The past couple of weeks have passed with little work done worse luck although we had prepared to give it a rest around the time of my daughters birthday. She just turned nine. Born in 2013 the other in 2011 they both will grow into the post truth times we have spent these three seasons panicking about. Boring daddy.
Somehow a childs birthday requires as much time and effort as building a stugan! And this partly because she ends up having several celebrations to mark the event. This year we celebrated on the day here in Bergby, then the next in Norrtelje with my mother, then to Stockholm with the cousins, then with mor mor and mor far who drove up from Norköping and finally a jolly up with her friends down the Lommaren Lekplats. There were that many occassions in fact that when it was all finally over she seemed relieved. She told me as much as she sat for the birthday portrait today.
After the last two birthday portraits which I was forced to paint from reproductions I was determined this year to take it from life. Previously it had been impossible to get her to sit and keep still but today I had planned ahead and had prepared her pad with an episode of LD Shadow Lady1 cued up on The You Tube Video Service and a bowl of saltlakrits2 under the easel to offer when needed. The resulting study was grabbed in a mere 30 minutes after which she could be detained no longer, so here we have it. As the years go by so will the collection of portraits grow and as we have discovered resemblance grows and weaves with memory as time passes, saying that however today's effort does capture my daughters character and looks quite well if I may be so bold.
We must do more portraits. More portraits to test ourselves but also in the spirit of evoking Van Gogh for the times, we must do more to bring portraiture into our themes. To use it, like the one of Boch that VG transformed into the poet, or the reader, or madame Ginoux with the hat and gloves, like the Italian girl, these are all much more than capturing looks and character. If we didn't have ourselves on such a tight reign we might imagine a series reflecting the times; 'the troll', 'the snowflake', 'the conspiracy theorist', 'the influencer'. And on and on we could go into the land of simple, but we wont. We might have a general go however at some symbolism a little more subtle. What that might be who could say but it would be played with a straight bat and done with best intentions. Perhaps we could get somewhere with the addition of props and assigning of symbolic character, that would be at least within our grasp. The technique, execution and energy that exude from the dutchmans portraits of course is not. This is partly because no matter how much we may wish to be Alan Shearer3 we just are not but also because he was at the advance of his time, Van Gogh that is, and so even if we did happen to technically match the dutchman today it would not have much impact, it would not be some great achievement firstly because painting is such a micro concern in society in comparison and even then its a finance thing but more because there is no meaning any longer in the paint and its execution and application. Vouvrays? Who gives a fuck?4 It meant a lot before, it does not now. This is all the talk of the foundation class but look here, one way we might buoy ourselves for a fresh campaign of Van Gogh one rush work as we close the season is to celebrate the dimensionality of the paint in deliberate contrast to the flat of the screen, and although we remain in the small spaces of the foundation studio with this most simple of art ideas we'll take it nonetheless; make the thing so that the Borg (yes you) cannot know it (No offence). Of course we must keep our source dry, not add too many eggs, avoid going too far and making a little sensation the center piece. Just look at Kapoor's5 lock down efforts, his 2020/21 paintings are a good example of a contemporary pudding over egged.
What today's portrait has reminded us of is that we have a way to go and much ground to explore in the zone of portraiture and with time running out perhaps we must reckon with it? Lets have a few proper half lengths, hands and all, sitting standing, gorping at the phone, whatever. Just done with boldness and a little thought.
A handshake,
John
PS
What are we to do with our video series? We have some 60 messages to the Singularity in the can but have stopped uploading them to the You Tube Video Service due to the carbon issue. Perhaps you don't much care as this season is very much my party but surely you would wish the project to succeed, is that not good for you also?6 As it stands the project, or at least the video aspect of it, is in the balance. Our logic, before the whole question of the environmental cost of the internet generally was revealed through the NFT business but also the work of Moll,7 was that to talk to the Singularity we must make ourselves visible on the internet. That still holds and perhaps we must even make a debut on the blockchain to be sure of visibility and perhaps even something in Russian and Chinese to nail it. We also originally pledged a much broader campaign to involve "You Tube, Snap Chat, Tik Tok 'n' all'8 but even as it stands with just the video account we leave our printed foot and its not just the uploading its the storage and our poor messages sit their like ducks waiting for bread. Needless to say we have not a single genuine view and to keep them up seems suddenly wrong. But we must live and create! Only suicide is guaranteed to finally reduce consumption and that wont get us anywhere so what to do? Any thoughts?
1. A popular British You Tuber.
2. Salty liquorice.
3. A British football professional who played for Blackburn and Newcastle.
4. Reference not clear. A search for the phrase 'Vouvray's? Who gives a fuck?' indicates a connection with an obscure movie about wine entitled Sideways. Vouvray is a French wine region.
5. Refers to British artist Anish Kapoor.
6. At the Dignity Scholarship success is irrelevant.
7. Joanna Moll.
8. See verse 42 line 1.