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.

Can you guess?

The opening image is not the face of the moon.  What you are seeing is the finished clay figure below after I've thrown wet plaster at it. In other words, the first stage of taking a waste mold. 

 

The process of making a waste mold is described in detail in a series of posts that date from March 2017, and in my video that follows work in progress on sculptures in my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun.

If it were any easier...

Work in progress on a 1/3rd life-size clay sketch of a bathing figure. 

If it were any easier, everyone would be doing it...If it were any more difficult, no one would.

The above maxim I've found to be true for feats as diverse as sailing small boats across oceans and modelling a 1/3rd life-size clay sketch of a bathing figure. My present task being made all the more difficult as I am minus the live model. I don't need a model for detail, but for capturing life. To suggest rather than to define; to resist finish, so as to leave room for you to enter the creative process.

The sculpture is based on this pastel sketch of islanders bathing in the rivers of Grenada forty years ago. Those scenes are now a thing of the past. They are however permanently etched in my memory and hence, model or no, my attempt to recreate the vision of those halcyon days.

Bathing Figure

The French have a word for it.

The Crouching Woman. A painting by the Belgian artist Adrien de Witte (1850-1935)  

Déshabillé: The state of being carelessly or partially clothed.

In figurative art, one could extend the meaning by adding: A glimpse of the body unintentionally revealed.

For the artist, this is easier said than done. The unintended glimpse is not one that can be staged in the studio. It invariably happens when the sketch book isn't at hand. Attempts to recreate that illusive moment, from memory or the posed model, are rarely successful. However, the opening painting by Adrien de Witte of a kneeling woman is a masterly exception. 

My own contribution to the genre is of a model at her first sitting. The sarong was meant to be tied above her breasts, but as she turned it slipped, and the unintentional won preference over what was meant to be.

The unintended glimpse is easier to achieve in the moving image, as in this 1968 live recording of Eartha Kitt singing, If you go away.

The permanence of a fleeting glance

I doubt that you'll be able to make head nor tail of today's image, but I can. It is one of my sketches of villagers bathing in the rivers of the Caribbean. 

Those fleeting glances are permanently etched in my mind, and the information they contain is worth more than scores of studies from a statically posed model. As years go by these sketches have become all the more precious to me because bathing alfresco is a thing of the past. Bathing is now done unseen within the seclusion of the shower curtain. What was once seen as innocence is now deemed as improper.

Those sketches, and my memories of villagers bathing in the Caribbean rivers, resulted in my life-size sculpture, Bathing Figure.

Thankyou AI for your insightful comment

It is not often that my blog posts generate comments, but it seems Artificial Intelligence is about to fill the void and step in and with profound insights into my work. A few days ago ''Unknown'' commented as follows on my post, ''The more I seek, the more I find''.

Thank you for sharing The more I seek, the more I find. Reading this piece, I was deeply moved by how discovery often arrives in unexpected corners — in old sketches, in portraits from decades past, in the work we once considered finished and tucked away. Your reflections resonate with me: the way seeking art (or beauty, or truth) never ends, and how what we find enriches our journey, even if it wasn’t what we originally set out for.

I especially loved learning about Pearl and Sam, and how revisiting earlier works opens up fresh insights. It highlights that creativity is never static — it keeps expanding, circling back, revealing more layers.

Thank you also for the gentle reminder about the value in process — letting art evolve, honoring the past, and being open to the surprises that emerge when we simply keep looking. Your work continues to be inspiring and grounding.

With warm appreciation,

I might add that unknown's website was added to the post, presumably in the hopes of promoting the sale of a genuine Buddha statue.

I understand that, in addition to commenting, for a small fee AI can paint a picture to my instructions. This could save me a lot of bother and could even continue to make my presence felt in this world when painting and sculpting angels in the next.

But for the time being, I'll put aside unknown's kind comment and continue painting life in real life.

Today's picture is a sketch I made in the rain over thirty years ago. It turned up when I was delving though portfolios of paintings I made of the village and countryside of my childhood.  

The Queen Victoria Public House, Northowram, Halifax, Yorkshire. 

A genuine original watercolour by Roger Burnett.

Instructions to AI for generating more of the same might read: 

A scribbled blotchy watercolour sketch of an old building in the rain, with chimney pots and trees.

I've a feeling that my brother. who's into this sort of thing, will come up with something.  

I swear to God I'll beat your head in!

 A back street, since demolished, in the West Yorkshire town of Halifax. (Circa  1996)

Sketching from life down dubious back streets can be as dangerous as working in a war zone. Whereas a camera shutter can surreptitiously capture the scene in a split second, the artist is a sitting duck. Fortunately, mine was not the head that a bystander threatened to beat in. On other occasions I've been pelted with stones and cursed for pocking my nose in where it's not wanted. 

But for the most part, my saunters down back streets been tolerated to the extent of being made welcome with a cup of tea.  

A collection of similar sketches can be found in my book Townscapes.

The more I seek, the more I find

 
Pearl (Circa 1989)

Although I cannot forgive AI for invading my blog stats with misleading hits in their thousands, it has never the less provided me with an appropriate meaning for the phrase "The more you seek, the more you find". That being, it can suggest that actively searching for something will inevitably lead to discoveries, even if the results are unexpected or reveal a greater complexity than initially perceived.

Not only has this proved true in my endeavors to find beauty where no one else has thought of looking but also in my current search through past portfolios. My unexpected find of a portrait of Pearl is a case in point. You can find out more about Pearl and her twin sister Pearline in my post "Where is the life that late I led''.

(Note: My model Pearl from the 1980's should not be confused with my model Pearl from 2020's.)

Another unexpected find is an initial sketch I made for my sculpture of Samantha. 

Sam (Circa 1998)

You can find out more about a the model and the sculpture in my post "Sexy Sam".

It's not what I originally intended

A selection of pages from the catalogue.

Work on cataloguing the paintings and sculptures in my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun is coming along nicely, although not as I originally intended. 

I began with the idea of including all the paintings, sketches, drawings and sculptures that had contributed to the series I began almost forty years ago. But force of numbers overwhelmed me. I have instead condensed the catalogue to work that is representative - that being about a third of the total.

I also originally intended indicating what I consider to be the good, bad and indifferent, expecting that my score card would have a only a few that warranted five stars, whilst the majority clocked in at four, three, two and one star. But within an indifferent painting there there are often passages that, to the eye of the artist and cognoscenti, come close to perfection . The more I looked, the less able I was to differentiate one category from another. As with the exploratory lines of a sketch, all have contributed to the collection as a whole. Hence, none can be discounted. 

I have arranged the condensed catalogue approximately in chronicle order, so as to illustrate how my way of working from the nude has developed. Other than the images, all I have added is an indication of size, the name of the model and a portfolio file record. 

While delving through hundreds of paintings and sketches I have found some gems that I had long forgotten about. These I will share in forthcoming posts.

 

From bosun's chair to milking stool

 

Thirty-three years ago you would have found my wife Denise swinging from a bosun's chair, 30 feet aloft, tarring the rigging of our gaff cuter Born Free. Today, you'll find her somewhere between my studio and the river milking her goats. For the latter task I recently made her a three legged milking stool from timber grown on our land.

Between tarring and milking, Denise has modelled for hundreds of my paintings and scores of my sculptures. As one of my life-class students once remarked: She's a hard act to follow!

A complicated jigsaw puzzle

 

A torn calf muscle has forced me into doing a sedately job that's been on my list for ages: that being, cataloguing my lifetimes work as a painter and sculptor. It's proving to be a Herculin task, the mental equivalent of moving my 150lb blacksmith's anvil that caused of my torn muscle in the first place. I'm beginning to learn there are limitations on what you can do in your eighties!

For the hundreds of paintings in my series "Daughters of the Caribbean Sun", work on my catalogue raisonné has the additional difficulty of matching models to paintings. With paintings of the nude, items of dress can't be used as an identifying factor. But having said that, Naomi's distinctive double-coil woven string bracelet has solved a few of my problems. 

Another complication is that many of the jigsaw pieces are two sided: recto and verso. Large sheets of watercolour paper are hard to come by in the Caribbean. Hence, one painting painted on the back of another. The images below are a case in point.

Unknown model - recto

Unknown model - verso

Capturing life in a matter of seconds

        

A laboured painting has nothing on a sketch that captures the subject in a matter of seconds. The value of the sketch is something that I've stressed many time over in my blog posts: In the Time it Takes and Rapid Response being examples. And also in my books Notes on the Nude and Notes for Life-class Students and Models.  

If my followers haven't got the message by now, they never will. Other than bashing the delinquents over the head with a length of 2 x 4, there's nothing more I can do. 

A pose that the model can only hold for a few seconds, has to be captured in a few seconds. In life, nothing stays still.

A hundred years from today

One thing is for certain, I won't be around in a hundred years time, but there's a chance that some of my sketches, paintings and sculptures will be. Of the three afore mentioned categories, the hundreds of sketches I made in the Caribbean more than thirty years ago, may finally get the recognition they deserve. What is least appreciated now might be sought after two or three generations hence. All of the sketches were made from life and they record the Caribbean before the invasion of mass tourism and speculative development. 

My search for sketches of life as it was once lived in the Caribbean, led me to the Victoria Nutmeg Factory on Grenada. The gangs of women that cracked the shells with wooden mallets worked by candle light in a dramatic hammer-tapping void. They were of all ages, shapes and sizes. They welcomed me to their circle and I could not have wished for better models: Andrea, Pauline, Monica, Kenny, Ethelyn, Monica and Marva, et al. 

Grenada's historian and former Prime Minister, George Brizan, took an interest in my work and his government reserved a space on the capital's historic Carenage for a projected sculpture on the theme of the island's Nutmeg Industry. 

I had selected Marva as the central figure for the sculpture.

A selection of the sketches, together with my diary notes, are contained in my book Caribbean Sketches. 

Low key pornography?

 

My dark lady. 

The patina has developed of its own accord in the fifteen years that she's weathered the tropical climate. 

My wife Denise modelled for the sculpture. 

Recently a social media commentator classed the nude in art as low key pornography. He said that the artist could surely find creative ways to cover up the figure and still accentuate the form underneath. Coincidentally, my blog post ÔøΩ ÔøΩphanous delves into just that.

My nude dark lady is as innocent as the hibiscus that blooms in the background and as far away from pornography as you can get.

For the record

Every year, ahead of the hurricane season, I make a photographic record of paintings that hang on the walls of my studio. If they then have to take them down for safe keeping during the passing of a storm, I afterwards know which goes where when putting them back again. The opening picture is just one of many photographs that record the 140 paintings and 56 sculptures that are on display. There are hundreds more in portfolios and in storage.

It's a collection that triggers the wow factor from visitors. Let's hope we make it safely though the forthcoming vulnerable months.

In the time I have left

My life has been the poem I would have writ, but I could not both live and utter it. 

Henry David Thoreau

Now that I'm well into my eighties, I ask myself, what remains for me to do in the time I have left. My life has not been limited to painting and sculpture. In earlier times survival at sea took precedence, now it's survival on land. Since first light this morning Denise and I have been struggling to solve problems with pumping water from the river to our roof header tank. That has taken the first half of our day. Then you can add that for the last two months we have been working flat out to ensure that our buildings a ready to face this year's hurricane season. Bear in mind, we're still repairing the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria eight years ago.

While working on these survival tasks my mind continues to fire creatively on all cylinders. In the time I have left I want to create sculptures that have the same freedom as my paintings. The torso below is by the German sculptor Mátyás G. Terebesi. It has the freedom that I'm after.

At the risk of being risqué

 

An innocent detail that hopefully will not trespass 

on forbidden social media territory.

Since my recent inadvertent trespass into Google's forbidden territory I have become cautious of images that can be taken out of context and the risk of being risqué. 

I trust that the above image will not offend the censors, but I can no longer be sure. What was permissible in the days when Blogger was Blogger, is not permissible now that Blogger is Google. 

On the other hand, Google post images that can be ogled over, but which offend my sense of decency. It's an anomaly that leaves me in a quandary.

What google permits!

The above image is one of many taken at a recent British Virgin Island music festival. They are all posted on Facebook.

Differentiating between model, lover and muse

Study, Torso, Effect of Sun by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1875-76)

I was once asked to differentiate between model, lover and muse. When does one become the other? Without love - albeit platonic - between artist and model very little of real worth can be accomplished. But the transition from model, to lover, to muse is a relationship that seldom materialises. On the other hand, the muse is not necessarily model or lover; at least not in the accepted meaning of lover. 

Once in a while the role muse can be mutual, as was the case between Virgin Island poet Sheila Hyndman and myself. Forty years ago Sheila expressed our creative relationship in her poem "Revelations".

 

I am a seeker of wisdom

You are the active force

That manifests my truths

For the good of humanity.

I am a contemplator of what was and shall be,

You are the revealer of the link that is.

I am of the sky and would flee the cares of men.

You are the Earth, the balance that keeps my sanity.

I am night, the creator of fear and uncertainty

You are the sun, that brings me ecstasy

At the dawn of our union.

I am black with the seed of knowledge

You are fair

And the fire of your purity

Bounds me to the seat of wisdom.

It is possible that Renoir's model for his painting Study, Torso, Effect of Sun fulfilled all three roles. Marguerite Legrand (1856 –1879), known as "Anna", was a nineteen year old seamstress and single parent when she first modelled for Renoir. Sadly she died of smallpox at the age of twenty-three. The painting now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay and her beauty forever lives on.

In my book Notes on the Nude I delve deeper into the relationship between artist and model.

At my carpenter's workbench

Following my recent affray with Goggle, a friend begged me to keep out of trouble. I assured her that for a couple of months I'll put controversial painting and sculpture aside and spend my days content at my carpenter's workbench. But come to think of it, carpentry didn't stop Jesus from saying what had to be said.

The pictures below are from sixty years ago. They show me working in the hold of my barge Brookfoot - a direct descendent of the the square-sail Viking Ships. When I bought her she was carrying 60 tons of coal to Thornhill Power Station. The hold became my studio and with my wife Norma and daughter Diana, we sailed her from England to the canals of France.  

The tools on the workbench are still with me. Along with additional woodworking tools, they have since built four boats and five houses...with lots of mischief along the way!

Triumphs, trials and tribulations

My bas-relief of a rose.

My online diary posts began before the days of Blogger, before the days of YouTube, and before the days of Google. They recorded the triumphs, trials and tribulations of my work as a painter and sculptor. In those days, complaints were in the public domain, by way of a letter to the press or a dissenting voice at a meeting. Hence, the artist had a means of countering criticism. But that has changed. 

A week ago, in all innocence, I posted a picture created by one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century. To my mind, it was brave, profound and beautiful. But alas, the image fell foul of social media censors with the result that all my Google accounts were closed pending an appeal. It's a frightening scenario!

I trust that this week's image - my bas-relief of a rose - will not result in further trials and tribulations. 

Calling Vietnam

In the heart of Saigon, S&S Art Gallery.

Over the last few weeks my blog has been inundated with page views from Vietnam. An indication that my posts go beyond friends, family and my small island in the Caribbean. 

I would love to hear from my far and wide follows. What attracts you to my work? I welcome your feedback.

Insights: curtesy of lovers, muses and models.

Nude:  Amedeo Modigliani

Valeria Parisi's film, Maverick Modigliani, is narrated from the point of view of his common-law wife. That being one of the reasons why it has been damned by many critics. The New York Times called it a textbook outline of how not to film the life of a legendary artist. 

I beg to differ: first hand insights from lovers, muses and models are worth more than the all the fine-art academia conjectures put together. Even the film's pointless youth-skateboarding linkages are no worse than the usual art documentary continuity device that shows the unconvincing hand of an extra carefully applying paint to a canvas. 

The prolific art forger's contribution stressing that speed is of the essence gives an accurate insight. Artists don't dawdle, they paint with a passion. Many of his successful Modigliani forgeries were knocked off in thirty minutes. Quite possibly, that was the time it took the artist to paint the originals. 

If only we had a first hand account from Leonardo's model for the Mona Lisa. And on that score, I still subscribe to the possibility of her being the baker's wife. 

My book Notes on the Nude delves deeper into the contribution of the artist's lover, muse and model.

The passage of time

Fifty years separate me in the photo above and me in the self portrait below. Other than the transition from red to white, not much else has changed. 

My fling with flowers

 

Click on the image to view the video

My fling with flowers further demonstrates my way of rapidly working in watercolour. For these paintings I am quite literally, flinging paint on the paper and scribbling in the ink lines, wet on wet. 

In my younger days I stove for an exact botanical rendering, But now that I'm in my eighties, I realise that life is of the essence. 

The sculptor Jacob Epstein, claimed that he has earned more from his flower paintings than what he had earned from his controversial nudes. Perhaps I'll find the same.

Throwing off all restraint

A flower.

For my video Variations on a Theme, by way of the abstract, I threw off all the restraints associated with depicting a certain piece of the female anatomy. The paintings were elusive to the extent that few viewers could fathom them out. Therefore, instead of inducing shock and horror, they attracted favourable comment as to the beauty of line and colour. They also sneaked by social media censors. 

In contrast, my interpretation of flowers, if assembled in a similar collage, might be damned by the "isn't that pretty" beautificationists. 

In point of fact, there's no difference between the two. Both celebrate the raw beauty of nature.

Under my nose

Each morning, when I open my studio door, this is the view that greets me. Within the confusion of its component parts, right there under my nose, in the first rays of sunlight, are countless subjects for my paintings. Furthermore, unlike the complication of arranging and paying for a model, they are there for the asking.

Breaking the Ice

A rough note jotted down on paper.

A video I am working on is about the creative relationship between artist and model. It begins with a twenty minute trail session for a new model. The purpose of the session is to break the ice. I spend most of the session giving the model words of encouragement. The painting is secondary; it amounts to no more than a rough note jotted down on paper. The challenge is how to capture the hesitancy of both artists and model in random words and fleeting moving images. I know what I'm after, but achieving it won't be easy. 

Annihilating a whole oppressive culture.

The girl with dark hair was coming towards him across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With all its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole oppressive culture, a whole system of thought. (George Orwell, 1984) 

Life-size sculpture of my idylic bathing figure.

My 1989 diary refers to a similar scene while sketching on a riverside in Grenada.

One day, a young woman, undeterred by the teasing of her mates, planted down her basket of washing on a boulder close to my chosen spot.  I rapidly made sketch after sketch until she had scrubbed, beaten, and rinsed her last item.   But her day’s wash didn’t end there, for she next deftly took off her dress and added that to the wash.  Then, unabashed, she soaped herself down and - using a calabash bowl as a ladle - knelt and poured the cooling river water over her naked body.

Prêt-à-porter

Robert Altman’s film Prêt-à-Porter is a stylish and sexy satire on the fashion industry.  The catwalk scene with a difference brought home to me what I've been getting at all along, that being: the human body is less sexually alluring nude than when scantily dressed. 

For the fashion houses the catwalk model has to be devoid of personality. She serves only as a stereotype clothes hanger. But what we see here is a refreshing change. No high heels, no make-up, no spindly ectomorphic figures, no weird costumes. Nothing distracts from the innocent beauty of the nude. The scene bowled me over and made me realise that my interest is not in fashion per se, but in the beauty that lies beneath.  

The nude is truely prêt-à-porter (ready to wear). 

ÔøΩ ÔøΩphanous

 

The torso of my wife Denise draped with clinging cotton voile.

Diaphanous is derived from the Greek word diaphanes. The prefix dia- means "through", and ÔøΩ ÔøΩphanous means "to show or to make visible". Thus, diaphanous translates directly as "to show through". 

Clinging drapery on the nude figure is a sensuous device that reveals rather than conceals. The scantily clad figure is more sexually provocative than the nude. By partially concealing the model’s attributes by what the French call Draperie mouillée the nude form becomes all the more alluring. It also suggests movement.

This leads me back to my Bare Minimum fashion designs and the allurement of the fleeting glimpse. A video of the collection is one of my works in progress. The word ''video'' is appropriate as it is derived from the Latin videre ''to see''.

Venus Genetrix (Roman, 100-200 A.D.) 

Based on a Greek sculpture created in about 410 B.C.