RAIN AND REMBRANDT

Outside and inside the National Gallery a couple of days ago.

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ABSTRACTING

Still not used to my new camera, tried it out at Borough Market near London Bridge, on my way to the Miro exhibition at Tate Modern. More on that later.

Which do you prefer: the photo of the 'real' scene, or the abstract digital painting I did based on this photo? Does detail matter when conveying one's impression of something seen?

 
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The Burial of Mickey Mouse: Part 21 continued

A large part of T's early childhood was spent in hospital, having operations to repair the damage done to his guts when a lorry ran over him as he was crossing the street. He had an impressive network of scars over his chest and belly as a reminder. Bright and curious, he absorbed every scrap of information that each new experience provided. He knew all about plants, about buildings, was an expert framer - he showed me how to separate a sheet of shimmering, trembling gold leaf from its 'book' and lay it down gently on the bare wood - and he could repair almost anything. His first full-time job was with London Underground, working on the tracks. But in his spare time T began to paint and to exhibit in the amateur shows at his workplace.

I don't know exactly how old T was when he first met M but probably in his late teens or early twenties. She was older and inhabited an intellectual upper middle-class world totally different from anything he knew. T's mother was the cleaner in M's Kensington home and that's how M happened to hear about her creative young son. M was a sensitive sculptress but had, above all, a gift for detecting and encouraging genuine talent. When she saw T's early paintings she immediately took him under her wing and thus began a Pygmalion-like saga, with the genders reversed. Under M's tutelage T began to attend art classes, visit museums, theatres, concerts. She told him what books to read, what music to listen to, but with his usual apetite for knowledge, T soon out-distanced his mentor and a few years on there wasn't much in the cultural lexicon that he hadn't assimilated, whilst never losing touch with his cockney roots. His paintings were austere, beautifully constructed (mainly still-life) and he could have made a career of it had he wished to. But he didn't have that ambition and his daily job continued to be with London Underground. Until he took up photography...

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