All Kinds of Everything

Written on the Body – We are What We do.

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My body is slowly recovering from the seven day marathon, of exploring and listening to, the broad church of music that is, Broadstairs Folk Week. But with all the eating, drinking, dancing and walking, also essential elements, full participation requires physical (if not mental) stamina. And as I have explained on previous blogs, an absolute necessity for my personal enjoyment of the festival, is to be able to draw the musicians as they perform and over the years I have become addicted to this live, in-motion, participatory type of drawing. However, it is not without its physical discomforts, risks and even bodily injury.
This year has seemed more physical than most, right from the start, on the opening night. As I stood at the front of a packed bar, standing being the only option, into the throng, wove two delightfully drunk teenage girls who preceded to; lurch, lean and sing, in front of the legitimate performers. Twice I had to prevent them from falling backwards on to me, which culminated in a small, handbag-related injury. The good-natured crowd eventually got fed up, especially with the leaning, and the girls got properly told-off, but were so charmingly remorseful, it was easy to forgive them, especially when one of them, put her arm around my shoulders and said breathily into my hair, “I love you, I love your drawing, it’s well-good – I love you…” etc.
The next morning, I found out that two hours of standing-drawing, even with alcohol, was probably too much. Years of drawing in the melee of the crowd, has taken its toll on my right, sketchbook-holding arm, which tends to go rigid when I concentrate and then my spine joins in, from now on, I will have to find things to lean on. But later that day, numb with Paracetamol and Shandy, as I was drawing two violinists, I noticed the way that even their young bodies had already begun to mould themselves around their instruments, their faces flattening into chin rests and elbows bending into waists, all echoing and exaggerating the lines and curves of their instruments. We are what we do.
The day of my second injury, a small cut on my toe, the result of running from a downpour, had the happy consequence of causing us to take shelter in a low-ceilinged, dark bar where two men were dancing and tapping on boards, in what seemed like an early, infectious, form of beat-box. They managed to dance, sing and play instruments, simultaneously, accompanied by a wild Nordic-looking man, with blonde dreadlocks, who swung his double-bass like a cricket bat. It sounds crazy and they are, in the refreshingly eccentric and original treatment of an eclectic array of old songs. I tracked, stalked and drew them three times, almost defeated by the constant motion of their bodies that tested my patience, as it meant waiting for a particular gesture to repeat. At their final gig, grey with sheer end-of-festival knackerdness, they gave their all, in a storming performance that transmuted the grimy, sweat-stained pub, where your feet stick to the floor, into what felt like the O2.
So many moments, so many tiny decisions about what to include and what to leave out, each one, rich with the potential of a thousand possibilities and their consequences, including failure. This yearly drawing marathon has its own peculiar mental space which allows a pause to reflect on my drawing. This year I came across a performer that I last drew, anonymously, twenty-five years ago. In the interim we have both aged in parallel, perhaps this is what made me so aware of the ravages that time and music have reaped on him. But when he played…all that fell away and the pure, clean sound caused a memory-loop back to the first time, and in that spiritual space, we, musician and artist, were united. We have still not met and don’t need to, the most important thing is that we both keep doing what we do, for love, for all of us, we are what we do.

Pschographology, Doodling and the Impossibility of Random.

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It started, in my teens, reading a Jackie comic, I found an article called something like, “What does your handwriting say about you?” It was a light-hearted, pseudo-sciency, speculative, expose of character-traits, gleaned from seemingly innocent, school girl missives. For a while, I gave the tails of my “Y”s an extra flourish, in an effort to appear more feminine. But later, found myself wondering whether signs of Hitler’s badness or Joan of Arc’s courage might be perceivable in their handwriting. The idea that some essence of yourself could leak out into personal graphics, intrigued me and still does.

However, the years, as an apprentice artist, I was hell-bent on acquiring the technical skills, I believed necessary to become the real thing. I didn’t think about mark-making, as I prioritised; measurement, proportion and accuracy. I had a vision in my head that I tried to inflict on the paper, only rarely managing to beat it into submission.

It wasn’t until a trip to France, to an artist’s summer school, that I gave it much thought. Something happened that made quite an impact on my thinking: there was an artist-in-residence, a well-known abstract expressionist, and early each morning he would practise Tai Chi, outside, facing the sun, on a grassy hill. This would be followed by a session of deep meditation. Only then would he sit at a low table, fastidiously arranged with his favourite brushes and specially, prepared paper. Silently, he would make beautiful, repetitive marks, accompanied by slow, deliberate breathing. It seemed that his whole life, was bound up in his practice and the mark-making was an integral, disciplined part of this whole. But as I watched him, I kept thinking irreverent thoughts, like, what happens when he gets tired, or if he is cross or plain bored, would any of this be reflected in the marks?

When I eventually found the courage to ask him questions, it seemed incredible to me, that he saw no correlation whatsoever, between his emotional state and his mark-making. He truly believed he was making random marks.

It was not until I took Mark Making, as a minor option, at university, that I began to research; the flow, production and collective interpretation of marks. I was soon amazed at what could rationally ascertained by scientific analysis of a person’s handwriting. Below are just a few.

Gender.

“Generally speaking, most studies have shown better than chance of success at guessing the gender of a writer by handwriting, with the average success rate at about two out of three.” Beech 2005, Burr 2002.

Health

In terms of the presence of mental and physical disease, or accident.

“If the brain is injured by accident or disease, handwriting will be affected in specific ways that scientists are only beginning to delineate. Conversely, studying handwriting may give us important clues to how and where a brain is malfunctioning.” The Tell-Tale hand. Marc J Siefer PhD

 

 

Right or left-handedness.

Effects of handedness and arm position on stroke direction preferences in drawing. Rued. J. G. Meulenbrock Arnold J. W. N.Thomassen

Authenticity

Handwriting analysis has been widely used to detect fraud.

 

So why, when such evidence can be recognised and validated, is graphology (the study of handwriting with regard to the character and psychology of a person), resigned to the realms of quackery? The answer lies partly in its extensive use as a vetting tool by prospective employers in America. Used recklessly and without other elements of corroboration in speculative and judgemental ways, led to its demise.

But for me, all graphic hand-made marks are an ancient link to the past, and infinitely revealing in instinctive and mysterious ways. Which brings to mind the equally mood-affecting: nervy, frenetic drip paintings of Pollock and the slow, ponderous layering of Rothko’s masterly Black on Maroon, 1959.  We could analyse speed of mark and hand pressure, but this would be unlikely to explain the works emotionally magnetic pull. Perhaps that is why I cling to drawing, the product is not just a response to the subject, but revealing, diaristic, evidence, of fleeting, emotional states. The attached drawings remind me of the feeling during the process of making. So tell me then, what do you think, if anything, your handwriting/drawing says about you?

 

 

Not Today Thank You.

 

“Rejection slips however tactfully phrased are lacerations of the soul, if not inventions of the devil-but there is no way round them.” Isaac Asimov

Not so far back, in the days when I regularly submitted work to Open Art Exhibitions, rejection all part of the process, but I used to take it very personally and often needed time out to recover. When I did score a hit it made up for and somehow validated the process, eventually creating a dependency that lead to a toxic addiction. The salve of selection by a gallery was always temporary and soon I would be furiously making work towards the next round of competitions.

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your work-I’ll waste no time reading it.” Moses Hadas

Going back to University and the academic rigour of the inevitable Crits, helped me manage criticism and use it to refine my work and even make me work harder. This was perhaps easier in an educational rather than Real Life setting, as we (the students) were all in the same boat. We never really talked about rejection though, just took it home with us and inwardly digested it.

 “This is not a novel not to be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown with great force.” Dorothy Parker

By the time I finished the MA, I thought I had got the whole receiving criticism thing sorted, having learnt how to deconstruct and then usefully assimilate salient points. Yeah right, after the MA the very first outright rejection floored me.  Full of post-MA zeal and academic bluster, I had made a proposal that involved filling the below-decks of a lightship, with raspberry flavoured jelly. Perhaps in hindsight, even I can see that this was rather a big ask and not surprisingly, turned down.

“Rejected pieces aren’t failures-unwritten pieces are.”                                            Greg Daugherty

Suffice to say, I got over myself. Later on, segueing into writing was like starting again, in a new and untested arena. When I screwed up my courage and timidly began to send out texts to literary competitions, amazingly, three out of the first four attempts resulted in literary credits. It was all a bit too easy and I set about writing and sending off another batch…but this time, it all went very quiet. To be fair one story was shortlisted and two editors bothered to write very nice “almost there” letters, but it felt like the magic spell had been broken. That my beginner’s luck had finally run out.

“The only one who doesn’t make mistakes is the one who doesn’t do anything.” V.I. Lenin

Fortunately, I knew a formula to help recovery, and if I had, had a back catalogue of writing I would have shut myself away and reread it. But in lieu of words, I looked instead at some old drawings, recently come to light, almost thrown out.  I had completely forgotten their existence, but spending time allowing them to take me back to the exact feeling of that particular drawing experience, in reminding me of the joy; re-infused me with a shot of self-belief.

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“If you want the rainbow, you’ve got to put up with the rain.” Dolly Pardon

I also researched some famous literary rejections which left me humbled and full of admiration as it seems that all my writing heroes have been cruelly and serially rejected by even the best publishing houses. I began to realise that unlike artistic rejection, which is rarely discussed and often denied, literary rejection is seen as a necessary precursor to success and, rejection slips/emails, emblems of effort, badges worn, even flaunted with pride. And now I can flaunt with the best of them.

 

“If your ship hasn’t come in, swim out to it.” Mary Englebreit

 

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Putting Tracey To Bed. (Part 2.)

 

Tracey Emin My Bed.1999

My Bed is a piece of conceptual art, which means that the idea is the most important thing about it. It belongs in the category of Abject art that explores culturally hidden areas such as; filth, bodily waste, corpses etc. An unmade bed, even a regular one without, all the graphic detritus associated with this particular bed still has the power to disturb and for women particularly, often carries an emotional resonance.

“Tell the bed not to lay                                                                                           Like the open mouth of a grave.                                                                                                                                Song lyrics, Don’t Tell Me, Madonna

 

While at university, in discussion about this work, Jim Lockey, a fellow student pointed out the link between My Bed and Fountain by Duchamp 1917, a porcelain urinal that caused a moral panic at the time. Below is an extract from a defence of the piece, thought to be written by Duchamp.

‘Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object.’ (‘The Richard Mutt Case’, The Blind Man, New York, no.2, May 1917, p.5.)

Emin’s bed, takes a domestic object and presents it in an art context, thereby changing the way we view it. The work echoes Fountain but takes it further in that the bed is evidence of a tranche of lived life, and embodies the passing of time spent in limbo and in that way says legitimately that her life is her art. Although there is a seemingly haphazard, almost accidental quality in the life of this work and of its artist, there is no doubt about its unsettling power and nagging reference to a dissolutely, feminine state. It still provokes.

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There is an exciting codicil to all this. It has been alleged in another article that Duchamp was  in fact not the artist of the work Fountain and that it was most likely produced by his friend and fellow artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Lorringhoven, a woman.

“Scholars have long since proved that Duchamp could not have bought the urinal from the J. L. Mott Iron Works because Mott didn’t sell that particular model. Most tellingly, on 11 April 1917, just two days after the board had rejected it, Duchamp wrote to his sister, a nurse in war-torn Paris, telling her that “one of my female friends under a masculine pseudonym, Richard Mutt, sent in a porcelain urinal as a sculpture”. The explosive contents of this letter did not enter the public domain until 1983 when the missive was published in the Archives of American Art Journal.”

By Julian Spalding and Glyn Thompson. Comment, Issue 262, November 2014
The Art Newspaper online journal

The article asserts that although there is compelling evidence in the form of a letter written by Duchamp which has long been in the public domain, if it were accepted, the whole cannon of conceptual art would have to be reappraised. Imagine that.

“Let us not look back in anger nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.”                                                                                                                 James Thurber.