Less swilling, more forming

I’ve a lot of ideas about my artwork swilling around in my head at the moment; swilling but not forming properly, which probably means my work needs to change direction. Portraits seem to be where I’m at right now but I’m still very much drawn to narrative images. As The Undertaker’s Nuptials seems to have stalled (temporarily I hope), I’m thinking about how I can work narrative into straight portraiture. This has lead me to consider how we all have our own personal stories; who we are, where we’ve come from, what’s shaped us, what’s important to us, where we’re going and so on.

I’m reading an interesting book at the moment – Portraiture by Shearer West. How about this:

‘Portraits are not just likenesses but works of art that engage with ideas of identity as they are perceived, represented, and understood in different times and places. ‘Identity’ can encompass the character, personality, social standing, relationships, profession, age, and gender of the portrait subject. These qualities are not fixed but are expressive of the expectations and circumstances of the time the portrait was made. These aspects of identity cannot be reproduced, but they can only be suggested or evoked. Thus although portraits depict individuals, it is often the typical or conventional – rather than unique – qualities of the subject that are stressed by the artist, as demonstrated in Holbein’s George Gisze. Portraiture has also been subject to major changes in artistic practice and convention. Even though most portraits retain some degree of verisimilitude, they are nonetheless products of prevailing artistic fashions and favoured styles, techniques, and media. Portraiture is thus a vast art category that offers a rich range of engagements with social, psychological, and artistic practices and expectations.’

Less swilling, more forming.

Image: Hans Holbein the Younger, George Gisze, 1532

The Undertaker's Nuptials: the Datamonger

‘Good morning Mr Spearman!’

As the clatter of the shop door closing subsided, all rattling glass and jangling bells, a behatted head appeared above the counter.

‘Ah. Miss Moir.’

‘I have some choice samples for you today Mr Spearman.’ Lycoris Moir reached inside her oversized gabardine and pulled out her notebook with a flourish. The pages flapped and a fine shower of what one would imagine was dust fluttered out and tumbled in the air, catching the sunlight. Instinctively Spearman went to reach forward, then checked himself.

‘Careful Miss Moir, you’ll be spoiling the contraband.’ Spearman’s boot-button eyes blinked rapidly; he appeared nervous.

‘Nonsense Mr Spearman! Contraband indeed! This is a perfectly legitimate service we perform. If only people knew Mr Spearman, if only people knew. They would thank us. Indeed.’ The datamonger looked doubtful and noticing some coppery specks on the glass counter, snatched a cloth from somewhere behind him and rubbed quickly at the glass. It left a smear. Beneath lay large enamel trays containing numbers; some made of copper, some brass, and of varying sizes, piled up just anyhow.

‘I hear Mr Wheelwright’s had a busy week,’ Spearman stuffed the cloth into the back pocket of his trousers and manoeuvred his bulk around Lycoris and hurried to the door. He pushed across the two bolts and let slip the catch so that the door was locked and turned the open sign around to read CLOSED to any potential customers. He scuttled back round Lycoris, who had remained where she was, unmoved by his obvious unease, and towards a doorway at the back of the shop. Spearman drew aside the beaded curtain and extended a hand towards Lycoris, a beckoning gesture.

‘Do come through Miss Moir.’

The Datamonger

As mentioned in my previous post, I was able to spend quite a large portion of the Easter weekend working on my Green Door print exchange submission; the Datamonger. This image came about as a result of a conversation I had with Georgia, fellow data analyst. I’d been telling her about a trip to the local fishmonger (what exciting lives we lead!) and she decided that as data analysts-cum-statisticians, we are datamongers.

I don’t know whether it was because I had a more sustained period of time in the studio over the weekend, which stimulated my creativity generally, but The Undertaker’s Nuptials is underway again. The Datamonger, purveyor of rare and exotic numerals, has entered the narrative now so more images are on the way.

The Undertaker's Sisters-in-Law

And here they are in their final state, out in the world.

The Undertaker's Wife

The Undertaker’s wife could be found on occasion in the parlour of her husband’s premises, ‘minding the shop’.

A spinner by occupation, she would sit at her wheel, treadling rhythmically, left, right, left, right, left right. So smooth and regular were her movements and so gentle the sound of the flyer as it coiled the thread around the bobbin, that her customers would find themselves falling into a reverie as they waited to be shown into the Chapel of Rest. No one minded.

She worked with quiet concentration, holding the fibre in her right hand and letting it play through the fingers of her left as it fed through the hooks of the flyer. When it was a little too thick, she would tug at it lightly to even out the thread. Sometimes, she would bend her head towards the wheel with slight nodding movements which every now and then became so violent that her long, loose hair swung forward and barely missed becoming tangled in the workings of the wheel.

Lycoris and Adrasteia

The Undertaker’s sisters-in-law are taking shape. They’re a funny looking pair; I like the way that my characters sort of form themselves… they come out how they come out and are quite often a surprise to me.

The photograph shows the plate as it’ll be etched in its first state – just the basic outline of the pair. I’ll build up light and dark, tone and texture with successive etchings.

Now to the Undertaker’s wife…

The Undertaker's sisters in law

The undertaker’s wife was a robust woman. In comparison both her sisters were slight. Lycoris Moir, the taller of the two, was tousled and bespectacled. She measured her customers for their mourning clothes with a faded linen tape measure, checking, double checking and checking again in the most meticulous fashion that she had the correct figures jotted in her notebook. The notebook was so full and tattered and ink-smudged that it looked as though it recorded the personal dimensions of all the bereaved of a millennium.

‘We are data-rich, my dears, data-rich,’ she would tell her sisters.

Adrasteia was shorter, smaller; petite. Raven-haired and sleek, she had a disconcerting habit of studying her clients intensely, then tilting her head to one side as though she had made some silent, immutable judgement. She would raise her rusty tailoring scissors and snip snip the air in front of their faces, her black eyes glittering.

‘But husband-poor, my dear, husband-poor.’

The Undertaker's Nuptials

Started putting some words down for my next series of prints. Having spent so long illustrating other people’s words, it was really satisfying to illustrate my own in creating the Red Scar series. That happened by accident really; the story (never finished) was written to amuse a friend and I hadn’t intended to use it as a starting point for a series of etchings… but that’s how it turned out. The image of the three characters in the coach was so vivid in my mind, I had to make a drawing of it.

I don’t like my drawings. As a rule, they’re fairly dead on the page until I turn them into a print. I suppose it’s the combination of textures and quality of line and tone which is impossible to create in any other medium other than printmaking.

This time, I’m going one step further; writing the story – The Undertaker’s Nuptials - specifically to generate images. We’ll see how it goes.