From the comfort of this leather arm pressed against the window of the bean house on tullportsgaten1 we have the lid open once again and in a positive frame of mind I might add. We are ready for nothing less than the next phase of life! This is a feeling that often occurs at the onset of spring after a hard winter but this time it is as a result of completing the family duty of returning my fathers ashes to Scotland, to Coatbridge and to rest with his mother and brothers. (His father is buried in Coventry.)
We spent four days in all meeting relatives and introducing my two girls to the family but also getting myself reacquainted. It has been years since we all met, perhaps fifteen or so and because I have never indulged in social media those years were pretty much contactless so on arriving and finding my young cousin driving a Jaguar and managing risk in a financial firm I was astounded. The next day my other cousin, who I remember as well oiled youth on a mission to dance with everyone at a family wedding, picked us up in a black BMW sports car to take us to the ceremony; the reward of owning a hair styling business in the town. I made a point of telling my children to enjoy the ride as the car we will soon be purchasing on account of our Picasso giving up the ghost will be of the regular, practical variety. Needless to say the younger generation of my family over in Scotland have the essentials under control.
The trip was based around the scattering of the ashes and if I was in any doubt that the feeling of sadness was still with us I was set straight when meeting my older cousins who new my father very well from before I was barn; it was still rather raw for them. In addition two cousins made the trip from Canada, bringing with them the ashes of their father which they scattered in a ceremony a few days later which we unfortunately missed.
Our hotel was in Edinburgh so there was also the chance to visit the national where I ping ponged between a Van Gogh Blossom and a Cezanne Victoire for a few hours, much to the increasing puzzlement of the warden looking on. The aim was to absorb something from the pictures and with a bit of luck glean some understanding of how I can develop. (I like having masters!) Perhaps through my intense scrutiny and juxtaposition of their opposing approaches something of an in-between method could result? That may be either madness or weak compromise but it is for me a struggle to choose which I love more; looking at the VG I was convinced that the passion and exhilaration of the one rush method was supreme but turning to the Cezanne I was equally convinced of the deep running waters of sensation painting.
My father was the youngest of three brothers. He followed his eldest brother into the navy and then to live in Canada where he worked on the railways and where his brother was police in Toronto. My Uncle Lewis, the middle brother, was prevented from joining the navy on account of a minor physical matter and decided there and then, so the story goes, that his fate was tied to Coatbridge and indeed he worked a lifetime there and passed away soon after retirement as something of a hero, certainly in my eyes. Thanks to him the family has a solid base in Scotland with strong ties in the local community and as mentioned above the younger generation flourishing.
But it can be a hard place the area where the family is based. A place where life and people can be unforgiving and where affiliation with ones 'kind' is very important. In speaking of 'kind' I am referring to sectarian divide between Protestants and Catholics, a topic I was brought up hearing about through the context of football; the blues vs the greens.2
I will not offer any real opinion on the matter having really no experience of the situation beyond my fathers stories and the family holidays. But there was an incident when I was young which left me in no doubt that it was a serious concern. As a boy of perhaps ten I took it upon myself to visit the corner shop down the road only to be chased after by my cousin screaming at me to cover up my shirt which was visible through my unzipped jacket. I could see in his expression that I was in danger. So it was clear early in my childhood that there was more than just the football and from my comfortable distance I had the luxury of being 'disturbed' and of being able to leave. Not so if you live amongst it of course and as my father often told me, with a mixture of reminiscent longing and relief to be away, that 'it's us and them'. It goes back a long, long way, certainly to the 1920's gang wars that infamously ravaged Glasgow but also a good deal earlier, to the Battle of the Boyne and a certain 'King Billy'.3 Our family falls on the Protestant side of the coin but to be sure there's not a lot of church going involved, unless trips to the stadium count.
So we are part of a difficult and violent history but that is not to say that daily life over there is a continuous pitch battle but the fact is, who you are, and who your family are is known and the divide is enough that one must be aware of who's who. My father used to love telling stories of his time in Glasgow as a youth 'out at the dancing' and the perils one is faced with; the dreaded question 'who d'you support'? He told with great humour that on such occasions one is forced to scan the person for clues, of accent, demeanour, clothing, company and come to a conclusion in great haste. And it is no good playing the neutral card by the way. If no conclusion can be reached one must move to strategies of delay and distract and hope for the best. On one occasion where my fathers interrogator at the dance was of short stature, (a little too short for the confidence he exuded) and having failed to ascertain the affiliation, he came up with a stroke of genius and reached over to feel the young mans bicep: "Quite some muscles you have there."
The strategy of flattery worked and on gaining the tough guys favour the latter points out several heavier accomplices around the dance hall who were waiting to jump in on any who take bait; "Right George, see if y'get any trouble the-night, we got Billy over there, Davey on the other side and big Tam on the balcony....".
Through the steam of the Sunday roast I watched my father tell many stories of dance hall bravado, everyone dressed in suits; another world to be sure, but look here, this may seem like an sentimental jolly but we do have a point to make and we are coming to it.
Conflict exists in the town but it seems to me that the divide is manifest less in a desire to fight the other and more the desire to affiliate and strengthen through cooperation and institution building of a sort. (Sounds familiar)4 So one can see the effect of the sectarian divide in the proliferation of social clubs and associations where people can affiliate and I had the chance to experience this first hand when on the day following the scattering, which I performed incidentally, we visited my cousins lawn bowls club where he is indeed the president.
Now this was interesting. Lawn Bowls. A members club. A club which is a hundred years old, boasting a well kept lawn and, I was told by my proud cousin, enviable facilities for the proliferation of tournament bowls of the highest level which the club did indeed host from time to time. Today though was not for bowls but for the football which was beamed into the bowls club function room where a crowd of oiled members were taking refreshments in preparation for the match against a team from Edinburgh which my cousin referred to as the 'spoonburners'.5 It was this large group that met us upon our arrival at the club and of course my cousin is well known and commands respect as president but I was greeted with a silent but friendly: "Who the fuk's this?"
Now, these Scottish gatherings can be intimidating; one aggressive phrase from a Scotsman can rather take the legs from under the Englishman but I have had
some experience. I'll never forget as a boy of 16 being taken to the smoke filled soup house at the foot of the Ibrox6 arena; it was full to a crush and everyone was shouting, screaming, laughing, singing at a volume not heard of south of the border. It was in this cauldron that my uncle handed me a twenty pound note and said: "get the drinks in son". The order was 'a pint 'a' heavy and wee half' and the same for my dad and it was obligatory that I too had the medicine, and so off I went to the bar and waited to be served. Well this was an experience! They say over the Atlantic that the squeaky wheel gets the grease and lets just say it was a very squeaky bar with a whole lot of greasing going on and in the end I think I was only 'greased' out of sympathy rather than volume of my squeak and only when there was a gap in the aggressively stated demands of the regulars. In any case, on returning with the drinks my two elders wore amused expressions; it was clearly a test or initiation of sorts and having delivered the goods I guess I passed. We stayed for a few more drinks and my father and uncle had what looked like a routine chat in comfortable surroundings whilst I saw a type of pub chaos I never imagined possible and have never seen the like of since. It really is impossible to imagine anything remotely similar happening in Norrtälje.
So I have come to accept over the years as a manEnglish visiting Scotland to expect the aggressive, no nonsense atmosphere of the bar - not to mention the rapid fire bantering. This bowls club was the same, a back and forth occurring all over between this one and that; in the corner, by the bar, across the room. Everywhere and constantly there is a serve and return of bantering followed by a rally worthy Nadal and Federer.7
But for this Englishman the serves were just to fast to return; ace's were scored on me all afternoon and so in the end I settled in to my preferred role of mute spectator; one must know when one is out gunned. But that is not to say there is malice, quite the reverse, all this bantering is done with great warmth but generally you have to be prepared to take a few verbals on the chin and with myself looking every bit the 19th century plein airist I was the definition of an easy target. As it turned out I escaped quite lightly, being the butt of just the one joke, and one which was all the easier to manage as it flew over my head somewhat, it went down a treat with the members however. As far as I can gather the crux of the humour rests on my resembling in appearance the manufacturer of some kind of locally sold breaded fish product. This was pointed out immediately and with great flair by the barman as I approached for a drink. It was quite clear that this barman, a miniature, was one who's role it is to create laughter and amusement for the members to enjoy. Had I entered into an empty room would he take aim at me the way he did? Anyway the likening of myself to the breaded fish manufacturer scored such a laugh that the tiny barman was encouraged to elaborate by dancing a little jig and singing a jingle that I presume was a reference to the breaded fish product in some way, perhaps to the advertising.
To my eyes it was a demented spectacle but in any case it brought the house down. I laughed with him and acknowledged the laughter of the raucous group of members sitting in a circle to my right. I waited politely at the bar for the laughter to subside before taking my leave without a word. I followed our party to a side table and left my cousin to defend me: "Hor yu that's ma cousin! Leev hem alowne!".
My recollection of all this is amusing perhaps for you to read but the point I am honing in on is that as the evening proceeded my cousin revealed the nature of this club and its connection to the blue side of the coin, but also to the Scottish Masons (that it was a Protestant crowd goes without saying). All night people came to our table to shake my cousins hand after which he would often tell me that he was given 'the grip', the secret handshake of the masons. But this was not so mysterious, these people were tradesman; carpenters, plumbers, builders and indeed stonemasons. But also mangers, marketers, executives, all from the local area and if not all part of the masons then certainly members of the Lawn Bowls club! It was clear that this club was the concrete, bricks and mortar institution serving the imaginary institution of the group. Lawn bowls is a front. The two types of institution served one another and created a solid sustainable social group. I enquired whether one finds the same clubs on the other side of the divide and was told 'absolutely'.
I was not introduced to any artists at the club however and it is fair to say I think that in most places the occupation of artist is not exactly celebrated as a good solid profession to build a good life and provide for the family but I did not for one moment feel that my cousins might frown down upon me for my choice (my father and uncle were always very encouraging in this respect). However it does make one feel a little at odds with norm in a room full of Protestant masons.
But my experience at the club made me ponder a broader question as to what one is attached to, and not only in a family sense but more generally in terms of what one does in life. Whatever it may be there is a sense of the group and its importance, its affiliations, but I am clearly not articulating this point with enough clarity. I am talking about living without orientation, about feeling unmoored, about being a middle aged, would be critical artist in 2020 and the fear that I and others of the same bent, are the product of a now defunct idea of society, a society in which art held, at least on the surface, a prominent position. I'm talking about the neoliberal era, of enterprise culture, the knowledge economy, the creative class, of arts funding, the AHRC, the arts council, of cultural regeneration. That business has gone bust but its not possible to just shut the door because it was a way of being and living that we were sold and peddle. Only from the ashes of all that does one realise with new clarity what one was involved in all along. Naturally, art has not disappeared and there is not less of it but the position of "art" and its importance as a system in society (you can refer here to Michael Lingner and post autonomous practise if the fancy takes you.)9 has changed and this in turn causes ripples in the imaginary of society and in the minds of artists vis a vis the purpose and societal role of art. Let us remember the way that art and culture were once held up as the drivers of the new economy and people like us were encouraged onto that path, to go forth and make a precarious life, and society would somehow glean some value from all this 'playbouring'.10 Ha! (I laugh not because it isn't true but because the notion is impossible to imagine within our current alt right fiction.) This was a castle built on sand and now that the tide has come in we are all floating around, flailing about and trying to grasp something solid. Unfortunately the only thing solid that I can see is the contemporary art market. At this time it would be nice to have some affiliation, perhaps like the guilds of the dutch?
Having permitted myself the above biography I feel I can draw a line of sorts and move on up. I'm keen to get back to the fields and forests but as you can see from todays post I am working on several paintings at the same time now and will be sending them in batch load most likely and may even take them up again in a few months, such is the way of sensation work, so perhaps you will hear from me a little less but there will hopefully be a little more meat on the bone.
With a handshake,
John
PS You know my mother almost did not travel due to this coronavirus outbreak and just as we returned Scotland has confirmed its first case! What of it here in Sweden?
1 Possibly the Espresso House.
2 The major sectarian rivalry in Scottish football is between two Glasgow clubs named Rangers and Celtic.
3 King William III of England
4 Likely to hint at the topic of institution building in art discourse.
5 Potentially a reference to heroin.
6 Ibrox is the head quarters of the Rangers football team.
7 Racquet sports professionals.
8 There is no evidence of a breaded fish manufacturers in Coatbridge but the refference may be to Captain Birdseye which is a character used to sell breaded fish nationally.
9 An additional note is unneccasary.
10 A popular old world shorthand to characterise a precarious lifestyle in which the divide between work and play is diminished.