And the Winners Are …

Tags

Flash Fiction, Portraits, Scottish Portrait Awards

We regret to announce a delay in the production of What Are the Odds II. This is due to an excessive influx of entries to the Scottish Flash Fiction Awards, plus the announcement of the results of the Scottish Portrait Awards, for both of which (among others) your humble bloggist is admin wallah. Processing stories and payments from hopeful scribblers and dealing with correspondence from delighted and disappointed artists alike, is leaving little leeway to alliterate on here.

Should you be a writer of very short fiction, with six pounds to spare and a tale to tell in under 251 words, there is still time to get an entry in (I love making work for myself). Closing date Monday 31st Aug. Today we’ve already had entries from all over Scotland and as far afield as Dhaka and San Sebastian in Spainland.

Go to this link to read all about it.

And if you’re interested to see who won the Portrait Awards, with a sneak preview of some of the winners, like Ronnie Buddha here, go to

https://www.scottishportraitawards.com/

OK, gotta go, incoming flashers!

 

 

 

Rats!

Tags

3D printing, art, art brut, chess set, failure, objets trouvés

Fail again, fail better [Samuel Beckett: Worstward Ho!]
You cannot lose if you throw the race [Adam Ant: Ants Invasion]

You’ve heard of objets trouvés, you’ve heard of art brut, and if you haven’t, you should have so, in the immortal words of Judy Holliday, look it up!
But you may not have heard of art raté, cos the term was only invented last week.

(that is your actual French: pronounce it ar ratay)

Yes, art raté, failed art. The sometimes fascinating and even better-than-intended pieces that can result when everything goes horribly wrong. Not just the art world’s equivalent of bloopers and out-takes, but, this being the art world, objects imbued with deep meaning and significance and redolent with fulsome opportunities for overblown bullshit.

This idea came about during a discussion of recent disastrous attempts to produce some 3d prints, based on Max Ernst’s chess set (see Chesses and Foods, May 13 2020).

A cheap, kit-form 3d printer, purchased two years ago, had initially produced no more than wee blobs of plastic. When eventually something resembling a pawn had been created, it was a lacy affair, not the solid, smooth entity it was meant to be. Giving up in frustration and muttering you get what you pay for, seemed to be the order of the day, not to mention the next 22 months. The machine sat on its table in the corner of the room, by the telly, a gloating memorial to excessive ambition meeting inadequate dedication and ability.

Well, a pandemic came to the rescue, bringing with it a natural need to find something to do other than writing the promised novel. Various articles were read, videos watched, the thousand and one possible settings considered and tweaked, and finally a few things vaguely and even more solidly resembling their intended aims were produced.

The conclusion reached was that a 3d printer, particularly a budget, knock-off, build-it-yourself 3d printer, is a good tool for art raté, mainly because, not to put too fine a point on it, it’s an utter bastard! Domestic 3d printing is still one of those things only geeks can master. They are in their element, tweaking a thousand and one settings in their slicing software, printer’s firmware and week-old underwear. For the casual user, even one with a forty-five-year-old third class computer science degree, they are a minefield, a generator of naught but frustration and foul language.

nonetheless its 2nd birthday was celebrated with cake

As soon as the user’s back is turned, the machine does something chaotic, due to overheated nozzle, insufficient extrusion or warping on an incorrectly heated bed (I know, it’s Finbarr Saunders on speed). Trying to print three pieces at once, for instance, resulted in two hollow bases and what looked like an ice cream cone from Bizarro World, when the nozzle became overfriendly with one that was coming loose from the bed. And the silver pieces that look about right, still look more like rough-hewn, brutalist, concrete creations, writ small.

But then a friend said she rather preferred the failures to the more-but-mainly-less accurate pieces. The differing levels of crapness also added to the feeling of futile striving. And thus, the idea of failed art was born.

As he might have mentioned already, your esteemed blogger has spent most of his too-long life bringing new depth of meaning to the term, ‘abject failure’. Apart from being reasonably competent in the kitchen, he has not really achieved anything of note, not having learned to drive, swim, skate, ski, play a musical instrument (who said ‘or write’?!). The only positive contribution made to the well-being of humanity is his failure to reproduce.

So you’d think he’d be a natural to pioneer art raté — but of course you can’t fail on purpose. Once one sets out to produce failed art, one is trapped in a paradoxical loop: successfully producing failed art is hardly a failure. What you have is just boring old art. Even subsequent accidents will be tainted by the fact that the idea of failure as art was lurking behind the original attempt at whatever one was trying to make.

So it seems that the only true art raté Yours Truly can ever produce, is that which was made before the concept entered his head. And therefore, here, for the first, last and only time (perhaps), is a magnificent piece of fucked-up art, symbolic of life itself, The Battlefield (grey hosts v motley crew) [J D Lowe, 2002]

 

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My ideas of art guérilla (art done in public places with no way of knowing it’s meant as art) and art fortuit (accidental art) never really caught on, so no doubt art raté will sink without trace.

Which is itself a piece of performance art raté, I guess. A successful failure?

What Ho, McJeeves!

Tags

Drink, humour, P G Wodehouse, Scottish Arts Club

(a further attempt at an endpiece for the Club book, with apologies to P G Wodehouse)

On a dreich Edinburgh afternoon in the Scottish Arts Club, a blether of members was gathered round the artificially roaring fire, each with his or her warming tincture of choice near at hand.

The white wine spritzer had been staring at a blank Times crossword for half an hour. His attempts to make sense of, Compère taken in by trick sign: ‘Diamonds!’ is clubman of note (4,6), were hampered by his eavesdropping on the wide-ranging conversations of the merry throng. Indeed, were his eaves to drop any further, they would be in danger of becoming an A-frame.

The discourse had just moved seamlessly from the threat of turning the Royal High School into a multi-storey spa centre, boutique hotel and shortbread emporium, to the question of the Scottish Colourists’ standing in today’s art world, when it was interrupted by the arrival of a glass of pale ale, clutched by a rosy-beaked and enthusiastic member, descending from the top floor atelier.

“I say chaps (said the pale ale), as you know this place has come on in leaps and, in a very real sense, bounds, since we started having more events and activities. What with learnéd talks on Saturdays, groups like life drawing, textiles and French conversation and what-not …

His speech was interrupted by a general hubbub of ‘jolly-good-shows’, combined with curious looks of ‘why-is-he-telling-us-this?’

“The reason I’m telling you this is that we still have one or two gaps in the old timetable. Fridays between three and five are pretty dead, and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas — better still, activities you might fancy organising?”

“Whisky tasting!” roared the fine old malt.

“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of poetry readings or mindful macrame workshops, but …” He tailed off, suspecting, and not without cause, that he wasn’t being taken too seriously. A well-stocked bar can have that effect. Adding, “Well, I’ll just leave that idea out there for your consideration,” he headed out the door and back up to the studio.

“Queer cove, that,” muttered a pink gin in the corner; “can’t be doing with all this enthusiasm, myself.”

“We’ve never been short of interesting people”, said a member of the female persuasion from behind a glass of the fine house white. “On my first time here, I was listening in on the chatter of a group of venerable members, when I heard one chap, with a glass of calvados in one hand and a stuffed mouse in his handkerchief pocket, saying, ‘When I was in Romania for the revolution…’. I remember thinking, ‘who on earth is this chap’s travel agent?!’ before I realised they were all retired journos and foreign correspondents. Fascinating stories!”

There was an outbreak of reminiscing on the Club’s notable eccentrics, past and present, after which the discussion centred on oversubscribed events, overbusy lunches and underattended evenings.

The spritzer reminded the gathering of his own, all too familiar, opinion.

“What this place needs is more functioning alcoholics. On a Friday or Saturday evening, this place should be heaving.”

“As should the members,” interjected the appropriately well-oiled fine old malt.

“Indeed; and spending money like the Water of Leith in full spate,” added a gin and tonic.

“I’m told there have been a few jolly evenings,” said an aged rum, “since they set up that group on WhatsItCalled, but I’m afraid some of us just aren’t tech-savvy enough.”

“More young blood would help,” muttered the pink gin.

“I’ve told you before, Angus, (said the house white); bathing in that won’t actually make you any younger.”

“Oh well; it was worth a try though. And jolly good fun.”

After the subsequent gales of merriment had subsided, there were intermittent showers of introspection, with sunny intervals of optimism and all that sort of meteorological rot. The general consensus was that the old institution was in pretty good shape, but everyone present had very different ideas of what else was needed to perk it up, fill it up or even just wake it up.

“I know exactly what we all need right now,” announced the malt, conclusively; “another bally round of drinks!”

Slàinte mhath!

 

[The solution to the crossword clue — Compère is ‘MC’, taken in by JOHN (=trick, both slang for prostitute’s client) and astrological sign LEO, followed by D for Diamonds, giving the Club member of note, ie the composer, JOHN MCLEOD]

The painting is The Smoking Room, the Scottish Arts Club (1945) by William Oliphant Hutchison [1889-1970], in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery collection. It includes the artist’s fellow members, Dr Peddie (with pipe), the artists Alick Sturrock and J G Spence Smith, and, giving us a stern look over his specs, the Club President, Dr Whittaker. There ain’t no smoking room no more, but there is ‘lady members’.

Just Going to My Club

Tags

Bertie Wooster, Gentlemans Club, Raffles, Scottish Arts Club, Sherlock Holmes

First Draft of a Piece for a Scottish Arts Club Book:

In my all-too-distant formative years, I was an avid reader of A C Doyle, P G Wodehouse and E W Hornung. While many of my contemporaries would aspire to being Biggles or Sherlock Holmes, I wanted to be A J Raffles, the gentleman thief, relieving my wealthier acquaintance of their valuables, to support my sybaritic lifestyle (even if I was too young to know what such a lifestyle might involve). And of course, like Raffles, Bertie Wooster and Mycroft Holmes, I most wanted to be able to say, “I’m just going to my club, don’t ye know?” I didn’t stretch to scoring the winning runs for England, but I did want to stay in my chambers when in town for the match and a little light pilfering.

And then there were the films, from drama to comedy, such as Carry On Regardless, in which a hapless Kenneth Connor tries to remain quiet in the stuffy but ludicrous surroundings of a gentleman’s club. I knew I would never fit in there, but there was still a certain something that appealed.

Now, no one who knows me would call me a gentleman, and I enjoy the company of the alternative sex far too much to like the idea of a male-only enclave, so it seemed that neither the chance nor the slightest desire would ever make me more than an occasional guest at such institutions. But then my Godmother died (at the same time as a lot of her valuables disappeared, though I can prove I was away that evening) and left me a small legacy, just as a delightful French lass with whom I life-drew in Stockbridge, introduced me to the Scottish Arts Club, and said it would be just the place for me.

The only other thing that appealed to my mind as much as being a member of a Club, was to be blackballed by such an institution. Fortunately (for me, at least), none of the members knew me well enough for that at the time, so it was not long after (gosh, a decade ago now!) that I entered the hallowed portals, my newly-minted membership card in my hot and sticky hands. And I was not disappointed by the range of fascinating characters and raconteurs. On my first visit, a stout gentleman with a monocle in his eye and a small stuffed mouse in his top pocket began a discourse with, “When I was in Romania for the Revolution …”

“Who on earth is your travel agent?” I thought, before realising I was listening to the reminiscences of a Reuters correspondent. On other occasions, one has been able to enjoy the memoirs of Samuel Beckett’s friend and publisher, leading composers and writers as well as the inevitable and fascinating exponents of the daubers’ and carvers’ art. From charming, well-travelled architects to ebullient functioning alcoholics (of which we and the bar takings always need more), all (interesting) human life is there, in a soupd of bonhomie. And while we may not (yet) have a signature dish, like our affiliate institution’s Lamb Cutlets Reform,  we have a first class eatery and impressive wine list.

The Reform Club in Pall Mall

So it’s certainly not the staid or haughty environment of my youthful fantasies, nor does one find any trace of the pretentiousness (present writer excepted) one might expect in an arts institution. On the other hand there are a few well-heeled members with fine jewels and precious antiques in their New Town dwellings, and it’s a moonless Edinburgh night, and my black balaclava is fresh from the laundry, so if you’ll excuse me, I must be going out. Toodle pip … and you ain’t seen me, right?

Portrait of an Actor

Tags

art exhibition, creativity, Portraits

Been out all day and spent the evening boozing at the Scottish Arts Club, for the Yuletide members’ exhibition. So all I’m doing is posting pics here and bragging. I’ll be more braggy if somebody actually buys the thing.

And I also played host to a pair of wonderful journalism students from Napier, before they head back home for Weihnachtszeit and to continue their studies there.

And Lisa (on the left) as opposed to Lia (on the right) and Natalia (in the middle, who’s a Club member), has featured me in the online version of Impulse student magazine as an ‘Edinburgh Creative’! You can fool some of the people some of the time — and brag about it. Lia made a film about the Arts Club and me, but I ain’t seen that yet.

Have a good week, y’all.

Gone Clubbing

Tags

portrait, Scottish Portrait Awards

Tonight to my Club, and the Scottish Portrait awards, in the presence of the BBC cameras, to see who will be crowned best portraitists with paints (or other materials) and camera. To offset the glamour of all this, have to be there early to shift all the tables from the dining room and set up for the ceremonies.

Furthermore, to complicate matters, ’twas a case of, “Yesternoon to my Club to deliver a decanter (as one does) and return home sharpish” — which turned rapidly into an afternoon of blether and a rather late homecoming.

So the time left for bloggish activities has been reduced. As has the time for getting on with the current mip (masterpiece in progress).

Shaving, ironing a shirt and all that sort of rot seems to be priority.

So go away.

SPA Break

Tags

competition, Edinburgh, Portraits, Scottish Portrait Awards

More of a puff than a blogpost, this week I wants to tell peeps about the Scottish Portrait Awards, a competition and exhibition what I helps to organise.

This is the third year of operation, and we go from strength to strength. We may not have the reach or the big prizes of the (international) BP awards, but then, neither do we have an unhealthily dull obsession with photorealism, nor a sponsor whose environmental and business practices … let’s just say might cause consternation (rightly or wrongly) in some ‘woke’ quarters.

I have to be honest, as the admin wallah I watched the first few entries arrive in my inbox in late 2016 and my heart sank. The standard, while not reeking of total incompetence, was not particularly high, to say the least. But then, as the months for entries passed, that standard got so good, I was wondering how on earth the judges could select only sixty to represent the cream of Scottish photography and paintery. And this got more the case in the last week or so, when most of the bloody entries come in as a veritable tsunami, keeping me up until the wee smalls, cataloguing them and preparing them to pass to the judges stripped of all identifying marks, save image, title, size and materials used. Some stunning stuff was flooding in.

I also do the admin duties for our short story and flash fiction competitions (being the only member of the Scottish Arts Club who can spell kompewter); they too come in mostly in the latter days, but while the graph there is a steady upward curve, artists, especially the ‘Fine Art’ entrants leave things very much to a ‘hockey-stick’ last minute. I learned in 2017 that it is a mistake to book a 0630 flight to Paris for the day after one is processing entries until 4am!

Entries are open to anyone born, living or studying in Bonnie Scotland, for paintings or sculptures and black and white photography. What has impressed me most has been the variety of styles and ideas, and a willingness among artists and photographers to push the boundaries of what a portrait actually is — and of our judges to consider all these ideas; one of our first finalist snappers had a picture of her sister, curled up on the floor, with her back to the camera, but the title, My Twin, filled that with meaning. And our illustrious judging panels are open to (and vigorously debate) many and varied styles — yes, even photorealism.

(yes, that is a painting)

This year’s show, which will now travel to Glasgow and Kirkcudbright in the New Year, opened to Club members last night, with a lively bash, where wine and conversation flowed freely until the early morn. We have works in oil and acrylic of course, but also in layered glass, porcelain and even  papier-mâché. On Thursday night, we have the official opening for the photographers and on Friday it will be the fine artists’ turn (not that we’re suggesting photography is not a fine art, but one needs some sort of label).  I suppose I’ll have to go along for a glass or three. It’s a hard life.

And then it’s a public thing for the rest of the month. We open our doors to the great unwashed (this means you) between two and five every day except Sundays and Mondays. Absolutely free, though you might well want to purchase one of the masterpieces for yourself — or at least the very wonderful catalogue for a fiver.

Who are the winners? Who will be taking away the prizes, ranging from £100 to £5,000? This year we’re adding an elephant of suspense, by not revealing that until a special bash (more free drinks for the admin guy, yay!) on November 13th. Check out the website if the suspense is killing you. I have no idea who’s been chosen, so I’m sad to say not even bribery will help you there.

 

I have to get on with painting one of my own for next month’s members show. I’m not allowed to enter the competition I administer, of course. Just as well, as I’d be a shoo-in!

Nowt’ll come o nowt

Tags

Anatomy of Melancholy, Cookbook, John Cage, Nothing, Robert Burton

Like John Cage in his 1949 ‘Lecture‘,

I have nothing to say

and I am saying it

Now, I do not propose to do a full-scale Anatomy of Nothing, as Burton did for Melancholy, replete with quotes and extracts from writers ranging from the Ancients to our present times. At least, not today.

In fact, all I want to say is that I have nothing to say this week.

I’ve finished ‘padding out’ the first draft of The Travelling Lady’s Cookbook (Grieve-Nots passim). I realised there were some very short chapters and very little travelling going on; though I liked this (as the book is supposed to be impressionistic), it seemed worth while having some impressions of travel. And I’ve brought my painting home (Bringing in the Sheaves, posted April 3), since no bugger could be arsed to buy it — thanks for all the praise, guys, but I find the Co-Op don’t accept praise in return for groceries — only kidding, it’s nice to get some appreciation).

This means I’m somewhat demob happy. The novella is printed off ready for the next read through: close, critical and, no doubt, depressing, in order to decide if it’s worth editing or indeed good enough or even suitable to share with its dedicatee and commissioner in Far Cathay. I fear the explicit naughty bits will not be to her taste, especially if she was hoping to share the work with chums or even publish a translation (it may be too strong for her country’s censors to start with, given what I’m told they prune out of Game of Thrones, much to the disgust of fans on Weibo).

Oh well, another tooth is due to leave the mouth, so I should go book ‘dennis’, get a coffee in a caffee and start a readthrough of the ‘masturpiece’ and stop wasting time saying nothing about nothing.

Have a week, peeps.

Bringing in the Sheaves

Tags

china, Painting, poster, propaganda poster

Tonight at the Scottish Arts Club, the Members’ Exhibition includes my latest masterwork, a gouache poster on pricey paper, entitled Bringing in the Sheaves.

20″x28″ roughly. I don’t like it framed; it should really be in poster hangers, but Club rules say frames and not clipframes, so I found a framed Alma-Tadema poster in a charridy shop for a tenner. It’s only held in place with tiny tabs of sticky tape, so if it doesn’t sell or it sells (for £200) to a like-minded person, it can be easily removed. And posted. Or just hung on my wall somewhere.

I wonder if the model, over in Hangzhou, would like it? I doubt it, as she said her face wasn’t ‘lovely enough’ on my Assisi pic.

What’s that you ask? What does the caption say?

Well, as far as I can ascertain, it means Quiet Harvest, but can also be read as Jing Reaps the Harvest. Jing, the lassie’s name, means quiet, I suppose rather like my Sicilian friend Serena.

The idea is that Jing, a modern bourgeois teacher married to a successful engineer is of the generation that is reaping the benefits of the sacrifices made (perhaps reluctantly) by the people in the old Maoist propaganda posters that this one is (respectfully) parodying, and the subsequent controlled economy. And now she can wear designer clobber and go on trips to the countryside to pose as a happy peasant in the fields (not unlike Marie Antoinette dressing as a shepherdess).

Maybe Jacob Rees-Mogg was right and we Brits will be able to say the same about reaping the benefits of leaving the EU, after the 50 years of civil strife, hardship and starvation endured by the generation that narrowly voted for it.

I won’t be here to paint the poster but it’s nice to know there’s always hope.

No Comparison

Tags

comparisons, Photography, portrait

Dost thou compare me to a summer’s day?!
Dost think that I am nought but birds and flowers?
That I am hot and tiring dost thou say,
And only lasting four and twenty hours?

What is it with this current thing of indignantly accusing all comparisons of being simple identities? If I say you have a moustache that looks like Hitler’s, I am not saying you have any desire to slaughter whole ethnic groups in gas chambers. And ‘comparison’ can be shorthand for ‘comparison and contrast’, surely, anyway.

To be sure, such comparisons can be used to hint that there is more you have in common than just the facial hair, especially in a case where I could as easily have made comparison to a silent movie comedian, similarly arrayed.

But for fuck’s sake people, enough with the mindlessly sheepish and rhetorical indignation. It doesn’t help the argument get anywhere, which carefully chosen comparisons can (as long as we all accept they only apply for the qualities/hary lips under consideration).

And yes, I am comparing all of you to moronic sheep and yes I do mean you eat grass and go baa a lot. And taste good with roast tatties and mint sauce.

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Meanwhile here are some portraits what I is doing on the monochrome camera in my trusty Huawei. They be going on Instagram to publicise the Scottish Portrait Awards 2018 exhibition commencing on November 3rd at the Scottish Arts Club.

Be there or be square format.