For all to see, right?!

Elqui 3, WIP, Detail
oil on canvas, 50x50cm

On Friday I spoke at a seminar on the role of policing for securing well-being. My brief concerned the role of policing for securing urban regeneration and more importantly, economic growth.

One of my two fellow speakers was the Chief Constable of the police force which saw on the day before the conviction of the biggest internet- based ring of paedophiles in the UK so far. No surprise that he was buoyed up by having secured the conviction of eight men so far with some 30 charged across the UK. As he said, these were ordinary middle-class and very respectable men. The news coverage went to some detail to list the - thoroughly proper - job titles of each of the men.

I'll be sticking with crime for this post, but it'll get to the (in)visibility challenge I'm posing myself for the time being.

The end of my talk led to a call for (a) acknowledging the necessity of conflict over the use of public spaces - that this is political and not subject to a predefined, however narrow 'consensus'. And (b) to name and make visible all those that get hidden, evicted, arrested when public space is for consumption only - young people, junkies and homeless.

But even more so: that focus on street crime is so reductive in its own sense. And the guy from the centre for business crime was rightly upset that I wouldn't present figures of how much shoplifting is done by junkies. But what I should have done and didn't do was present figures over health and safety offences committed in city centres by businesses; and of all those crimes committed BY businesses.

However, the one thing I got to, and which was thankfully picked up by the audience was the problematic division of public and private. A focus on street crime and the surveillance of street crime - while apparently a response to women's fear of crime leaves out the most dangerous place of women in the world: the home.

If it's on CCTV it's for all to see, right?

Two images and stories have been sticking in my memory all week.

Story 1: the first full face transplant undertaken by American surgeons. Now, several months after the operation, the patient gaver her first interview, accompanied by many photos of how she looked at various points in the past, how she may look now and how she may look in the future. What happened to her face? Her husband shot her in the face. So, after over thirty operations she can take food through her mouth again and hopefully will be able to taste at some point.

Story 2: a young man on steroids got convicted to a life-time sentence. Why? He befriended a TV presenter on facebook (I., I'm telling you: it's dodgy!!); went out with her, when she said no, he beat her up and raped her; after that she hid for a couple of weeks in her flat. Finally, she left the house. He was waiting outside with another man and threw a full canister of sulphuric acid into her face at point blank. She was quoted how she recounted that moment and every single moment since. She too has had more than thirty operations since.

So, what is it to see if you look at one's face?

Heh?! That wasn't me!

Sun rise as clichee 2
Pastel in Moleskine, 24x21cm


Sun rise as clichee 1
Pastel in Moleskine, 12x21cm

No... I'm sure it wasn't....

Dunno what happened here... Tried a bit of sunrise and some trees. Ended up with this. In my Moley. Am sure it wasn't me.

I knew... there was a problem with symbolism. It is just not for me. Will keep trying the sunrises, the trees, but not like this.

Trees? I think
Soft pastel and coloured pencil in Moleskine
24x21cm

Window reflection
Pen and ink in Moleskine, 24x21cm

And, hm... I'm sure that that is me. But in this case, my mother is doubtful. 'Oh, that's nice, you sketched K. when you met her in Hanover?' No, I didn't. I'm sure she would have minded all my staring with intent.

But:
ad 1 - coloured pencils work well over pastel.
ad 2 - poster paint does provide a good base in moley.
ad 3 - self portraits are fun, and you can stare as much as you want to.
ad 4 - that new hairspray is fantastic for fixing the pastel mess.

Feeling a bit...

Pencil sketch in Moleskine, 9x14cm of
Pablo Picasso, Woman with a Chignon, 1901
Fogg Art Museum Harvard, Cambridge, MA

... like her here - parts of me got stuck across the Atlantic it feels and I need a wee while to arrive properly again. Just before leaving Boston on Sunday, I had stumbled across a couple of good paintings in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard. Amongst them this one by Picasso and another one by Toulouse-Lautrec: the Hangover.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, The Hangover (Suzanne Valadon), 1887-1889
Oil on Canvas, Fogg Art Museum Harvard, Cambridge, MA

While the latter one is an intriguing sketch in oil - lots of squiggly, dynamic lines to make up the scene of a woman sitting alone at a table with a bottle of wine. Picasso's painting is one of those intriguing figures/portraits of his where the figure is flattened. Picasso's abstraction in fact made it fairly easy to sketch from. Redrawing, paying attention to proportions, gestural marks and so on. A good thing to remember!

Resolutions

I am making use of this space as an annotated and visualised folder to myself: here is my first note to myself for the next year.

People and trees are the plan for practice. Let me elaborate:

Trees - much of this summer had been about paying closer attention to landscapes, changes and movement therein. So, plein air sketching and pastel painting has been a big step towards that; also, the observation of clouds and skies has help sharpen not only vision but also in developing a sense for how time of day, weather and season have different effects on and in the air - the invisibles which nonetheless carry so much.

Hence: next step is to move closer to living things: I've already begun to be a bit more systematic with my attempts at greenery, and there is plenty of scope for more.

Having begun in autumn seems like a fortunate sly of hand, almost: the dropping of leaves, autumn colours on trees and on the grounds leave trunks and branches. So, there's much to explore for structure, solidity and airy movement in the wind without the distracting and difficult addition of green. So. Let's continue with that one.

People - hm... I did a couple of life drawing and painting classes last year. The complexity of anatomy, movement and expression is fascinating - in part clearly because of its challenge. So, there is on one hand the wish to develop this rather rudimentary ability to draw from life further. On the other hand it is about peopleing - however abstractly - some of my land- and cityscapes. While I admire people who do this, I am somewhat unsure how far I'll be able to get there - am just thinking of all the hours, months, years of practice that I won't be able to fit in.

Study of female torso
Oil on canvas, 40x50cm

Never mind that, now, though. I just have to look at any of Joan Eardley's paintings (which I have been doing quite a lot with the exhibition opened in Edinburgh earlier this month) to get a sense of the vibrancy there is in painting and drawing people.

Pat Samson by Joan Eardley
Pastel on paper, c1962
Hunterian Art Gallery

So, there's a resolution for someone who doesn't do resolutions... I'll keep coming back to it.

PS: I suppose it's not really a resolution but a project, and projects I do like.

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Clay heads

While I didn't learn how to slipcast, I had a go at some clay sculpture:





I've been shying away from life drawing until recently - too complex for me, but working with clay and sculpting people, or heads, was pretty exciting: adding a bit here or there changed the whole expression in a much more involved way than adding lines, texture or shade on a drawing can do. Note to myself: do sculpture again, soon.