alas, these virtues seem deplorably absent.

Land ripe for development! What will you bid? Thirty years ago, my (ex)wife’s grandfather sold his best land at Greenbank for $17.14 an acre. He laughed because he thought he’d done well on the deal. At today’s price an acre of land, with road access, above Ballast Bay could well fetch $250.000*. But the deal would be no better.

Your grandchildren my inherit the earth and fly to the moon – a miserable place by all accounts – but if they cannot savour the sweet and simple delights of the walk from Doty to Windy Hill, they will have profited nothing. They will be that much impoverished.

Some years ago, Sheila Hyndman, a young Virgin Islander, eloquently expressed her doubts for the future of these islands. I quote from her poem:

They will come with tools and machines.

            They will bring to light your secret places,

            They will demand your mysteries.

            They will destroy, build up.

            They will dilute your treasures,

            And rob you of your chastity.

            They will adorn you like ancient Jezebel.

*I have adjusted this figure to indicate the 2022 value. 

From father, to daughter, to grandson

Zeke

My daughters are intent on keeping the family image alive long after my time. Here is my daughter Trina, her partner Gary and my latest grandson Zeke. Trina tells me that he is already showing signs of being a very practical young man and one worthy to follow in his grandfather's footsteps. 

Here's Trina when she was not much older than Zeke.

The picture below is from our early days in Dominica. Trina is on the right, Tania on the left and my son Tristan in the middle. Tristan is now a strapping twenty year old. He is my helper in the workshop and the solver of all my computer problems. 

Paradise Lost

 

Puerto Rican tourists at a Christmas in July promotion in the British Virgin Islands.

Photo Credit Caribbean Journal.

I submitted the commentary below to a BVI news site two weeks ago. As yet, it has not been acknowledged or published. However, the same news site published the above photograph today in relation to an event that is currently being promoted. I am left to wonder how the promotion reflects the image of the BVI being "One of Nature's Little Secrets".

Paradise Lost

In 1975, while sailing north through the Caribbean, stormy weather caused me to take shelter in the British Virgin Islands. The anchorage off Road Town was exposed and uncomfortable and I was told of a sheltered cove a few miles along the coast. Its entrance was narrow but once inside the surrounding reef offered perfect protection. My intention was to continue on my way as soon as the weather improved.

The weather did improve but I stayed on, and that idyllic cove became my home port for the next twenty years.

In the BVI much is made about Belonger Status. However, Somerset Maugham in his book “The Moon and Sixpence” speaks about a deeper sense of belonging: 

Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth.

I collected the material for my book “Virgin Island Sketches” during the early years of my stay. It celebrates the way of life of the islanders and my sketches now serve as a reminder of those halcyon times past.  

While I was busy preserving scenes from the past, Virgin Island poet Sheila Hyndman (1958-1991) was prophesizing the future.

            They will come with tools and machines.

            They will bring to light your secret places,

            They will demand your mysteries.

            They will destroy, build up.

            They will dilute your treasures,

            And rob you of your chastity.

            They will adorn you like ancient Jezebel.

‘Till all that’s left of your true self

Will be an old and forgotten poem

Like mine.

I shared Sheila’s love of her homeland and in the years that followed I contributed my own work to that end.

But as the 1980’s progressed I found it increasingly difficult to relate the past to the future. The maxim “Yes, We’re Different” was being cast aside in favour of being the same as everywhere else. I began to realize that much of the development taking place was for the benefit of foreign entities. It had begun with the Wickams Cay reclamation project in the 1960’s and more recently, financial services and mass tourism. Although the islands are undoubtedly financially better off than when I first knew them, in the process of acquiring that transient wealth, Virgin Islanders have lost more than they gained.

My disillusionment of what was perceived as progress became all the more acute in the year that I travelled the region in search of material for my book “Caribbean Sketches”. As with my earlier book, I was working against the clock in attempting to capture each island before it degenerated into being the same as everywhere else. Cruise ship passengers step ashore to the same spurious scene as at every other port of call. We tend to forget that the individuality of places reflects the individuality of ourselves.

As my journey through the region progressed, I found that the fundamental problem faced by Caribbean small island states was not one of self-governance, but one of self-sufficiency. Even on islands that have claimed independence and that are rich in natural resources, the islanders themselves have not benefitted. Rather than farming the land, the present generation prefer to sit at a desk or serve tourists. To finance an alien lifestyle, their governments sell passports to foreigners and become deeply beholden to the People’s Republic of China. In real terms, these islands are less independent now than they were a hundred years ago.  

Self-sufficiency for small island states relates to lifestyle expectations. Three generations ago hard work was the order of the day and the islanders lived within their means. Since then, there has been a hankering for a westernized lifestyle and a reliance of wealth generated by foreign economies.

The fundamental challenge at this point in time is to seriously question the direction that the Virgin Islands and the region in general has taken. We need to re-evaluate the past in order to determine if what was originally perceived as "development" has in fact been in the best long-term interest of the islanders.

To correct the mistakes of the past and to start all over again verges on the impossible. In more ways than one, the past is set in concrete - and concrete is a difficult material to break down. Nevertheless, a re-assessment of values is a necessary first step towards rediscovering a paradise lost.

For otherwise, as Sheila wrote: “…all that’s left of your true self will be an old and forgotten poem like mine.”

Almost faded beyond recall

Figures on a deserted beach.

Figure on a deserted beach.

Many of the photographs of paintings I made in the 1970's and 80's have almost faded beyond recall, and so have the scenes themselves. The deserted island beach on which I made these sketches fifty years ago has since become a popular tourist venue, as shown in the photograph below.

I consider it my good fortune to have known the Caribbean before it became ripe for development. Unfortunately, most of the development - mass tourism and financial services in particular - has been for the benefit of foreigners rather than in the long term interest of the islanders. For the poets and the artists that dwelt amongst those earlier scenes, all has been lost.

Models from times past

Annette

While delving through faded photographs of paintings I made when my studio was located in the British Virgin Islands, I was reminded of models that I had almost forgotten. I say almost, because all of my models retain a special place in my memory. 

I first met Annette when she worked as a cashier at the island's supermarket. Her facial features and stature were majestic. And yes, she would like to model for my paintings. The only negative factor was her straightened hair. I told her that if ever she allowed her hair to return to its natural state, most certainly she could model for my paintings.

Months later the transformation had begun to take effect and I painted her portrait. 

Other paintings and photographs of models from times past - the twin sisters Pearl and Pearline, Gretel, Hemo, Elliana and my never to be forgotten Alice - set me wondering what those lithe young ladies from 35 years ago are doing today.  Please use the contact form on this blog to get in touch!

Alice at work on making the mold for her portrait bust.

They've paved paradise and put in a cruise-ship dock...

Pier Park & Cruise Ship Dock, Road Town, British Virgin Islands, 2022.

 

If we substitute "cruise-ship dock" for "parking lot", the lyrics of Joni Mitchell's song from the 1970's, serves as a fitting continuation for my lament to the British Virgin Islands:

With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swingin' hot spot, 

You don't know what you've got till it's gone, 

They've paved paradise and put in a cruise-ship dock. 

As a reminder of what paradise was like in the 1970's, below are two sketches from my book "Virgin Island Sketches". An obsession with greed and flawed priorities accounts for the intervening fifty years.

The building that housed the "Come See Department Store" floated into Road Town during a 1920's hurricane and the building across the road was as far as it went in terms of boutiques.

For those too young to remember, here's Joni Mitchell's song. 

 

Unabashed Curiosity

40 years ago a young lady threw discretion aside on a beach in the Virgin Islands. Whereas the camera lens would have been considered an intrusion into her privacy, a sketchbook invites permissive and unabashed curiosity. 

I was able to captured the memory of that fleeting moment in this watercolour. No words were spoken, but when I had finished she shyly asked, may I see. 

She understood that if my consent seemed hesitant it was only because, through my work, I also stand naked before the searching gaze of onlookers.

Virgin Island Nostalgia

 

Fritz Penn's Yard. British Virgin Islands

My lament for the British Virgin Islands sent me searching through boxes of photographs taken in the 1970s and 1980s.  Some of the photographs are of my paintings from those early days and others are of the islands and islanders. The photograph below was taken at the launching of a boat built by Mr. Frett of East End. Mr. Frett is on the left with the two children in yellow, and on the right, his daughter Rita is being interviewed for BVI Radio by Michelle Abbott Smith. 

The launching of Mr. Frett's boat at East End.

A painting I made of Mr. Frett's boat under construction is featured on the first edition cover of my book Virgin Island Sketches and my paintings on the same theme are featured in one of three series of postage stamps that I designed for the island.  

In the light of current events, I am sure that many Virgin Islanders share my nostalgia for those times past.

My Lament to the British Virgin Islands

 

Road Town. The capital of the British Virgin Islands as it was in earlier days.

In 1975, while sailing north through the Windward Islands, stormy weather caused us to take shelter in the British Virgin Islands. The anchorage off the island’s capital was exposed and uncomfortable but we were told of a sheltered cove a few miles along the coast. Its entrance was narrow but and once inside the surrounding reef offered perfect protection. Our intention was to continue on our way as soon as the weather improved.

The weather did improve, but we stayed on and that idyllic cove became our home for the next twenty years.

My book Virgin Island Sketches was written in the early years of our stay. It celebrated the way of life of the islanders. Those sketches now serve as a reminder of halcyon times past, both physically and socially. 

But the writing was on the wall, and while I was busy preserving scenes from the past, Virgin Island poet Sheila Hyndman prophesized the future.

            They will come with tools and machines,        

            They will bring to light your secret places,

            They will demand your mysteries.

            They will destroy, build up.

            They will dilute your treasures,

            And rob you of your chastity.

            They will adorn you like ancient Jezebel.  

Events of the last few weeks have brought the present sorry state of those islands to the attention of the world. My feelings can best be expressed in the title of Alan Paton's novel: Cry the Beloved Country. 

Subtleties

Jan Saudek

When I despair at finding original ways of depicting the beauty of the nude in all its moods and changes, I return to the masterful art photography of Jan Saudek. Born in Czechoslovakia eighty-six years ago, he was for many years considered a disturbed artist and oppressed by authorities. He is now recognized as the foremost art photographer of our time.

I sought him out today as an antidote to the bland "fine art" nude photography that is often inflicted upon me. His subtle combination of dress and undress gives me the motivation I need to revive my Bare Minimum fashion label. 

Putting the conceptual into practice

 

The Queen's Baton at the start of its journey from Birmingham

From a Press Release:

Artist Laura Nyahuve and design experts across the West Midlands have created The Baton with stunning attention to detail and skill...On day 203 of its 294-day long journey, the Queen’s Baton Relay arrived in Dominica for a two day visit as part of its epic journey across 72 Commonwealth nations and territories, leading up to the Commonwealth Games.

Actually, on the morning of day 203 the baton, before going any further on its journey, arrived at my workshop in a sorry state, together with 27 pages of operating instructions. The baton houses (believe it or not) a message from the Queen, a 306 degree camera, a neo-pixel display, an environmental condition sensor, a touch capacity sensor and a heart rate monitor! 

The outer casing and inserts of the baton were in need of repair. Indeed, it is a miracle that the baton had survived its epic journey as well as it did.  

I had just two hours in which to do the job. There was however a "helpful" note from the manufacturers suggesting that I pop down to the hardware shop and buy a two part epoxy with which to effect the repair. Obviously, the writer has never popped down to a hardware shop from my studio up in the hills of Dominica and then found that what he wanted in stock. 

This long preamble leads to what I have been up against many times in the past. That being: putting another artist's conceptual idea into practice and making it work. In the years that my studio was in the UK I was frequently called upon to get other sculptors out of trouble. Their dreamed up conceptual idea had won a major commission but they had no idea how to do the job and seriously screwed up in attempting to do so. More often than not, they possessed a Master Degree in Art.

John Larson, head of the sculptural division at the National Conservation Centre, told me that he was frequently up against the same problem. He found it easier to restore a piece of sculpture made centuries ago than to repair work made by today's conceptualists. 

The picture below shows my grandson Enoch holding the Baton after my emergency repairs.

Moments of magical accident

 

The best poem is that whose worked-upon unmagical passages come closest, 
in texture and intensity, to those moments of magical accident.

 (Dylan Thomas) 

Today's opening painting comes close to that magical accident. It was made almost thirty years ago of washing strung beneath trees on a windy day in my native West Riding of Yorkshire.

The same magical accident can occur between artist and model, usually towards the end of an overly laboured painting session, when both have thrown discretion to the winds. 

I might qualify the rare occurrence of a magical accident by saying: the better the artist, the more often the accident works in his favour.

A whole new creative ball game

The opening picture is the title frame of my latest YouTube video. It follows close on the heels of Body and Soul, my first attempt at a whole new creative ball game.

Now that I have got the hang of it  (with technical help from my son Tristan) I have ideas for others that will explore the potential of this innovative way of getting the message across.

Although many of my followers will be restricted to viewing on a handheld device, the impact is all the more dramatic when the images are projected on a large screen.

A chip off the old block

Two years ago my son Karl, true to his creative genes, declared himself a potter. He is self-taught and proving himself to be a master at the art. He has just fired his first wood burning kiln. The story behind his work can be found on his facebook page. 

Vernacular Architecture

My preliminary art work for a series of postage stamp designs on the theme of 

Vernacular Architecture.

In the 1980’s the Crown Agents commissioned me to design postage stamps for the British Virgin Islands. One proposed series was on the theme of Vernacular Architecture. My on going campaign for the restoration of Dominica's historic Carnegie Library and for the townscape of the island's capital in general, brought the above postage stamp designs to mind. 

In contrast to the vernacular, the present government has become enamored with foreign concepts of architecture. What is right for Dubai isn’t necessarily right for a small island in the Caribbean. Alas, I cannot wax lyrical about the most recent alien addition to Roseau's townscape shown below. 

Roseau riverside apartment blocks.

It beggars belief

 

With others, I am currently fighting for the preservation of one of Dominica's most important historical buildings: The Roseau Carnegie Public Library. It beggars belief that the government was planning to replace it with the alien monstrosity pictured below. 

Body and Soul

 

Seven years ago I put together a collection of paintings from my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun as a short video. I have now updated the video and posted it on YouTube. 

The new version contains many recent images. What stays the same is the Duke Ellington/Harry Carney soundtrack and gratitude to my models. Without their contribution to the creative process my work would simply not exist.

Go, lovely rose...

Go, lovely rose...

Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired:
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Extracts from "Go, lovely rose" by Edmund Waller (1606 - 1687)

 

Between rain showers, I had just two minutes to capture today's tangle of tropical flowers that bloom outside my studio. If only models for my paintings and sculptures were as readily available, at all times and in all weathers.

 As with Edmund Waller's mistress, Small is the worth of beauty from the light retired.

The element of surprise

My studios have always doubled as an exhibition space for my work. Just as my paintings and sculptures have an element of surprise, the same holds true for the space in which they are created and displayed. When is comes to the "wow" factor, my previous studio in the North of England (Above) takes some beating. It was built on a steep hillside as a Church Assembly Hall. On entering by way of its classical façade (Below) visitors descended a confined flight of stairs that gave no indication of the dramatic space within. 

Although my present studio on the Caribbean island of Dominica is approached by way of an avenue of Royal Palms, the narrow corridor that leads from the entrance likewise gives no indication of the element of surprise that awaits within. 

 

The future's bright, the future's orange.

This isn't about mobile phones but about boosting trade and investment in the orange economy. In case - like me - you didn't know, the orange economy is the "in term" for the creative economy. The boosting will be done by way of: Web 3, Blockchain Networks, Smart Contracts, Non-fungible tokens, Metaverse and Asset Tokenization, et all! 

I was alerted to this impending revolution in the arts a few days ago by way of this article. 

If there's a way of screwing the arts, the economists and academics are sure to find it. 

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.