A PORTRAIT AND A CARNIVAL

Yesterday I did a portrait in pastels of Isabel Macieira, partner of Matthijs Leijenaar and co-director with him of Casa 5. I was going to work on it some more but am afraid I'll ruin it so am leaving it alone. These are not oil pastels but the dry chalky kind, lovely to work with for spontaneity as long as you don't smooth and fiddle too much. Next I'll do one of Matthijs. On Saturday I'm giving a workshop on monoprinting without a press. Will post some of the work produced then.

It was carnival here on the weekend, cold and raining on and off, but that didn't deter the high spirits. I was bundled up wearing three layers of clothes but some people didn't feel the cold at all.

 

 

SERENDIPITY AND THE LOST PORTRAIT

Here's one of those unbelievable-but-true stories that internet communication occasionally, or maybe frequently (what do I know?) engenders. 

Out of the blue cybersphere I got an email the other day from someone whose name I recognised though I had only met him once in 1981 for an hour or so while I was painting his portrait at the house of a friend. In his email (he found me via my website) he reminded me of the portrait and wondered if I'd ever finished it.
Of course I remembered and I replied, confessing that not only did I not finish the portrait but when I ran out of canvas some years later, I...um... painted over it. I also remembered that I had taken a snapshot of both sitter and work in progress. 

Immediately I found the rather blurred and discoloured photo, scanned it, enlarged it, and kicked myself repeatedly: the painting had been a good start, a promising portrait, and it was a stupid fool idiot thing to destroy it in order to recycle the canvas. Economy and indigence are no excuse.

I apologised to Rennie Walker (he was the sitter) and in a sudden burst of contrite energy, assisted by Photoshop, I extracted his portrait from the snapshot and started working on it with virtual brushes on my graphic tablet. When in the wee hours of the morning (as is my wont) I was satisfied with the result, I sent it to Rennie along with a scan of the original photo. Below you can see both.

My thanks to that giant multi-faceted internettish god who makes such unexpected serendipitousness possible to have re-introduced me to the extremely talented Rennie, whose websites, poetic and professional, you must definitely visit.

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CLOSER TO TRAPPING THE SELF

Here is the latest, unfinished version and the mirror I stare into. I decided to incorporate part of the mirror itself into the painting and also include a thin slice of the room behind it on the right-hand side of the canvas.

I like the idea of trying to represent four levels of reality/unreality simultaneously: the mirror, the image reflected in it, the painting, the person looking in the mirror (but is it really me?) It's far from finished but I'm not going to scrape this one out. I'm worried that there's so much paint on this canvas it will never be dry by the deadline for delivering the work (14 March).

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BLAUG MEETS DODD

My sister came from Paris to stay for the week which was supposed to be My Operation Week but since the op was postponed we spent the time doing ordinary sisterly things like going to the cinema, shopping, etc. One of our outings was to the National Portrait Gallery and in the basement café, while waiting in line, who should I spot but Ken Dodd. Now some of you non-Brits (like my sister) may not have heard of our Ken but let me tell you, he is a very big celebrity over here, an institution - like tea or fish and chips or the Queen. I smiled at him and he acknowledged my recognition with a friendly wave of the hand. We went to sit out of sight in the bookshop area of the café but then, on second thought, I decided to go back and ask for Ken's autograph. He and his companion (Gladys) were drinking their tea when I sidled up with my little brown notebook and, having ascertained my name, Doddy graciously gave me the memento you see here on the left.

We chatted for a few minutes and he said he had come to the gallery to look at his portrait. I asked if he liked it and Ken's furrowed brow furrowed a bit more. "It's...um...interesting", he said. I mentioned (I would, wouldn't I?) that I am an artist and he asked: "Do you reveal the inner self?" I said: "Sometimes it works , sometimes it doesn't." (Yes it did cross my mind that I would love to be asked to paint his portrait and that it would be more than "interesting" and I did mention that I have a website). The charming Gladys said that Ken too has a website and I resolved to look it up as soon as I got home. As I left I handed Ken Dodd my card and invited him and Gladys to visit my cyber home. Maybe they already have?

After tea, Annie and I went upstairs and found the portrait of Ken Dodd by David Cobley . I could see why Ken's verdict was hesitant: it is only an "interesting" portrait - one of the better ones in what is, in my opinion, a very poor collection of contemporary portraiture (likenesses: yes. Good paintings: mostly not). It captures the anything-but-funny exhaustion and sadness of the long-running, driven comic but it misses his warmth and humanity - the qualities that have made him so popular for so long. With my French/Russian/South American background I must admit that I didn't really get Ken Dodd's humour in the past: Diddy Men, tickling stick, chuckabutties - what was that all about? But I do recognise that he has something unique - not a satirist, not an innovator, but a hard-working man, a craftsman who has built his comic style like an old-time cobbler fashions a pair of shoes. He concentrates on what he does best, regardless of changing tastes and trends, works overtime, loves his audience and stays approachable. "Innocent surrealism" is how Andrew Martin (in an article I've linked to above) describes what he does and that's exactly right. My chance meeting in the N.P.G café was such a pleasure because Ken Dodd seemed like a loved and eccentric old friend.

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