drawing and banter related to modern kunst

A new blog site has been launched this weekend with the co-operation of N.Ward, A.Dedman, N.Moody and G.Ford. The site will collate information about the ethos and traditions of the former Great Yarmouth College of Art and Design (GYCAD). It will celebrate the achievements and humour students and staff shared at the college. N.Ward has supplied recent photo’s of the restored building and there will be other visual material available in the near future. If you were a student at GYCAD and enjoyed your time there, why not place a comment on the site? Tell us about your perceptions of George Mather – for instance, or what you’ve done since departing from GYCAD. What was your favourite piece of music which could be said to encapsulate your experience there? On the Juke Box in the Holkham. Maybe it was ‘Heart of Glass’ by Blondie? In any case, you can find the new Great Yarmouth Art College at the following address: www.gt-yarmouth-art-college.co.uk

I have recently completed this portrait commission of Enid. She has waited patiently for it. The process took me a bit longer than usual because of the Christmas break and differing workloads in the run up to the holidays. Another factor was the size of the image. Enid wanted it to be no larger than A4. So the work was in getting all the details right – but on a comparitively small scale.

Portrait of Enid by Alan Dedman

Usually I prefer to work on a larger scale because this allows for more gestural expression in the brush mark, however I took this as a challenge and bought a set of very small guage brushes. Fortunately the light in my current studio is excellent; this and the Roberson oil colours (from Cornellisen’s in Great Russell Street) I have been using made the experience good. These paints dry quickly, especially when used on gesso primed board as they were here. They also have more pigment in them than many other brands – so the colours are rich and strong. The process required great intensity of observation, using pencil studies and photo documentation. I always draw or sketch my sitter first and did so with Enid. This makes the process a bit edgy but it becomes more social as both artist and subject relax. It is a good way to get a better understanding of how someone appears – seeing them candidly and compassionately. I like the colours in Enid’s skirt, she liked the Rudbeckia (Black Eyed Susan’s) so they have been included. The outdoor setting and the lichen covered bench add to the atmosphere of the image.

The Times Newspaper (Wednesday December the 14th, 2011) shows a photo of Tracy Emin on its front page, looking foxy and erudite along with the caption: ‘Meet the new professor of drawing at the Royal Academy’. On page four (not three) there is further discussion of the why’s and wherefore’s as to the rightness of this appointment.

When I was a student at the Royal Academy Schools – Norman Blamey RA was professor of drawing and there was a cohort of figurative artists teaching such as Anthony Eyton, Olwyn Bowey, Ben Levene et al. When Sarah Armstrong-Jones began to study at the Schools, the leader of the undergraduate course, Mike Upton, was suddenly given ’professor’ status. He didn’t change much, and I didn’t notice any palpable difference in his teaching style or ability. I guess he needed to be a ‘professor’ to add kudos to his Royal duties.

 Today I personally know one professor – of medicine. It is usual for him to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. He does this at a major London teaching and research hospital; his entire life since graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine degree, has been like this. For me, this is true professorship. Not the plastic professorship conferred on Tracy Emin as the Royal Academy adopts girl power in its latest bid to embrace the UK’s celebrity culture and profit from it.

Why is it a plastic professorship? Because Ben Hoyle, Rachel Campbell-Johnston and Peter Brookes of the Times, fall into the same trap of  ‘bigging up’ the celebrity factor about Tracy Emin’s suitability for the role without balancing that with critical analysis, which is typical of the media these days. A miniscule reproduction of a sketch by Ms Emin of Kate Moss is posited as evidence of her ‘superlative drawing skills’ which she is no doubt, obviously capable of passing on to the students at the Royal Academy - because of her ‘proven teaching ability and qualifications’. What makes the whole business truly farcical is the fact that students at the Royal Academy Schools no longer practice drawing to any extent. Life drawing there was abandoned as anachronistic and unfashionable in the 1990′s. To quote Hilary Oliver (retired, technician from the Schools) ‘the students can’t draw for toffee, as for an easel, they wouldn’t know what one was if they saw one’. So, if there is little or no drawing being done at the Royal Academy, what exactly is Tracy Emin professor of? Perhaps she will sprinkle some celebrity dust on her charges and it will assist them in becoming better at drawing.

Given that any true draughtsman or woman knows the processes of drawing aren’t limited to pencil and paper and that Ms Emin has recently branched into the business of making artworks with her own pubic hairs, what will she have students do in order to teach them? The mind boggles. What will students require for their studies? Tweezers, glue and a bottle of hair tonic. And definitely NO BRAZILIANS!

The sketch by Tracy Emin of Kate Moss in the Times is also an example of how uncritical and dumbed down our ‘quality newspapers’ have become in their desire to embrace the bandwaggon of tinsel that culture has become in this country. Likening it to the work of Picasso is really trite. The Tate Gallery once put on an exhibition titled ‘Art of the Fascist Epoch’ in which early Picasso drawings could be seen alongside works by known Fascist sympathisers. Subtle differences could be seen, especially if you had knowledge and experience of drawing. In my opinion ‘the ‘masterpiece’ offered up by the Times has very few comparable qualities to Picasso’s works of draughtsmanship. 

It is laughable that these journalists are telling us that Tracy Emin has always been a ‘draughtswoman’. Didn’t she produce an event which was all about her ‘last ever painting’? Drawing and painting are inextricably linked, both processes inform each other. To announce that you are dispensing with one means you are also dispensing with the other. And if that is true, Tracy Emin hasn’t really drawn since then. In fact, the Brit Art brat-pack have never shown any interest in drawing – its probably not cool enough for them. Certainly, the reproduction of a painting of a cat by Damien Hirst in the Sun (a few years ago now), was testimony to his lack of traditional skills - sub ‘A’ level.  

Ms. Emin’s drawing is discussed as if it is somehow different from anyone else’s because she ‘draws at the speed of thought’. Why is this good? Technically speaking, everyone draws at the speed of thought and thinking doesn’t have to be fast. Some people produce high quality thought in a very slow and ponderous way. To make such a statement implies Ms Emin’s brain and muscles function separately. Her hand/eye co-ordination being something apart from the synapses which link them. The educational concept of psychomotor skills seems to have been overlooked. In fact, this tacky obsession with speed is an indicator of poor judgement when considering drawing. The Times journalists discuss Tracy Emin’s drawing only in terms of its line quality. All people who work at drawing for any length of time will gain a certain quality of line: look at Suzanne Valadon, or more recently Trevor Willoughby RP. These artists are better than Tracy Emin, in this respect. The fleeting appraisal of Ms. Emin’s drawing in the Times stops here, the journalists in their shallowness seem unable to find anything else to say about it. There is no evidence of her being able to work protractedly at one study or produce a statement about tonal mass, or produce telling portraiture.

And what of her teaching methods? Norman Blamey would come and sit with each student in turn. He would talk to them about where he thought they’d lost a sense of objectivity and then demonstrate how he’d do it differently by drawing on a corner of the paper, explaining as he did so. Norman wasn’t glamorous. His paintings fetch about £4000 – £6000, posthumously. But he was able to draw and paint better than many people can. I doubt if any of the teaching staff at the Royal Academy Schools had formal teaching qualifications at the time (or now). It was vaguely hoped that students would imbibe some of the success of their mentors. The same strategy has been adopted by drafting in Tracy Emin. How the success of this is measured remains to be seen. One thing is certain though, not everyone can be a celebrity and being a celebrity doesn’t mean that you will necessarily make good Art. I showed the Times article to another ex-student of the Schools and he remarked: ‘well I guess that’s the state of culture in this country now’. Cool Britannia.

I have it on good authority that Tracy Emin recently sold one of her pubic hairs – which she attached to a piece of paper with some masking tape, thus ‘creating’ an artwork. The said ‘piece’ sold for £135,000.

When I related this to Andy who runs a mens hair cutting business – he exclaimed ‘genius, she’s a genius’. Having dealt with my dearth of Barnet, we didn’t get time to debate the issue. However, I nodded to the clippings on the barber’s shop floor and muttered something about putting some of it to use, flooding the market with frauds etc.

What would be the fascination with owning one of Tracy Emin’s pubic hairs, even if it did cost stupid amounts of money ? (stupid being applicable to the purchaser). Perhaps she arranged it on the paper ‘artistically’. Perhaps the owner is male and gets a thrill from knowing where it comes from. Alternatively it might be of a colour which suggests deep musings on achromatic harmonies – how could we tell if it really is hers?

Certainly she’s on to a winner, as no doubt she will have plenty of material for further ‘creations’. Tracy Emin is one of the better personalities to emerge from the tinsel of UK celebrity culture. She had the temerity to Diss cocaine whilst being interviewed on ‘the Green Room’; I applaud her for that. And she did sell some interesting ashtrays when she ran ‘the Shop’. These were made of glass and had a photo of Damien Hirst’s face attached to the base, so one could stub one’s fag out on it. Bitchy but is it Art? 

I listened to her speak at the South London Gallery in ’95 after having worked on ‘Minky Manky’ curated by Carl Freedman – which put SLAG on the map. She came across as gentle, sane, cogent and pleasantly non-egotistical.

Tracy Emin’s artworks fail to arouse much interest in me. When I consider her bed, I think of the track which goes by the same title on ‘Berlin’ by Lou Reed – which is altogether more powerful than Tracy’s stab at the same theme;Van Gogh could at least configure a likeness of the subject with paint – and Rauschenberg managed to make an arty mess all over his Bed even if it did end up looking like a prop for ‘the Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. And as for all the people Tracy Emin has ever slept with – perhaps that means more to her than the art going pubic erm… public.

If Tracy Emin’s pubic hair taped to a piece of paper is art, then my infant’s hair collages, which he created from his own hair, must be masterpieces at least. The last time I looked at a Summer Exhibition at the RA, I was saddened to see ‘Cool Britannia’ exerting its pathetic influence over that most august of institutions. If every representation of Art in this country is ‘cutting edge’ in this style, the whole edifice will become increasingly feckless, boring, elitist and ‘reassuringly white’. But that’s the nice thing about pubes as an art medium, they are beyond ethnicity and racial stereotypes.

This is Alan Dedman working on one of his larger pieces (photo by Sue Sanctuary). He works ‘en plein air’ (as the Impressionists used to) believing it necessary to get the feel of the subject. ‘The landscape/cityscape is a physical thing and you can’t get its atmosphere from photo reference and sketches only’. Waldemar Januszcek has recently presented a series about Impressionism on BBC 2. He pointed out the effort required to make such paintings – and this one took some effort to complete.

Alan Dedman painting in Bristol

Alan worked at his painting between 2000 and 2011. Completing it in March this year.  He did a drawing, from observation, en situ. This was sold to the Bristol based opera singer Andrew Hambley-Smith in 2007. Alan used the drawing as a basis for his painting. He doesn’t usually work on such a large scale; he did so to develop his experience of painting on location. The practicalities of doing this were demanding. Apart from choosing the right moment, he had to hammer eight foot fencing stakes into the river bank and lash the ‘canvas’ to them before starting work. He had to feather the ‘canvas’ into the wind and as always when working in urban spaces, he had to interact with the public. Work men hanging from harnesses as they painted the nearby road bridge sang ‘Only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate etc’. In particular, Alan wanted to observe the changing light effects as the tide moved in and out and record a significant aspect of Bristol’s industrial and urban fabric. The bridge here is a less glamorous aspect of the City, unlike the Clifton Suspension Bridge across the Avon Gorge (nearly opposite). It was a ‘double decker’ swing bridge, built in 1907 to take road and rail traffic. The bonded tobacco warehouses were built to keep the Will’s tobacco business in Bristol; they form part of this scene  The painting is for sale and is currently on show at the Create Centre in Bristol.