My dyslexic prodigies

A couple of weeks ago I received two emails that put a smile on my face. One was from my daughter in the UK and the other, from a young lady in Australia. Both are dyslexic. 

My daughter is renovating a house. She had prepared the walls ready for plastering but the plasterer didn't turn up. Rather than wait around she decided to get on with the job herself. When the errant plasterer did finally put in an appearance the walls were finished and he had to shamefacedly admit that she'd done a good job. 

Five hundred years ago Leonardo da Vinci likewise pushed aside the plasterer who was preparing the wall for his painting and did the job himself. Along with many artists and inventors, he was dyslexic. Had the UK Eleven Plus Exam or the Caribbean National Assessment been around in his day he would have failed miserably, just as I did almost seventy years ago. During the year of my failure, I designed and built a model aircraft that could fly the length of a football field: but that didn't count. 

If Leonardo da Vinci had sat the UK Eleven Plus Exam or the Caribbean National Assessment this is what his answer paper might have looked like.

The second message came from a young lady who attended my art classes eight years ago. She was only twelve at the time and I was reluctant to take her on as the sessions were intended for adults. But her parents begged me. She was  brilliant and at the first session I learnt she was dyslexic. One adult student left the class because she was fed up of hearing me showering praise on that "slip of a girl". Her mother told me she comes home saying: Mr. Burnett is the only teacher that understands me. As dyslexics, teachers usually put us down us dumb and stupid.  For the last class in the series she gave me a box of chocolates and I made her a present of one of my paintings. The family then moved to Trinidad and we lost touch...until I received her unexpected email.

That "slip of a girl" is now studying architecture at a top university in Australia and the painting I gave her has pride of place in her room at college. Her message reads: I still remember all the lessons you taught me. Your classes really helped push me to where I am today and I'm so grateful for that. 

The UK charity "Made By Dyslexia" is helping to give confidence to thousands of other young people. This short video is required viewing for all students, parents and teachers. 

Houses are but badly built boats

With my family and friends aboard Dan Bowen's yacht Romadi. English Harbour, Antigua,1973. 

That's me, with a glass of rum, on the far right.

The greater part of my life - and the best part - has been spent living and travelling aboard boats; everything from a canal barge to an ocean going ketch. Pinned to the bulkhead of all my boats were the words of author and fellow sailor, Arthur Ransom.

Houses, are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you cannot think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable not the animal world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition. I admit, doubtfully, as exceptions, snail-shells and caravans. The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting-place.

I'm proud to have been a sea gypsy in the days when small boat sailors sailed on a shoestring and earned their living as they went along. Now the scene has changed. Rather than swinging at anchor for free, you pay to pick up a mooring or tie up in a marina. Throughout history all travelling people have suffered the same fate: There's a byelaw to say you must be on your way, and another to say you can't wander.

The last line is from the classic song by The Dubliners with vocal by Luke Kelly, Farewell to the tent and the old caravan, The tinker, the gypsy, the travelling man... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uq30FeeLTM

Not by painting alone

Five hundred years ago artists earned their living not by painting alone; Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are prime examples. Their work involved architecture, engineering, poetry and politics. For some of us the situation remains the same today.

For the last four days I have spent every hour of my time solving urgent engineering problems and not a minute for whatever flights of fancy my muse might tempt me with.

Today's picture is not my attempt at abstract sculpture but my attempt to salvage the severely damaged main casting of a very expensive piece of equipment used for laying the island's main water supply pipe line. A collapsed 10" diameter ball race threw the proverbial spanner in the works.

The solution involves innovative design and precision engineering that my father and grandfather would have been proud of, and more especially so as some of their measuring instruments are with me on my workbench. My vernier height gauge began life in the Jowett Motor Car factory long before I was born and my 2" micrometer dates from a hundred year ago. Both remain accurate to within 0.0005". 

It's not painting but equally as creative.

Standing back

In January I left you with the thought that "Life is too Short to Wear Boring Clothes" and on my mannequin I left a wisp of voile that promised possibilities. Since then I have been standing back and considering it from all directions. Thus, in my mind's eye the "wisp" continued as a work in progress. Yesterday I returned to my sewing machine and the "wisp" became an open back blouse. 

The skirt shows how effective semi-shear white voile can be when set against a vibrant colour on the one hand and dusky skin tones on the other.

As I originally intended

Five years ago, when I began experimenting making paper from Dominica's abundant natural resources, I had in mind a paper that would be suitable traditional pastels. I don't like the regular texture and colours of store bought pastel paper and besides, commercial pastel papers are not available on a small island in the Caribbean. 

From banana stems, sugar cane bagasse, pineapple leaves, palm fronds and exotic grasses I created a collection of papers that were unique in colour and texture. But it was the unique texture that had me stumped, for I considered it too course for pastels, which are normally applied to a slighted abraded but level surface.

But the pronounced wood grain on my Garden of Eden screen gave an interesting effect and this led to my recent experiments in using my handmade papers as I originally intended. The tangerens in my previous post and the detail of my pastel painting of bougainvillea shown above open up the unique possibilities.  

Tangerens and bougainvillea bring back memories of two dear departed friends.

Roderick Borde was a saxophonist who in his earlier years played with the Louis Armstrong All Stars. His signature tune was "Tangerine". I first heard the strains of Roderick's playing when I was at anchor off a hotel in the British Virgin Islands in the 1980's. Had not my dinghy been available for rowing ashore, I would have walked on water. 

Bougainvillea was Virgin Island poet Sheila Hyndman's (1958-1991) favourite flower. For her funeral service I raided every garden on the island and decorated every inch of the church. 

I don't have a recording of Roderick playing "Tangerine" but here's Jimmy Dorsey's version with Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell on vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-JDUnZv1N0

 

The last of the tangerines and the first of the mangos

The opening picture is a pastel painting of the last of our tangerines. The ground is a sheet of my handmade banana paper. The terms "pastel painting" and "pastel drawing" are dependent somewhat on how the pigment is applied and the end result. In this case quite definitely "painterly". 

The picture below is mix media painting (water-colour and pastel) of the first of our mangos. 

I worked rapidly on both paintings in an attempt to free myself from past subjects, materials and techniques. It's too soon for me to judge. 

A message from my muse

Following on from my last post, today I sensed this response from my muse. 

After all these years do you think I would forget and desert you? Didn't I enable your escape from an engineer's drawing office? Didn't I sit by you on the pavements of France, sail with you through the canals of Ireland and stand your side for that first one-man show in Kings Lynn? I enabled your first voyage to the Caribbean and supported you when you built your boat for the second voyage. True enough, I gave you hell when you tried to respectably settle down on that Virgin Island hillside. But didn't I then send a poet to inspire you and a faithful assistant to share your troubles? For your sculptures I've been with you every inch of the way, and the same goes for your paintings. And surely you sensed my presence while you created your vision of the Garden of Eden...

As I was musing on those words I received a message, this time by email from this world, to say don't give up on your fashion designs. Perhaps my muse also had a hand in that! 

Three months have passed since I last worked on ideas for my Bare Minimum collection. At the time I needed to stand back to determine the worth of what I had created. A selection of the designs hang on a display stand in my studio awaiting my return. As you might guess, I made the stand and I made the hangers. 

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long...(William Shakespeare, Sonnet 100) 

When my muse deserts me, more often than not, I find her flirting with other art forms. Poetry and music are the most likely possibilities. 

She was by my side when almost thirty years ago I painted this picture of wind blow washing and trees in my native North of England. 

But she deserts me when it comes to inspiring my current attempts of capturing the tropical scenes that surround my studio. Even the subdued browns and yellows of our dry season are wasted on me.

Which brings me back to find solace in other art forms. This song by the incomparable Eartha Kitt is appropriately titled, If You Go Away.

Back to the drawing board

 

This week has taken me back to the drawing board and back to the days when I worked in engineering design almost sixty years ago. My task has been to design a custom rear interior for a Land Rover which is almost as old as my restored 1970's model. 

My days in a drawing office preceded computers, calculators and photocopiers. I wonder how many of my follows were around in the days of slide rules. The one in the picture was a sixteenth birthday present from my father. The scale rule and compass dates from the same period, as do my engineering text books. My drawing board is mounted on a heavy cast iron frame. The maker's name plate dates it as 1922. 

Sixty years ago the view from my drawing board was the one shown in the picture below.

My dreams in those days were of sailing away to the tropics and earning my living as an artist. That I achieved. And even if I do occasionally revert back to the drawing board at least my sunset days are spent looking over a lush valley that leads down to the Caribbean Sea.

Back to nature

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

When I first came to the Caribbean my subject matter was the way of life of the islanders. As the traditional scenes declined I turned my attention to the islanders themselves. I began my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun in the 1980's when I could still find lithe models to work from. However, in recent years Kentucky Fried Chicken has added pounds to their figures and I now search in vain for potential models.

It seems that my chosen subjects, in what ever form they take, are fated to disappear soon after I capture them in my paintings. My books Virgin Island Sketches and Caribbean Sketches are now historical records.

This week, while mulling over these events, I decided to revert back to nature before the flowers become extinct and the trees are cut down. It's a difficult transition and I'm not sure that I have the passion and skill to pull it off. 

Many artists from the past have turn to nature and some surprisingly so. The open painting is by Egon Schiele, the master of erotica. Jacob Epstein claimed he had earned more from his flower paintings than he had done from his sculptures. Before he painted his hallmark acres of fresh, Lucian Freud painted incredibly detailed wild flowers. If Vincent Van Gogh could get passionate about a field of stubble and Claude Monet paint powerful images of waterlilies, why shouldn't I see what can be made of what is supposedly the "Nature Island of the Caribbean".

Below are my tentative beginnings: two paintings that I made within a few yards of my studio.

Lessons learnt in the Garden of Eden

Work on my screen involved taking one hell of a chance in terms of techniques and materials. Fortunately the unknown elements worked to my advantage. The plywood had a slightly raised grain which gave texture, the vinyl paint had a slight sheen which gave life, and my random collection soft pastels from thirty years ago gave me the colour effects I was after. My only concern was the clear matt spray varnish that I used to finally fix the work. I did a test panel beforehand and that worked well. However, on the actual panels pressure from the spray tended to blow away some of the pigment and slightly reduced the depth of colour. But in general I would say 99% successful.

Below are the panels in detail.

Naked without shame

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed (Genesis II, Verse 25)

Likewise, my Eve is naked without shame. In my Caribbean Garden of Eden fig leaves are superfluous; there are no forbidden fruits, no serpents and no Adam to distract Eve's reverie. 

Completed panels 1, 2, 3 & 4 of side one of the screen.

Below are the panels in detail: Passion Fruit, Mango, Guava and Orange.

Once again I thank Verlena, my Dominican model and muse, for inspiring my work. When Verlena modelled for a sculpture of her standing figure three years ago we never foresaw that one day the same relaxed pose would depict Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Decorative Arts

James McNeill's (1843-1903) interior design masterpiece The Peacock Room falls under the category of Decorative Arts, as does the work of hundreds of artists from the past. In a more humble way the designs for my screen follow suit. The pictures below show work in progress on Screen 1 and Screen 2.

Eve tempted by Passion Fruit

Eve tempted by Mangoes

The work of the potter, being both beautiful and functional, also falls under the category of Decorative Arts. My son Karl, alienated from me at the age of three by way of divorce, is such a one. But court orders take no account of genes. Now in his thirties he has established himself as self-taught studio potter. Below is an example of his work and a link to a recent interview.

I'm trying to decide

I have completed the figures on one side of my screen. I am now trying to decide if I should bring this side to completion before turning it around to work on the reverse side. Pastel drawings are vulnerable until they are fixed and I can't fix them until they are finished. Like a coin, I cannot view and work on both sides of the screen at once.

Initially, I had in mind nothing more than trailing vines for the surround of each panel. But now my idea of Eve wandering through a Caribbean Garden of Eden has taken hold. Our fruits are more exotic than apples from temperate regions. Off the top of my head I can list at least twenty fruits that grow in abundance on my island; more than enough to decorate my panels twice over.  

It would take a strong-willed Eve to resist the temptation of sampling the Passion Fruit that grows within a stone's throw of my studio. 

The subtlety that I'm after

 

I am making progress on the screen I featured a few posts ago. I foresee that the difficulty will be keeping harmony on all eight panels. In progressing from panel 1 to panel 2 my method of applying pastel as already changed. I may have to wipe out my first attempts to achieve the subtlety that I'm after. Foliage in the form of exotic vines will balance the compositions and create a tempting Garden of Eden for my Eve to wander through.

The picture below shows work in progress on panel 2.

My children as models

The opening photograph is of my children, Tania, Tristan and Trina. It dates from when we first came to Dominica sixteen years ago. A couple of years early they had all been subjects for my sculptures. 

First Tania

Then Trina

And finally, Tristan

At about the same time Tania and Trina also modelled for my sculpture The Dancing Girls. The ceramic flowers were made for the unveiling by school children that had followed the project on my website. That was in the days before blogs. The bronze cast stands in the gardens of the Allen Gallery in Hampshire, UK.

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching...

 

The artist as a young man sixty years ago. 

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,

They have soaked you in convention through and through;

They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching - 

But can't you hear the wild? - it's calling you.

(From "The Call of the Wild" by Robert Service 1874-1958)

The young man in the photograph is me at the age of eighteen. I look contented enough, but looks can be deceptive. Within me a rebellion was brewing. Five years later I gave up a secure job in engineering design, converted a canal barge into a studio and with my wife and two year old daughter, set sail for the French canals. It was on the pavements of France that I declared myself as an artist. 

These beginning's are relevant to questions posed by my daughter Trina and my good friend Verlena. Trina is working in computer programming and Verlena is into her second year at university. Both are creatively inclined and frustrated. They asked: "How ever did you do it." and "Was it easier in those days than it would be now.".  

I did it by grabbing chances, living on a shoe string and adapting my skills to anything that came my way. Importantly, I had the good fortune of a wife who was happy to share my dream regardless of the hardships involved. 

To step out of the normal run of things will never be easy but it is perhaps easier today than what it was for me sixty years ago. I say that because young people now are more conditioned to normality by way of further education. The majority are all after the same thing, thus leaving room for others to find their own space by stepping aside. 

When I left a well paid job in engineering design everyone thought I was mad. Maybe I was, but happy to be so. If there is a God watching over us I believe he takes special care of those who take chances in life. When I live life for all it's worth he never lets me down, but when I try to play safe he puts all kinds of obstacles in my way.

But risk is every present. I have no pension and no security for old age. But no problem. When my work is finished, I will be finished!

Pete Seeger's recording of "Little Boxes" dates from 1963, the very year when I escaped from a life sentence in little boxes. 

The blight of "Little Boxes" has alas reached the Caribbean.

Living above the shop

Like many of the creative artists and craftsmen from the past, I live above the shop. 

I have spent the last two weeks renovating the living room from the ravages of two hurricanes and my numerous offspring. Everything in that space I have designed and made with my own hands, from the walls to the furniture, and the same goes for the kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom. The settee and chairs date back to twenty-five years ago. They were the first of my Caribbean Furniture Designs. The cushion covers date back to last week.

Let this be a lesson for those who think art is all about painting pictures and living in squalor. To survive an artist has to be skilled in all things creative. And the space within which we live is creatively the most important of all.  

Behind the screen

The opening picture shows the sketches I make from all angles in readiness for a sculpture of a standing figure. The finished sculpture of my model Verlena is shown below.

             

What I now have in mind is to use those eight different views to decorate a screen that has been languishing in my workshop for over twenty years. I originally made the screen in the misguided belief that my models might need it to discretely change behind. Front and back the screen has eight 15" x 55" panels, one for each view. Whereas my sculpture was quarter life-size, my screen decorations will be almost life-size. 

In order to retain a rapid sketch effect I'm tempted to try working in pastel, fixed with a spray varnish. In future posts I'll show you the work in progress. 

The screen standing in my workshop.

Verlena

All that is missing is my model. Verlena is now overseas at university. 

Sticking my neck out

In an earlier post I mentioned that our voyage through the Bahamas in 1976 met all the requirements of sailing and painting on the preverbal shoe string. By the time we had reached Green Turtle Cay we were penniless. In desperation I tried my luck with a collection of my sketches at the hotel above the anchorage. My confidence was at a low ebb when I reached the entrance. I was about to turn back when I noticed a sign saying, "A turtle only makes progress by sticking its neck out". 

As luck would have it, one of the guests remembered my work from the BVI and by sticking my neck out I sold four paintings. Confidence restored! 

Today's painting dates from those early days. The scene was a short deserted walk away from my studio which was nothing more than a shack on the shore of an idyllic cove. My boat was anchored in the crystal-clear waters of the reef-fringed cove with a handful of others. The cove is now a crowded marina surrounded by hotels and restaurants and the short walk now leads to the private grounds of palatial residences. My paradise was alas, ripe for development.

We are betrayed by what we love.

"The Painter's Workshop" Watercolour by Jean Jansen (1920-2013)

The act of painting reveals who we are. We are betrayed by what we love. (Jean Jansem)

I might add that an artist is also betrayed by the work of those he admires. Jean Jansem's oeuvre, materials and technique come close to my own attempts to master a similar way of recording what I love. 

Hovhannes Semerdjian, also known as Jean Jansem, was a French/Armenian painter of international renown. He was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 2003 and the President of Armenia awarded him a Medal of Honour for his reinforcement of Armenian/French cultural ties.

Painting by Jean Jansen

My School Report

In 1953, the year of my report card, England was still recovering from World War II and my school was located in the impoverished North of England. Although I came next to the bottom in the class, the fact that I am with you today as a painter and sculptor is thanks to Miss Atack, my primary school teacher. She was the first to recognize my flair for art. 

The fact that I was eventually able to excel in all subjects, is thanks to Miss Shepard, my remarkable "sink" secondary modern school headmistress. She diagnosed dyslexia before the word came into common usage. I was no longer perceived as dumb but different – just as Leonardo da Vinci, Auguste Rodin, Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein were dyslexic and different.

Civilizations are built on creativity and so too is the well-being of society. Twenty years ago a mixed race school on the outskirts of London had all the usual problems of low grades, bullying, truancy and antisocial behaviour.  Then there came on the scene a headmistress who might have been Miss Atack and Miss Shepard reincarnated. With amazing effect she placed art, drama and music at the core of the school’s agenda with amazing effect. It was not long before the school’s steel band played at the Royal Festival Hall and her pupils performed in the “Merchant of Venice” at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Her strategy for embracing the arts had a marked effect on academic achievement. Results for English, mathematics, science and history were above the national average. School inspectors cited pupil confidence, high moral, pride of achievement and exemplary behaviour.

I have witnessed a similar success story here in the Caribbean. In the 1980’s two music teachers from Canada – a husband and wife team – came down to the British Virgin Islands and started a school orchestra from scratch. Students had to save up to buy their own instruments and the orchestra’s repertoire ranged from classics to jazz. The village baker’s son, a boy of enormous girth and by no means academically inclined, became a maestro on the tuba. At the end of the couple’s two year contract, the orchestra made a tour of cities in the United States and received standing ovations.

Caribbean Style

A few days ago my post titled One Skill Leads to Another showed work in progress on a rocking chair. Today's picture shows the end result. The chair is part of a collection Caribbean furniture that I've been working on over the years. The collection includes: chairs, tables, stools, planter's chairs, cabinets, a chaise longue and swing banquette. Each piece is unique in design and decoration. 

A book titled Caribbean Style, first published in 1985, contains a superb photographic collection of Caribbean architecture, interiors and furniture. 

Decoration Detail

While I was working on the chair, Hoagy Carmichael's "Old Rockin' Chair" was running around in my mind. Here is Armstrong and Jack Teagarden's version of the 1929 jazz classic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOxx1-LIAWA