Retrospectives

Sketch by Roger Burnett

The title of today's post is plural because there are two of them. Both depict the town of Halifax, Yorkshire from fifty or more years ago. One is of photographs taken by my brother, the other sketches made by myself. I left Halifax, the town of my youth, in the 1960's, my brother remained. 

My retrospective is scattered through the pages of this blog and my brother's masterful photographs are scattered through the posts on his blog News from Nowhere. More recently he has compiled a selection as a video titled, Monochrome Valley.

Although there can be no greater contrast between my native town and my adopted Caribbean both offer the artist creative inspiration. Moreover, the pandemic is giving us time to search through past portfolios and thousands of negatives.

Photograph by Alan Burnett

Ode to Joy

I can't remember what the Halifax Symphony Orchestra was playing when I sketched them from backstage over twenty-five years ago. It may have been Beethoven's 9th Symphony, but no matter. Here is a very different version of Ode to Joy to cheer my followers up and give them hope in the midst of this pandemic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceX5jJ5fggs

An alternative to getting up tight

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Lady's underwear hasn't been around for all that long. Even the well-to-do only started wearing drawers 200 years ago and the first brassiere dates from 1889.  For ladies of lower rank underwear came at a more recent date. In earlier times a long linen shift served for both top and bottom.

In 1849 American women's rights activist, Amelie Bloomer, came up with the idea of knee-length loose-fitting pants to promote freedom of movement. In their original form they were not meant as underwear. As such they were healthier and more comfortable than today's tight fitting jeans.

Many of Egon Schiele's paintings show his models wearing either drawers, pantaloons or pantalettes. Drawers were thigh length and less frilly, whereas pantaloons and pantalettes were more decorative and came down to the knee. Pantalettes were in two pieces, one for each leg, and tied around the waist. Hence the derivation of the term, "a pair" of knickers. briefs, or what have you.

This preamble leads to what - if anything - goes beneath my Bare Minimum range of dresses. You can be assured that, whatever I come up with, it will be an alternative to getting up tight and as provocative as Egon Schiele's paintings.

 

Egon Schiele  

 

Draperie mouillée

Venus Genetrix (2nd Century BC)

Clinging drapery on the nude figure is the sculptor’s equivalent to the photographer’s wet tee shirt. It 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 is also a device that suggests movement.

The sculptor’s most difficult task is to create in clay or carve in stone the delicate trace of drapery. It is a skill that takes a lifetime to learn, whereas the camera can capture the same in the split-second click of the shutter. However, as the second pictures proves, through the eye of a good photographer and with the aid of a good model, the end result can can be equally as beautiful. 

Model and photographer unknown

This leads me back to my Bare Minimum fashion label together with my work as a painter and sculptor of the female nude. What I am after is suggestion rather than definition: the allurement of the fleeting glimpse. 

For this reason I have decided that decoration must also be kept to a bare minimum. Natural cotton voile offers the perfect foil for dark skin tones. Decoration is superfluous - or at the most, kept as light and loose as the dress itself: a mere hint that does not distract from the silhouette of the body beneath.

Here is the voile alone, draped as true Draperie mouillée.

To allow the silhouette of the figure to be seen, I have cast aside my experiments with bold distracting designs and reverted back to next to nothing at all. 

Bamboo (Detail). Sketched in ink and painted with fabric dye

Seated Nude (Detail). Sketched in ink and coloured with pastel.

Note: My experiments have shown that pastel becomes indelible when applied to cotton voile.

Or it can be calligraphy in the form of poetry, either Shakespeare's or your own.

The creative potential of genius

 Enoch the Second

Research has shown that a child is born with 98% the creative potential of genius. But as the years go by that potential goes rapidly down hill. At the age of eight the percentage has dropped to 30%, at thirteen peer pressure has brought it down to 10% and by adulthood, conformity has reduced it to less than 2%. 

The opening picture of my grandson Enoch was taken a few days ago. On each of his visits he makes a beeline for my woodwork shop, no amount of plastic toys can satisfy his creative curiosity to the same extent: there are wheels to turn, off-cuts of wood to improvise with and shavings that can be sent flying in the air. 

For the last ten years I have been intent on proving my theory that the graph of creative potential can begin to climb again after the age of seventy. This is due to not giving a damn to what others think. Now that I am rapidly approaching eighty, the curve is pointing skyward: after all, what have I to loose.

One of my models has just returned after spending three years overseas. Saryta's "I'm back" email asked what I had been up to since she left. My list of crazy creative doings out of the ordinary prompted the reply: ha ha I love it!!!! You never stop growing and that in itself is an inspiration.

The painting below is of Saryta inspiring me from over three years ago.

Please get back to me!

Late this afternoon I had an unexpected group of visitors to my studio. The visit was rushed and I had no time to take names or contact details. 

One of the visitors would be a perfect model for my paintings and sculptures in the series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. I gave the young lady my card with contact details so I am hoping that she'll get back to me either by Text or Email. 

A Glimpse of Stocking

Cole Porter’s 1934 original lyrics for the musical Anything Goes were more daring than today’s censored version. If you think we are more permissible almost a century later, here is a verse that nowadays we seldom hear

 If bare limbs you like,

           Or me undressed you like,

           Why, nobody will oppose,

           Anything goes.

Alas, these days it's not a glimpse of stocking but a scuffed knee in torn jeans. 

But if torn is what you like here is the latest version of the torn dress for my Bare Minimum fashion label. You'll notice that my Mk 2 offers more tantalizing glimpses than my first version shown in an earlier post. 

While I go in search of a slender Caribbean model brave enough to wear my creation let me leave you with a sepia photograph (circa 1915) of Ruth St Denis, modern dance pioneer, whose time on this earth (1879-1968) almost exactly matched that of Cole Porter (1891-1964). I dare not say that I wish she was here to inspire young dancers in Dominica as this would be taken as a rebuff by a lady from overseas who's been sent to teach dance - as was my mention of Christopher Gable in an earlier post on dance - but I would like to add Ruth St Denis's dress to my Bare Minimum collection. 

And to end, here's a rare clip of Cole Porter at the piano singing his uncensored version of Anything Goes.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd1w5tn040g

Ena de Silva. A mischievous rebel in the art of batik

 

The Sri Lankan artist Ena de Silva (1922-2015) re-established her country's batik industry. She has been described as a playful and mischievous rebel and the epitome of beauty, class and elegance. In the 1980's she spent two years as a Commonwealth consultant on handicrafts in the British Virgin Islands. 

She set up a rudimentary workshop and taught a number of young ladies the art of batik. Towards the end of her assignment she staged a spectacular fashion show. My studio was based in the British Virgin Islands at the time and my only involvement with her project was to capture her models and creations on stage...  

and behind the scenes...

Although Ena visited my studio on a number of occasions, at the time I had no interest in batik and I missed an opportunity of learning the art from one of the world's experts. If I could turn the clock back it I would spend every minute in her workshop. 

It was the same when I spent months anchored below Randolph Johnson's studio in the Bahamas. At the time I had no interest in sculpture. More recently the head of a famous French family of handmade paper makers visited my studio. That was just before my interested in paper making. Thus, another golden opportunity to learn from a master was lost. And I grieve at the number of potential models I have lost through not daring to ask.

This is not to say that I was idling my time away in those far off years in the BVI. Apart from building a house and studio I was developing my skills at rapidly sketching figures. At the time I thought I was getting nowhere, but in retrospect I now realise that I had gone beyond where I thought I should be. The sketch below dates from that period. 

I wish I could add that the seeds Ena de Silva planted during her tenure on the island took root. But as far as I am aware, the initiative faded soon after her departure. 

From a period piece to plastic

I doubt that Isaac Merritt Singer, strolling player, theater manager, inventor, and self-made millionaire would recognise the sewing machines that today bear his name. In appearance they have been transformed from period pieces in cast iron to sleek plastic, but for the most part the ingenious mechanism remains the same.

As an engineer I have an affection for sewing machines. In my time I've repaired and sewn on various models - and cursed a few. I recently restored a hand operated Singer similar to the one in the opening picture. It dates from the early years of the last century. It entered my workshop as a wreck and left looking and working like new.

My favorite machine, and one that is in daily use, dates from sixty years ago. Although a little more modern in appearance its mechanism is still contained within a metal casting. It sews like a dream and never lets me down.

More recently I was tempted to buy the "modern" Singer pictured below. It certainly would not win a Design Center Award and it's reliability leaves a lot to be desired. 

It's no better than a machine that I wasted money on fifty years ago. The manufacturer claimed it to be suitable for sewing sails. Thank goodness that I never had to resort to it in an emergency. Alice, my irreplaceable studio assistant in the BVI, did however manage to coax it into sewing new bunk cushions for my gaff cutter Born Free. 

I do not have a picture of a machine I had use of in my early days in the Caribbean. It was a huge cast iron affair that had served its time in a Puerto Rico brassier factory. Its flywheel was turned by hand and the machine could have sewn zigzag stitches through a sheet of plywood. As a friend remarked: it says a lot for Puerto Rico women! 

Getting it wrong to get it right

 

Throughout history discoveries have been made unintentionally. The English metallurgist Harry Brearley discovered stainless steel by accident and Alexander Flemming's accidental discovery of penicillin change the course of medicine.

On a more humble level my experiments in colouring fabric have led, by accident, to the discovery of an amazingly resilient colourant. To mark out a pattern on white voile I used a stick of yellow pastel in the belief that it would wash out afterwards. After all, pastel is the most difficult of all artists' media to preserve. But try as I may, my yellow lines would not wash out. This led me to try working designs directly in pastel. 

The opening picture is a selection of attempts ranging from batik to painting with the dyes you see on the pallet. The picture below is of a design first sketched with a  permanent black marker and then coloured with pastel.

The final image shows the effect of light penetrating the semi-transparent fabric.

Before my time

I have to thank my brother for for this version of the photograph of my grandmother Catherine (Kate) Beanland (1877-1960). You can find out more about how he transformed the 1890's sepia image to subtle colour on his blog News from Nowhere.

I can remember my grandmother as a spindly little old lady. But before my time she was an attractive young woman who in her younger days worked as a barmaid. She could well have served with distinction as the model of the barmaid in Edward Manet's (1832-1883) painting of the bar at the Folies-Bergere. But rather than serving champagne in Paris, Kate was pulling pints in Yorkshire.

Trials & tribulations

 

If you think this is a watercolour, your wrong! What you're seeing is the first of my experiments of painting with dye on the white voile that I'm using for dress making. There are possibilities of adding text, as in the detail below.

There is then a whole new world for me to explore with hand-painted batik. I spent this morning working on the first sample with outstanding results: my signature blazing against a crimson background. But alas, in my enthusiasm to complete and photograph it for this post, I attempted to boil the wax out before the dye had set. When I removed the fabric from the boiling pan all that was left was the white voile that I started with. Such is vanity!

But what I can proudly show you is the tjanting tool that I made in my engineering workshop for applying the wax. The heat is supplied from my soldering iron and a light dimmer serves as to rheostat for temperature control. The tip is a plunger that retracts on contact with the fabric and allows the molten wax to flow.

You have me intrigued

A few days ago I shared some ideas I have for my fashion label Bare Minimum with my daughter Trina. Her response was, "You have me intrigued". When I told her that my material was voile (a cotton fabric that's light as a feather and semi-sheer) she added, "Now you've got me very intrigued!". 

I keep giving up on my concept of fashion for the tropics, but when I see the dreary state of what's out there, I go back to my sewing machine. 

My love affair with voile started a year ago. My body can't take the restrictions of clothing when the thermometer soars into the eighties and nineties. In desperation I made myself a pair of "bare minimum" shorts in voile. Those shorts are still going strong and the more tattered and torn they get, the more I like them. 

This led me to my tattered and torn dress designs.

 

The above dress was made from scrap pieces of voile that I had used for separating sheets of my hand-made papers. The seams are visible on the outside rather than hidden on the inside.

The dress below was intentionally ripped. Ripped jeans leave me cold, but to my incurably romantic mind a torn dress is appealing. 

Semi-sheer is semi-see-through. If one layer of white voile is set against dark skin you see the silhouette of the figure but not the detail, hence tantalizing!

Because voile is so light it can be a difficult fabric to sew, but I'm getting there.

The clothes we wear, like the houses we live in, the furniture we sit on and the plates we eat off, should represent art in our everyday lives. And the more daringly creative the better.

As I told my daughter, you could have got a father who had spent his life securely sat behind an office desk...and instead you got me!

In Memory of David Curran

 

David Curran, who modelled for the lock-keeper in my award winning sculpture for the town of Sowerby Bridge, died recently of cancer. In the above picture of the unveiling David is the one in front wearing the red neck tie. He was the very best of models and I have fond memories of our time together. 

My stories of his time modelling are classics.

For the initial nude figure David posed in my unheated cavernous studio in the dead of winter. He never complained but one day admitted that it was a bit cold. And no wonder! A window had blown open and a gale of wind was sending snow flurries onto the modelling stand.

At the beginning of one week's modelling I made coloured chalk marks on his ample belly to aid my measurements. On Friday he asked if I'd be needing the reference points the following week. I told him no, I only needed them for the one day. Why do you ask? Well Rog, I could do with a bath.

At one stage his doctor said he to needed to perform minor surgery to remove his belly button. David asked the doctor if he'd ever consider robbing Noami Campbell of her belly button. The doctor said that was different, she's a model. David's response was, and so am I.

A few days after the unveiling he came to ask for a bucket of water. He said a pigeon had shit on him. It took me a while to realise that he was referring to the sculpture.

Dave once told me that working with me was the best job he ever had. I can truly say, likewise.

David, death cannot take you away. Your sculpture will forever remain in Sowerby Bridge. 

And they all look the same

The Caribbean is not immune from the blight of little boxes that Pete Seeger sang about in the 1960's.

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky, Little boxes all the same...

The ticky tacky now includes plastic doors and windows and the little boxes extend to food kiosks alongside the city of Roseau's riverside in my island of Dominica.

By way of contrast below is my painting of Roseau's Old Market Place. 

In terms of housing, let me hasten to add that Dominica recently suffered two devastating natural disasters. Many lives were lost and 80% of the island's buildings and infrastructure severely damaged. As a matter of urgency it was necessary for the Government to rebuild. The "expertise" for this huge undertaking was trusted to overseas sources and led to the transplanting of a foreign concept of community, housing and infrastructure. 

My book Townscapes delves deeper into my concern for the identity of places.

The beauty of the plaster cast

Reflections

After the life of the initial clay sketch the intermediate plaster cast is invariably a disappointment. It takes the sheen of bronze cast to bring back the vibrancy of the original. 

But given time, as in the case of Reflections, the plaster cast develops a restrained patina and beauty of its own. The same is true of its accompanying sculpture You Must Believe in Spring. Both were commissioned for a new NHS hospital in the North of England.

You Must Believe in Spring

You can learn about the uproar that these innocent figures caused with the hospital's trustees in my book Notes on the Nude.

Sculpture Symbolism

On June 7^th a statue of Edward Colston (1636-1721) a merchant and slave trader was toppled from its plinth by Black Lives Matter protesters and dumped in Bristol Harbour. 

On  July 15^th a statue depicting one of the protesters was, without permission, put in its place. It was subsequently removed by the authorities.

To bring attention to a cause by way of Civil Disobedience is not easy, as those of us who have taken this route well know. Very often it is left to an individual to draw attention to an injustice. It cannot be done in disguise or under the protection of a pseudonym.  Most prefer the safer option of patiently waiting for change. But if Rosa Parks had patiently waited, public transport in Montgomery might still be segregated.

The Bristol episode has not only served to bring home the message of the protesters, but also to illustrate that art in general, and public sculpture in particular, has a role to play in social commentary.  A work of art may be perceived as controversial, but therein lies its significance. 

The techniques and materials used by Marc Quinn are far removed from those handed down by sculptors through the centuries. However, to make the statement in record time I accept that it was the only way possible. I give credit the artist and Jen Reid, his model, for seizing the opportunity. As Marc Quinn stated, the computer generated black resin statue was meant to be a temporary installation. Its purpose was to continue the conversation about racism.

In terms of that conversation, it comes as a surprise that Thomas Price, a black British sculptor, who has recently been commissioned to create a sculpture dedicated the Windrush Generation, has accused Marc Quinn of creating a “votive statue to appropriation”.  He goes on to state: “I think it would be far more useful if white artists confronted whiteness as opposed to using the lack of black representation in art to find relevance for themselves.”

From that perspective it might be argued that 130 years ago Paul Gauguin should have stayed in France and not sailed to Tahiti and that 55 years ago I should have stayed in my native West Riding of Yorkshire and not sailed to the Caribbean.  

A different interpretation of the nude figure

My followers tell me that it is my interpretation of the nude that attracts them. As against pornographic nudes by the millions and fine art photographic nudes by the tens of thousands, my approach is altogether different. 

Nothing is predetermined; there are no set poses. My models lead, I follow. And what comes naturally comes and goes in a matter of seconds. Without a lifetime of working and speed with line and watercolour there is no way that I would be able to capture that fleeting moment. The result is set down against the purity of a virgin white sheet of paper: there are no distractions.

My interpretation leaves you the viewer to enter the creative process. I paint 70% of the painting, you do the rest.

Bare Minimum

Alterations by Will Wilson (1957 - )

Will Wilson is an American artist whose style might be described as New Classicism. His painting titled Alterations is in a similar vein to the paintings that the artist Edouard Danton made in his father's sculpture studio.

Casting from Life by Edouard Danton (1848 - 1897)

Both paintings perfectly capture the matter-of-fact attention that an artist gives to the work in progress as against, as some might suspect, day dreaming on the charms of his nude model.

In my book Notes on the Nude I delve deeper into the working relationship between artist and model. The human body is less alluring nude than when dressed. If one of my regular models had posed in the flimsy white dress she wore on arrival, I would have been lost beyond recall. But as soon as she took it off we were back to our work-a-day relationship. 

As a sculptor I can recognize every detail in Edouard Danton's painting and those who have taken a life cast from the model will relate to the concentrated effort involved. 

The same goes for Will Wilson's painting, especially as at the moment I'm working on ideas for my Caribbean fashion label Bare Minimum. The label's objective is keeping cool in the tropics and my material of choice is 100% cotton voile; a fabric that is light as a feather and semi-sheer. As a natural fiber it lends itself to dying. The gathered samples shown pinned to my dress maker's mannequin were dyed from the clay I use for my sculpture. 

From a different vantage point

I can best judge the worth of a painting or sculpture when I catch a glimpse of it from a different vantage point. The torso that I made from banana paper gave me a pleasant surprise yesterday when, instead of seeing it head-on, I caught a glimpse of it from below.

While the glimpse from below came about by chance, lying on the flat of my back was very much intended. I am forever bemoaning the fact that these days potential models have added too many inches around the waist, only to find when attempting to fasten a pair of pants, I had done the same. Clearly, my twice daily climbs to and from the river are not enough now that I have entered my seventy-eighth year. Henceforth, I will forego my pastry raising slices, cut back on rum and coke and do waist reduction exercises - lying on the flat of my back. 

Pandemic Poverty

 

A recent collection of paintings on the theme of the Corona Virus approached the subject from all angles but omitted the poverty that it has brought about. 

To fill the void, my pastel sketch is of the long queues for money sent to and from family members overseas. It is an everyday scene just across the road from one of the island's lavishly stocked supermarkets.  

The 14" x 16" pastel paper from a range of papers I make from my island's natural resources.

Self Sufficiency

One thing that the Corona Virus Pandemic may impress upon the world is the value of self sufficiency. I believe we may see a revival of crafts and a demise in office pursuits. As a craftsman I work alone with the unpolluted tropical trade winds and my island's rugged terrain and pure rivers for company. Not only do I make my own art materials, make my own furniture and sew my own clothes, I also make many other of life's less obvious necessities. 

When I was a child in the North of England gypsies came around selling handmade clothes pegs. They were sold as a bundle, bound together with elastic bands made out of discarded bicycle tire inner tubes. Nowadays clothes pegs are made from plastic; a poor substitute that breaks in next to no time. Except, that is, for mine! 

The ones in the picture are made from a Dominica hardwood that does nor easily split and, unlike some hardwoods, does not leave a stain when wet. An hour's satisfying work that will peg clothes out for a lifetime. 

Perhaps I should hawk them door to door and tell fortunes into the bargain.