Envy and Censorship

 D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

Those of us that sailed oceans in small boats over fifty years ago would swap books for something new to read on a long passage. One book that came my way was a well thumbed paperback edition of D. H. Lawrence's poems and short stories. In the forward the author makes mention of the negativity that comes from those who want to create but can't. Their envy turns to censorship and the closer the relationship, the greater is their attempt to thwart. 

If the truth of D. H. Lawrence's statement struck me fifty years ago it strikes me all the more so now. A good friend once advised me not to expect those I had known to be pleased if I made a success of life - they'd rather not know.

In comparison, I received these words from a good friend who is talented enough not to begrudge the talents of others. 

I am glad we met in this lifetime. I have already learned so much from you.

William Holt (1887-1977)

Going back even further, the author, artist and adventurer William Holt was once a neighbour of mine. Towards the end of his book "I Haven't Unpacked" he relates how, after travelling the world, he returned to his West Yorkshire home town impoverished and had to go back to working in the mill. 

Guess who I saw today, and him wearing clogs too: Billie Holt. I always said Billie Holt would come down in the world.

I remember William Holt showing me some sketches he had made at a life-class. One in particular remains in my mind. It was of the nude model warming her hands between poses before a one-bar electric fire. 

After the artist's death I tried to organise a retrospective exhibition of his work, but the surviving family members were not supportive. Perhaps they considered that Billie Holt had hogged too much of the limelight during his lifetime. I have found that negativity, envy and censorship from those who want to create but can't, sometimes continues after the creative person's death.

Life Force by William Holt

Creepers and Calligraphy

 Creepers. My latest Bare Minimum Design

I have used an invasive creeper that grows in profusion on the land that surrounds my studio to decorate the latest dress in my Bare Minimum collection. It was an experiment in applying fabric dye with the speed that I paint in watercolour. By working fast, and not let my brush linger at any point, I avoid the dye bleeding against the surrounding fabric. As with my watercolours, speed and timing are critical. The splashes are all part of the effect that I am after.

Design Detail

I have finally found the best way of adding text to my designs. After experimenting with pastels and permanent felt tip markers, I've gone all the way back to the traditional brush techniques of master Chinese calligraphers. Again speed is of the essence.

Sample brush script painted with fabric dye on cotton voile.

Whereas not many artists are fortunate enough to have had a talented calligrapher as a model, I have. But until Verlena returns from her studies at the University of the West Indies, I must do the best I can. Below is the clay sketch for a sculpture I made of Verlena before she left.

As strange as it sounds

The British and French brought the madras fabric to the Caribbean in the 1600s and it became a currency of slavery: made in India, sold to traders in London, and then used to barter for slaves in West Africa and to clothe slaves in the West Indies. 

As strange as it sounds, the tartan madras has since become the national dress of many Caribbean islands, including my own island of Dominica.

What interests me is the material's link to the banana plant. It is the fibres from the stem of the banana plant that were spun, dyed, and woven to make the early madras fabric, a fabric which is now very rare and sort after.

The same fibres are an ingredient of my handmade papers.

Samples of my handmade papers.

Weird or not weird

 

Comparisons by Jan Saudek

Jan Saudek, art photographer and painter, is an holocaust survivor who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1935. His art work represents a unique technique combining photography and painting. Many of his images depict the transition from puberty to adulthood. In his country of origin his work was considered pornographic and oppressed by the authorities. He is now recognized as one of the leading fine art photographers of the 20th century. 

For many his work is still considered weird. To counter their claim I can do no better than quote Paul McCartney of Beetles fame:

I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is people who call others weird that are weird.

The theme of this post came about by way of a prospective model that visited my studio this morning. She began by considering my work weird. But as she was about to leave she had a change of heart and decided that the nude figure was not weird after all. 

For an excellent introduction to Jan Saudek's work go to: https://artnorth-magazine.com/news/2019/3/4/consuming-pleasures-the-art-and-life-of-jan-saudek

A touch of colour

 

On a rainy day in the Caribbean I decided to add a touch of colour. 

Up to now I have been content to contrast white cotton voile against the dark skin of my potential models. I am still undecided if colour should be added and what form it should take. My experiments have ranged from batik, to dye, to ink, to pastel and back to dye - as in today's picture. 

Fortunately a lifetime's experience of throwing down watercolour washes helps when it comes to throwing down uncontrollable brushfuls of dye. As with watercolour, speed is the essence. The above design took me fifteen minutes from beginning to end. As with my paintings, risk is involved. And this time, it is not an expensive sheet of watercolour paper that's at stake but a completed dress.

Incidentally, a job lot of fabric that I bought recently as "cotton voile" turned out to be "cotton lawn". Hence the problems I've experienced in getting it to drape with gay abandon. Cotton lawn has a higher thread count which makes it a little stiffer and not quite as sheer. 

I live and learn! 

I will repent...tomorrow!

 

The Yorkshire Keel Barge "Brookfoot" discharging her last cargo of coal to the Thornhill Power Station.

 If you repent, the parson said,

Your sins will be forgiven.

Aye, even on your dying bed

You’re not too late for heaven.

 

That’s just my cup of tea, I thought,

Though for my sins I sorrow;

Since salvation is so easily bought,

I will repent…tomorrow. (Robert Service 1874-1958) 

I've lost count of all that I have done in my life, but my adventures really started on the day I gave up my job in engineering design and bought for £200 the canal barge shown in the opening picture. In the years that followed, it was one thing after another. If it is true that in the next world nothing happens and it goes on for ever, I'm happy where I am.

My unconventional lifestyle was recently brought home to me in an email from my daughter in the UK. She said that when she was growing up she wished we lived the same as all other families. Now that she is grown up and she tells her friends of her upbringing, they are green with envy. 

The photographs below span twenty-seven years of Trina's life. 

Trina had an easier start in life than her sister Tania, who at nine weeks made a stormy ten-day sail from Bermuda to the Virgin Islands in a cardboard box wedged on the cabin floor of my gaff cutter Born Free. 

The cardboard box had previous held eggs and was appropriately marked "HANDLE WITH CARE".

 

 

 

The cheek of it!

Work in progress on one of my lace-up designs.

Fifty-five years ago I declared myself an artist on the pavements of France and more recently I declared myself a fashion designer. 

The cheek of it! How dare someone who had spent his teenage years at an engineer's workbench and never a day in art school believe he could earn his living as an artist. And how dare someone approaching the age of eighty have the audacity to believe he could influence the dress of those in their teens and twenties. 

However, very few of those that went to art school made it as artists and I doubt that many of those who have studied for a degree in fashion design have become fashion designers. I learnt more about developing my talent for painting on the pavements of France than I could ever have done at art school, and a lifetime spent depicting the beauty of the female nude gives me a head start on subtlety revealing the beauty that lies beneath the dress.

My approach is specifically directed to the tropics and in particular to my "Daughters of the Caribbean Sun". I am not after flaunting yards of silk nor the sexually skimpy. What I am after is a cool feminine alternative to tee shirts and jeans that welcomes the attention of a fleeting glance.

A few weeks ago I began tentatively sharing my ideas at random with others. Whereas I expected a non-committal response, the feedback has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. As one of my respondents said: "I like it! While the rest of the world grows older you grow younger." 

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.