Sculpture Studio: June 2014

Monday, June 30, 2014

Words of encouragement

These words of encouragement are taken from the exhibition visitor's book.

Exceptional work, a wonderful experience…

Well done Roger, an amazing collection…

My friend and teacher, you express life through your work. Your power and love help me see what’s there and what’s not…

I love this exhibition. Your work has set me thinking, so full of life…

Free flowing images giving value, grace and empowerment to the human form…

Tonight you have inspired me to venture into a new art form…

I love your work! Jessica has inspired me with the beautiful nakedness of a woman’s curve…

Today's painting is one of a series that I made of Jessica composing poetry - her favorite pastime while I paint.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

When Dagas, in old age, increasingly turned to sculpture, he asked himself: why have I set myself this difficult task at my time of life? I likewise ask myself, why I have dreamt up this complex exhibition program. If I was sane and sensible I’d be lounging in front of the television or playing dominoes down at the rum shop.

But in all my 71 years, I have never been sane and sensible. Moreover, I attract people even crazier than I am! As if I can’t get into enough trouble on my own they lead me even further down a road that is different to all others.

Thank you Natalie for that passionate speech about the virtues of the nude at last night’s Lyrics Under the Stars. I will remember and give thanks for it always.

And we did pull in a wonderful collection of like-minded poets and musicians.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

It will be risky

In yesterday evening’s film, The Mystery of Picasso, Picasso suggests a different take. The director warns him that it will be risky. Picasso responds by telling him that risks are what he wants to take!

Regrettably, the award winning film showed to empty seats. Come on Dominica, take a risk and grab a new lease of life.

Our next film, Classical Steel, is equally inspirational. It will be screened tomorrow evening (Thursday 26^th June) at 7.30pm. For that film, I want to see bums on seats. If my hero, Fr. Jolly, can turn out for these events, so can you!

Today’s picture shows the tinted plaster cast of my bathing figure.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Pulling them in from the Rum Shop

It takes a lot to empty a rum shop, but if 30 nudes can’t do it, nothing can!

With only ten minutes to go before the start of this afternoon’s portrait painting demonstration, the audience was looking decidedly thin on the ground. To fill in time I walked across to the rum shop for a cold beer. The regulars had heard about my exhibition and were curious to know more.

In my experience, the working man’s perception and reverence for art often surpasses that of the aristocrat. Today’s welcome addition to my audience was no exception.

Rebekah was my model, chosen at random from the non-rum-shop segment of my audience.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Rog, you forgot me!

The rush to get everything ready for yesterday’s opening throw my mind into even greater confusion than its normal confused state. I’m famous for forgetting things and during my countless delivery trips from the studio to the Old Mill exhibition venue I picked up a text message from Jessica to say: “Rog, you forgot me!

Denise, Jessica and I wish to thank all who came to the opening. We will be at the exhibtion to greet visitors from 10.00 this morning until 6.00 this evening.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

A New Lease of Life: Exhibition Up-dates

In the first week the exhibition’s film evenings will feature:

THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO

In 1955 French film director Henri-Georges Clouzot joined forces with Pablo Picasso to make an art documentary that captures the moment and mystery of creativity. The film is exhilarating, mesmerizing and unforgettable. In 1984 the French government declared the film a national treasure.

As a fifteen year old engineering apprentice, I remember spending the best part of my first week’s wages at the box office in order to see this film.

At the Old Mill on Tuesday 24^thJune at 7.30pm

CLASSICAL STEEL

This award winning documentary features the steelband taking on the role of the symphony orchestra.

The film shows how a percussion instrument invented in the poorer areas of Port of Spain can reach the heights of a symphony orchestra and gain acceptance worldwide as a legitimate instrument.

Following the film, master pan player Atherton Martin will demonstrate the instruments adaptability to jazz and other musical genres.

At the Old Mill on Thursday 26^th June at 7.30pm

Saturday, June 14, 2014

The end of a chapter

Since last year I have been working on a new series of paintings and sculptures. Next week they will be exhibited under the title: “A New Lease of Life”. An apt name, now that I have reached my three score year and ten.

It has been said that, however much skill an artist may develop in later life, it cannot result in great work if, by that time, he has settled down and discovered a measure of contentment. Regardless of a degree of success along the way, I have not arrived at that philosophical state of acceptance. When my work is finished, I will be finished!

Today’s picture was taken in my studio a few moments ago, on the eve of moving 50 paintings and 10 pieces of sculpture along a stretch of road that's only fit for a donkey.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

If only…

Today’s painting dates from earlier in the year: a languid afternoon and a painting of Jessica sleeping. If only we could return for a while to those halcyon days of painting and bathing. But with an exhibition looming ahead there is no longer time. Our days are spent frantically framing and sending out invitations for the opening.

A dear friend, who over the years has fought against every vicissitude that a small tropical island can possibly throw at her, once told me: that if things can go wrong, they will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment.

My digital camera finally gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago. Tomorrow, I will spend my last cent on buying a new one.

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July 22nd 2000

With my family I arrived in England five years ago. The first two years were spent working on the building and applying for Arts Council lottery funding. Alas, the Council considered figurative sculpture elitist and of no interest to the general public.

After three years our savings were spent and in desperation I began doing what I came to England to do: to work as a sculptor. In our impoverished state the odds were against us. A year passed with not a single commission and not a penny of income. Then the tide turned. If two years ago it had been predicted that my studio would today be bursting at the seams with work, I would have dismissed the notion as a complete fallacy.

Sculpture for the City of Leeds

The end result for those of us working in the visual arts is something that is capable of being seen. In the long term the success of a piece of work is, to a large degree, measured by how many people look at it. But in the beginning the work cannot be seen by anyone on the outside. It exists only in the mind's eye of the artist. That is where the figures for Leeds have been for the last three months. During that period there hasn't been a day - or night - when I haven't worked upon them. I've moved them through every position imaginable: standing, sitting, leaning, squatting, huddled together, set apart. I've added figures and switched males for females. My couple - for that's what I finished up with - then gave birth to a child. The toddler peeps at the Frenchman playing boules from behind his/her mother's skirt. The work has been created and torn apart a hundred times. But as yet I haven't set down anything on paper or built up anything in clay. My successes and failures have gone unseen. And as much as I want to open up the creative process through these diary pages, the first stage is too elusive be put into words.

Trina's Portrait

"Have you nearly finished, my neck aches". After five minutes Trina, my youngest daughter, has had enough of modelling. Actually her impatience works to my advantage. I know I have to work fast, and working without a second to spare usually produces my best work. I started today's session started by wiping out half a day's work. I had previously added her hair but the result didn't please me. I had invented a head of hair and not paid close enough attention to the real head of hair. The first attempt looked like something out of a hairdresser's window. Maybe that is why Trina liked it the best!

So much to learn

In this day and age there is little in the way of guidance for aspiring sculptors. There are no schools that teach the disciplines as fully as they were taught a hundred years ago, there are few books and precious few masters alive to train the next generation. One must learn as best one can. Ton after ton of clay must pass through the sculptor's hands and hour upon hour must be spent working from the live model. It isn't easy and a lifetime isn't long enough to learn all that must be learnt. There is nothing more difficult to model convincingly than the human hand. If the hand is done well the observer doesn't stop to count the fingers.

Church Window Layout

In between modelling sessions I have been drawing the millennium church window full size. This will help me to come to terms with the daunting scale of depicting Christ Triumphant. My Christ Triumphant unleashing a flock of doves has been rejected. The church has requested that I keep to the more familiar vision of Christ with arms beckoning. At least my model will be pleased that he hasn't to contort himself into that pose anymore. Michelangelo had his fair share of rejections from Church Councils. Once, in an attempt to please, he went so far as to devise a statue that incorporated a barber's shop within the figure’s lower extremities and - as a master-stroke - put a chimney coming out of its head!

Mould Divisions

Three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles are nothing new: sculptors have been doing them for hundreds of years. But this is no game. The problem is mind boggling. Somehow, the three standing figures have to be divided into sections of a mould. The seams are made with lengths of brass shim that are pressed into the clay of the figures. Eventually the clay will be covered with plaster to form what is called a waste mould. At the moment this may sound very confusing but over the next couple of months you will learn a lot about the process. This is the most complex mould that I have ever made and one to test my ingenuity. I was awake thinking about it at three o'clock this morning. If I get it wrong the figures will be entombed like a mummy. As I work I imagine the skilled moulders of earlier times critically looking down on me and laying bets on the outcome of my work.

30th June 2000

I've managed to dodge colds all winter. Just my luck that I get one now! This I could have done without. Maybe if I worked in advertising or accountancy I'd have taken the day off and stayed in bed, but in this line of work you don't even think of it. The molds have to be at the foundry in two weeks and at the foundry they will be. The picture shows Denise - on her one day off from college - chipping away at the waste mould of Samantha. In the background Richard, my assistant, is working on the mold for the Bond Court figures.

4th July 2000

So much depends on the model, and with models I have always been fortunate. Elizabeth has dedicated herself to the task and that dedication shines through in the finished work. The pose has been painfully difficult but she's never complained. Furthermore, she's fitted the modelling in between moving house, looking after her family and driving the truck for her husband’s business. She always shown up on time and has never missed a session. Thanks Elizabeth. In turn I've given my best. It's all I can do.

Portrait Demonstration - Megan

For the Allen Gallery I did two demonstration portrait sessions before a live audience and television. Two models on consecutive days, starting at ten in the morning and finishing at four in the afternoon with an hour for lunch. The models, Megan and Jag, were the winners of a primary school art competition. Their prize was a portrait session. A portrait from start to finish in no more than five hours, before an inquisitive audience and the press, is a tall order. I doubt if there are many sculptors that would dare to take it on. I did and here are the results. Thanks Megan and Jag, for making it possible.

Patina

It seems that a successful patina, like a good watercolour, is the result of a happy accident. On my fourth attempt Xander's bust turned out to perfection. It in fact put Trina's in the shade and gave me a hard act to follow on the torso. I can well imagine that, if I keep at it, in twenty years I'll be experienced enough to understand every subtle shade of the business. Just like the episode of Pooter painting the bath in "The Diary of a Nobody" I got quite carried away with applying patinas. Switching from bronze to the plaster I gave Elizabeth’s figure a coat of burnt umber.

Henry Moor Institute

I got quite a shock today on visiting the current exhibition at the Henry Moor Institute in Leeds. The gallery was actually thronged with real people. By real people, I mean those you'd expect to see in everyday life. Usually the only sign of human life is the ever present black shirt attendants. The exhibition of portrait busts is aptly titled "Return to Life". I hope that the attendance figures don't scare off the institute from ever doing such a show again. Being popular to the masses is not exactly in their remit. It would have been nice to have included a photograph so as to encourage even more of the public at large to visit this excellent presentation. I asked a black-shirt but was told that photography is strictly forbidden.

A Ray of West Indian Sunshine

On Saturday I attended a Postgraduate Seminar on Portraiture at the Henry Moore Institute. Even at its most informal, events at the Institute are lodged at the higher end of the scholastic scale. As such its presentations are totally at odds with my premise that: with sculpture, as with sex, intellectual thought only screws things up. For this particular seminar it was even doubtful if I would be allowed in. As with many working sculptors, my academic education amounts to no more than secondary modern school. But Saturday turned out to be a rare and rewarding day. To find a West Indian in the audience is a rarity, even rarer to find that - my God - she's one of the presenters! Charmaine Nelson brought a wonderful ray of Jamaican sunshine into a lecture room that normally has the feel of an Icelandic family mausoleum. Her paper "White Marble, Black Bodies and the Fear of the Invisible Negro: Signifying Blackness in mid-Nineteenth-Century Neoclassical Sculpture" wonderfully linked with all that I have been working for over the years in my adopted Caribbean. Charmaine, for the first time in five years of lectures, you made me miss my train home. Thanks!

At a fleeting glance

Waldemar Januszczak, art critic for the Sunday Times, wrote recently about painting quickly. Both as painter and sculptor, the faster I work the better. What is seen at a glance has to be captured in a moment. A climax cannot be sustained forever. But as Januszczat says: "Painting quickly is still seen in academic circles as a threat to civilization. Those artists who appear to breeze in and do it without a proper amount of effort still seem to us to be breaking all the rules. With other art forms the ability to work quickly is recognised as a sign of genius but a quick painter remains (alas) a slap happy painter." Alas, a slap-happy painter and sculptor I remain. This little sketch was completed on the run in Grenada's market place.