Visiting Artists

Visiting Artists

 

Visiting Artists
One day in about 1966 two artists visited the art supply shop below the Overgang at the harbourside  in Brixham.

The younger artist knew the king of art mediums is oil. With linseed oil, turps, scratchy brushes and canvas, this was the alchemy needed to create a “work of art”.

Having announced she was going to be an artist and go to art school (Tony Hancock hovers in the wings) the older and wiser artist replied “Art schools are the universities of life” along with “never trust banks” and “people with glass tables shouldn’t sit on them” and “hang on, you’re nine years old”

To the younger artist, buying the oil paint would mark a line between what you create with poster paints on paper and a new expectation; ‘the work of art’.

Disaster: the completed canvas was the work of a nine year old; she wanted it to be at least a Picasso.

Now she realises this was the closest she got.

‘It takes a long time to be young’ Pablo Picasso

 

Visiting Artists

 

One summer in the early sixties, three children travelled approximately 1,400 miles from Devon in the back of a mini to visit an artist. In the grove the artist was installing a sculpture exhibition. The children and their parents had come, with another family, to say hello. Three fathers; three artists: a potter/playwright, a sculptor and a painter. And that young artist, yet to wield the disappointing bristle brush, nurturing a talent with the 2HB. The loveliness of the grove, the magnificence of the sculpture, the epic journey, the shady courtyards, the seeping conversations about art: art that sustained families, paid bills, decorated the house and illustrated the family to visitors. The journey home , returning to the ebb and flow of the family, summer lawns, school beginnings and a baby sister; and the young artist’s growing realisation that art lives in the world regardless of currency and commerce; art travels 1,400 miles in a mini and never leaves the house.

 

 

Visiting Artists

 

As children we would visit artists and artists would visit us; it was part of the ebb and flow of our lives. They rarely said they were artists because they mostly came as mothers and fathers and we played with their children. We weren’t encouraged to be the children of artists; we conspired, played and fought and created next to nothing. As a bunch of adults they talked art and creating things and how to make money; as mothers and fathers they were judged on the warmth of their hellos and the sadness of their goodbyes. Yet something always rubbed off, a feeling that being an artist was a bit mysterious and being children of artists a bit of a mystery.

 

Visiting Artists

 

In 1966 we spent a summer in Italy; one quest was to find the white horses of Tarquinia. It became a bit of a mission and today I found out they were in the local museum; far too mundane. I think that option was deliberately overlooked by the parents in favour of a day on the balcony drinking red wine.

It was around that time that I was told the white crests on waves are called white horses. Back to school and Jesus walking on water couldn’t compete in my imagination with an ocean of galloping hooves and Tanquinnian tombs filled with frescoes of fishermen. Maybe He had a hand in the endless flow of red wine on the balcony

(and of course all hail to Patti Smith and her horses)

Saint Catherine: Indian Princess: collage on wood 2014

 

Visiting Artists

 

Given freshly fired and glazed presents is like being given delicious food; or at least something to put it on. Visiting a potter always meant being given something lovely, even if it was a second. How would a child know anyway. Only later, on closer inspection, would the glaze not meet the edge or the wobble become a bit annoying. A painter or writer did not impart gifts, not ready, not worthy, cash only, no cheques. Potters are natural givers and understand the earthiness and messiness of children; give the child a plate and order is restored

Milton Head Pottery 1951-59

 

 

 

 

Visiting Artists

 

In the 1960s, it is possible to avoid the presence of inquisitive child artists in the pub; no child, no matter how precocious, is allowed in the public bar. The older artist can hold forth on the tyranny of the art trade, the giving and taking of contracts and the price of paper; he can offer the cup of celebrity, name dropping with the consistency of the ash from his cigarette. Unbeknown to them all who come through the door the artist is playing a character from a mid 20th century book; How to Spot an Artist in a Pub. This tradition of visiting artists in pubs is long and distinguished; it is one the younger artist will become familiar with; often being regaled with the wit or withering of the night’s performance. The Colony Club (they wish), the bars of Montmartre (ditto), the Waterman’s Arms (little pond); in the corner the artist whittling his sharp pencil, scribbling your portrait, selling his wares in order to catch a sentence or a shadow for a sketch; modelling the extraordinary into the ordinary. One more for the road; creativity diluted, dulled, diminished.

 

 

Visiting Artists

 

 

Artists are not always in for visitors. “Fear not”, the older and wiser artist says, “artists are show offs no matter what they say, otherwise what is the sodding point; all you need to know they will have put in a book, that will fill a gap” (Harken the approaching dawn of YouTube). Off he wanders again, sharpening his own point no doubt, ready to jab a talking artist or small over – ambitious child artist. The house is full of books; magnificent books of the twentieth century, over thinking everything and simplifying nothing; jealous, defensive books (roll on the twenty first century and the approaching dawn) none of them giving away the secret of thinking, making and being good at it in one day Bert Wheedon style. So the only way to start is to look at the pictures; which is his point (maddeningly)

 

Visiting Artists

Visiting artists come in many guises; talking artists were a wonder to a child. These artists began by talking on the telephone. The child already acts as the telephonist; diverting calls; small master of the procrastinating deadline; the mysterious unavailability of the artist to talk today; he is talking bills, school fees, Welsh gossip, Senior Service supplies, off licence invoices; he’s not at home for talking artists today; call again please.

If summoned by telephone to the house, the talking artist would begin to talk about creativity, it’s superiority and manifesto for an excused reality. The wonder that unfurled before the child, the wonder of a talking artist, the words that can spark the imagination, making a child integral to the completion of the imagined work; left with the belief that the work was complete, available, an object.

Judgment would fall upon the talking artist

“Sorry, you think you’re doing it. Thinking is sweet and addictive but like honey, it’s happy in a jar and notoriously difficult to extract and spread about. Thinking is not doing.”

However, look into the future of art school dogma and Conceptualism is the talking artist’s good fairy;

‘Don’t worry about the technicalities of getting a thought out of the jar; if it’s a mess it shows you’ve given it a lot of thought’.

By this time the telephonist diverts all calls to Muswell Hill

 

‘Part of the act of creating is in discovering your own kind. They are everywhere, but don’t look for them in the wrong places’ (Henry Miller)