A quick line to thank you for the roll of canvas, by my reckoning there is now enough for 10 size 30's, another 10 25's and dozens of smaller variants - with this I can press on at will. It pleases me no end to know that I am self sufficient in preparing my own, at once I shall set about a making a double square1 for a view of Devonport I have my eye on. I have some caulking2 that must be done while the water is out in daylight hours and the tides have fallen just right to do it over the next few days so I won’t be heading out until Monday.

 

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We have a double square! I took it this morning from the high point of the Lawns looking straight across the Tamar to the MoD3 naval base. I made the frame on the aft deck as the sun rose. The first version was too square on the inner edge so I borrowed a plane from Tim and shaved off a centimetre or so leaving an appropriate downward angle from the outer edge to the inner, then stapled it together and stretched the canvas. An economical method and that mitre box is such a convenience! The view is dominated by a stramash of greens making up the dewy ground, this bookended by sprawling trees, spiky grass in the foreground encroaching onto the blue horseshoe. The Tamar lashed on in pale, the naval base indicated and the steep Devonport terraces sketched in. Two war-boats are parked up and I still cannot fathom how they endeavoured to shoot a missile at themselves!!4They are there for our protection supposedly, against terror among other excuses, but considering they are so incompetent as to fire a 9ft missile at their own nuclear facility then the question must be asked, who will protect us from them? Well, the world is like that for now and I find it is prudent to meditate on it for only so long less my own world be defined by theirs and I am lucky to have the TAS to keep me busy.

I worked on it largely through the eyelashes5, maybe too much so, but it helps one see it and in any case it is something and better it done and push on to more, but look here, I have progressed a little and it will continue if we hold this course and while I did have some experience in painting it was of a rather more systemic variety6, not at all as demanding and challenging as representational, plein air painting. What I am driving at is this, I have a foothold on the practice and now my mind is turning back to more theoretical matters, chiefly our rationale of 'breakage'. We say we will not go on as before! We do not accept austerity! It is our duty to refuse to continue as if this robbery and injustice has not occurred! To continue with what was before is to accept it. They will say 'go on as before what precisely'? To that we must be clear - 2011! The political golden spike. It was in 2008 that the financial crisis hit, I remember it well, I was in Newcastle and at that time it was called the 'credit crunch'. It was all rather jovial in a way with many bars and restaurants offering 'credit crunch specials' and this despite high street shops closing right left and centre7. The wild behaviour that brought it about no doubt started long before that and i presume it came quite naturally to them – that’s what they do. No, that isn't the worst of it. The unforgivable moment that triggers our break is 2011 when it was clear that austerity measures were going ahead despite enormous protest (no more credit crunch specials now). When it was clear that we would have to pay and even opposition parties told us it had to be austerity.

What a year it was thogh. The year of protest, the year of breakage: Student tuition fees, the Arab spring, war in Libya, Eurozone crisis - greece, the coalition of resistance and millions of others protest austerity and are ignored, the London riots, corrupt media exposed8, mass killings in Norway and of course the worthy occupy movement erupting all over the world. You know in the light of all we now know it seems to me that the idea of western democracy has become so unbelievable as to rival the story of God creating the world with his hands in seven days in plausibility. But look here, 2011 gave us many new lows, the lowest of which to my mind is the appointment of 'the technocrat' who replaced the Greek Prime minister to ensure the interests of the market come first. The technocrat now towers above that other profession the existance of which is all the evidence one needs to understand the fallacy of the entire shooting match - the lobbyest. 

It is of course right to say that the crisis itself showed again that capitalism is an out of control system (everyone knows it, especially the capitalists) but in the wake of such an unprecedented crisis, with the blame so clearly laying with the banking industry I dared hope to see some just measures, a thrown bone even from our politicians but instead we see a cynical and authoritarian response. Cynical in the campaign to convince us that there was 'no other way' other than cuts and furthermore to capitalise on the opportunity afforded by the defacit narrative to launch a frenzied campaign ideaologically driven cuts to our facilities and services. And of course as part of this we were treated to some good old fashioned divide and rule tac-tics that were rolled out to fracture resistance (and who is better than the British aristocracy at that?) Authoritarian in the violent repression of protest and the use of social unrest as an excuse to grant police even more repressive powers!

 

For me personally it was in 2011 that the last thin veil of democracy was lifted revealing the deeply authoritarian machine for what it is - devious and thuggish. For many others this happened long before. And let us say this: the crisis has been called the greatest robbery in history but it's much worse than that - imagine you have been burgled, the police know who did it but do nothing, then the burglars endeavour to lose everything that was stolen, then the police spring into action come to your house and order you to pay the burglar again. Then imagine this happening....to everyone!!

People will say: "But what can we do? What choice do we have? We have to go on as before." They will say "I agree it is an injustice but life goes on." Well, yes, people still must continue with what they need to do - even if an alien space ship should land on the Torpoint Ferry of a Friday afternoon you can believe that Mr Huggins would expect his men in on Monday morning as usual..."I've got a boatyard to run ere". The bills to pay, the children to feed - of course. No. We are obviously referring to artistic endeavours. It is precisely because people do not have the luxury of 'refusing to go on as before' that we must do it artistically; a project for the imagination. That’s how I divvied it up and it was clear that the TAS thought similar, now here we are and we have to put some flesh on the bones. And I for one can't imagine a more thrilling, risky, provocative, artistic program, plus as time goes by we are sure to have a few sales. Understand me right, I'd rather sell a humble oil study to go on display in somebody’s home than deal on contemporary art market or almost as bad, to play for a University - that way insanity lies, i've seen it (the eyes never lie) and I only narrowly avoided taking that path, aye yai yai!

 

Well, I would like to write more about it all, especially 2011 and Occupy, but it is late and I have to check the ropes. Maybe another double square tomorrow, we'll see, I'll be heading out early so I may send a line in the evening.

 

---------------------------------------------------------Yours for now,

---------------------------------------------------------------------John

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PS have also sent a new idea for our banner that contains a little more of our intention. I put together a montage of pictures showing a rough progress through modernism right up to now and ending with a pallet and brushes. The idea of course is to create through the choice of images a narrative that describes our rationale of breaking away and starting again from Van Gogh. We begin with Cezanne which is only fair i think then on to a haunting photograph of  the man himself with his black back to camera. It is  taken from a picture of him nattering with Emile Bernard by the river.

Then we wade into it with Picasso,  Malevitch, and Duchamp. Through the sixties with Fluxus and Situationist International, to an image of 1968 revolutions and a cheeky one of the famous original co-optation of sixties social protest. Into american modernism with a Judd, into institutional critique with a Hacke and Warhol arising above the Condensation Cube. Then the beginning of the end with a shot of the 'John and Yoko' of Neoliberal capitalism who take care of it until Tirivanija who represents the late 90's social turn as Bishop9 would have it. Then the anti globalisation movement represented by the Seattle riots and now we're well into the art/activism blurring and then wallop! 9/11! War on terror.

Self-institutional experimentation throughout the decade of the 2000's represented by the Copenhagen Free University and the 'mockstitutional10 antics of the  Yes Men bookending the period, and all the while security panic11 enterprise culture threaded through all experience. The financial crisis and the simmering global fury which boiled over in 2011 represented by an Occupy camp followed by austerity and the violent repression of protest, represented by a line of jobsworth rozzers, and then...? Quiet....shhh....quietly...back away...enough - break.

The cartoon representation of the pallete and brushes speaks of the inevitable crisis of authenticity that will follow us back to the start. Actually it gets us everywhere, in art, in protest, in even thinking about a new world and it is something to try and dissolve as we take our first steps. We need to reach the point in our new doing where it is possible to mean it, and mean it. That may be the hardest thing of all.

​

I dare say there are many more ways of putting together a history like this and a full explanation of my choices would require an essay but I am happy with it and I'd be happy with it as the project banner or lets call it a 'narrative banner'.

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