Work 2) Little Digger
When opportunity knocks I find it is wise to open the doors wide and so today I took the chance to paint a charming little digger brought onto the grounds to amend a sewage problem1. (The view of the cut wheat field will keep.) You know here in rural Sweden the houses have their own sewage filtration system taking the waste from the house to a tank on the grounds where the liquid filters deep into the land and the tank pumped. Quite fascinating in its way, the basics from which we live... On the boat2 in Torpoint I'm afraid the sewage was piped directly into the sea on a high tide but having seen how its done here I'm sure that something of the like could be done in the old boat yard. (Not at Mr H's3 expense of course.) In any event I cancelled my planned trip to the cut wheat field and erected the easel in the garden and took a study of the little digging machine before it disappeared.
The result is a small canvas (a french 104 if you want the size) layed on in an hour with small adjustments made after lunch and a driver added this evening which really changed the whole feel of the picture. The view is from the top of the path looking down to the car park and the fields beyond. Autumn colours invade from all sides, harmonising with the diggers orange and the space is closed off by the forest. In terms of handling it is methodical and perhaps due to the small support has become somewhat stodgy and one paced. !Fear not a hasty romp into the world of pictorial symbolism by the way! Any and all symbolic offerings afforded by digger and hole are by the by. Of course there are plenty of readings and I can now think of numerous ways to think this into our wider themes but it is not like that this time. I really just liked the scale and delicateness of the machine and 'soil' has become a favourite subject in and of itself.
But figures. Figures are something I am beginning to add to my pictures and they are not an easy thing to pull off but often the basic suggestion is enough and over the years I have discovered for myself the way in which a figure provides not only a good trick to transform a composition that may lack focal point but also instantly creates the mysterious effect of 'presence'. That is the real prize to be won; presence and narrative. I say, would it not be a fine goal to aim for during the dignity scholarship to develop some sort of symbolic link between the figure or figures, in couples and groups, to our wider themes and whats more to do this without easy recourse to the contemporising props of pad, phone and drone?
I think it is achievable and I have had some practice at it. For my Stockholm Art Service5 work I began introducing figures on the basis that it may endure me and mine to the panel but apparently not. Yet another choice made as a result of the common impasse reached in ones Doing after which one must make changes in the work born of the necessity, both imagined and real, to appeal in some way. Would you agree?6 Inevitable and more often than not productive, but it feels nice to escape that pressure here in the DS cubbyhole. I should say though that I have tried my level best over the past two years to gain a spot in the Stockholm Art Service stable even going so far as to sign my pictures SAS in innocent anticipation of a future within that framework but for whatever reason my efforts have not been enough. Luckily for me the comforting, almost loving atmosphere of the Dignity Scholarship is tonic enough to alleviate the lingering ailments of previous failure and I thank you for it. Perhaps now I can press on with the job of work that I feel is necessary and desirable, namely the ongoing pursuit of emancipatory art based on the breakage theory which I worked on in Torpoint. (Here might be an opportune moment to direct the reader to the Torpoint Art Service project, can you add a link?)7
To that end we work on with a seasonal program of plein air painting with Van Gogh holding the torch and to be sure we must encourage him to shine his light onto the story that has become of him since the debacle of 18908. The early reputation building of Bonger9 which began that story has since been invested in by all and sundry with increasingly farcical turns in the commercial and academic realms resulting in bling and bun-fight respectively. It carries on apace. There are ever more detailed studies of every aspect and event of his life and those who knew or had contact with him. With each new discovery setting off a new round of re-evaluation and rewriting of the story. In the past few years alone since I began my aping of the great painter of the North we have had a new work revealed,10 the identification of the woman whom Van Gogh presented his severed ear11, a book of newly discovered drawings branded as fakes by the Dutch12, an animated motion work made from painted copies in the style of13. And all this is ignoring the big business, Shell Oil sponsored, scientific research and analysis into materials and processes. X-rays and that.
My favourite Van Gogh piece though is a revealing documentary about the Chinese art copy industry where one such copier, whose 9-5 is to make copies of various Van Gogh masterpieces, is brought to Amsterdam to see the real thing for the first time14. He is shocked firstly to discover how far off the mark his copies are (one cannot fake the urgency) and secondly to find out that his copies were not on display in a gallery as he imagined but were on sale in the dignity free setting of the market stall set just outside the Van Gogh Museum. The poor man seemed bemused on many levels.
I feel the need to press on now but on another occasion I must make room to tell you of a surreal encounter I had with an apparently serious art dealer in Stockholm who was adamant he had discovered a Van Gogh in the attic of a Hungarian Baroness...he has been working on its authentication for 8 years!
I will be out on the cut wheat field tomorrow weather permitting so wish me luck eh!
With a handshake,
John
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1. A blockage in the liquid waste pipe caused by the weight of the vehicles driving up the path.
2. John and his family lived on a houseboat in Torpoint.
3. Refers to Mr Sean Huggins who ran the Carbielle Wharf boatyard where John's boat was moored.
4. French standard canvas sizes. Size 10 measures 55 X 46cm.
5. Appears to be a residency opportunity but we have found to trace of the Stockholm Art Service project.
6. Yes absolutely
7. See Torpoint Art Service Work 23, Art Theory Books and Firewood
8. Presumable refers to Van Gogh's suicide on the 27th July 1890.
9. Theo Van Gogh's wife Johanna Van Bonger handled the collection, organising and exhibition of Van Gogh's work
11. Refers to Bernadette Murphy's book Van Gogh's Ear. Murphy's book has new information about 'Rachel', the woman to whom Van Gogh presented his severed ear.
12. A book of 65 'lost' drawings.
13. Loving Vincent. An animated film in which each frame is an oil painting.