Nightclubbing in the 70s. Part 2.

Night Clubbing 2.

Tim would like nothing better in the whole world than for his life to go back to the way it was just one week ago. But instead, he’s stood beside us in a club he’s unfamiliar with, whilst some booze-for-brains lout is shouting in his face “Are you looking at me?”

Bringing him here was a dumb idea from the start. Three guys are never going to pull. We should have simply taken him to the pub, there to let him alternately drown his sorrows and pour his heart out over the fact his fiancé has said goodbye. Instead of which we brought him here, suited-up and stood like an out-of-place Top Shop dummy beside a noisy dance floor, his face vacant as someone whose thoughts are miles away in another city.

“Are you looking at me?!”

Tim wasn’t looking at anybody. But in late night Nottingham, “Looking at” is regarded as a serious offence. One punishable by Fists.

“Are you looking at me?!!”

Tim is now frozen on the spot. Now he really is looking. He can’t do anything else. In fact, he’s staring like a rabbit caught in the bulging red-faced glare of his drunken accuser. He wants to look away, he really does. But he can’t. He’s scared stiff fixated.

We take an arm each, almost lifting his rigid body away from the scene, offering abundant “Sorry mate” apologies as we go. We’ve both been in similar situations before and know the ropes. Tim hasn’t. I doubt he went to an all-boys school like us. I know for sure he can’t ever have lived in a place like Liverpool where I developed a sixth sense of how and when to avert one’s eyes, and how to walk home in the centre of the road because it offers an extra pavement width of sprinting distance if attacked.

Now the bouncers have turned up, wanting to know what the problem is. They never take sides. As far as they’re concerned, if there’s a fight to be had then everybody goes down. So now we’re apologising to them also, edging backwards towards the exit, Tim’s frozen body between us.

He wasn’t looking at anybody. He’s not even focusing. He didn’t even want to be here. Tim just wanted everything to be as it was one week ago. He wanted to be at home and able to watch a favourite movie, or order pizza, or listen to romantic records, all without thinking of her.


All text copyright Ian G Craig.

Pete.

 Pete.

There is today a common misconception that the grammar schools of the 1950s / 60s were places for those of a privileged disposition. They were not. These schools catered for working class kids bright enough to pass a basic exam comprising elementary arithmetic, a short essay, and a visual I.Q. test. If you could do long division, string a few “what we did on our holiday” sentences together, and spot the odd-one-out circle in a row of triangles, you passed. Known as the “11-Plus”, this exam gave an opportunity for the sons and daughters of coal miners or factory workers to one day enter the lower ranks of the white-collar professions. The word University was on no-one’s lips I knew of, but future “training college” was a possibility.

I have almost no memory at all of my first three years in the excruciatingly dull all-boys Grammar School system. Wearing one’s cap seemed to be of paramount concern rather than any degree of enlightenment. However, in my fourth year there, things took a turn for the better. That was the year Pete joined the school. Or, be more accurate, he didn’t so much join the school as happen to it.

Schoolboys seek compatible male company according to how far they are along nature’s puberty trail. Trainspotters furtively collected together like so many numbers in their well-thumbed notepads. Sycophant minions tagged along behind psychopath bullies. Outsized sporty types substituted bulk for ability, competing for tarnished trophies on which any space for the further engraving of names had long since expired. The short, curly headed boy who always played the female lead in the school’s annual Gilbert and Sullivan production, coupled up with the tall thin boy who went on to become an officer in the Merchant Navy. These being really the only options available for playground socializing, I chose to self-isolate. However, at age fourteen, this other group starts to manifest itself: The “cool kids”.

Across the 1960s schoolyard one began to recognize who else “got” the humour in David Frost’s emerging satire movement; who else “knew” why The Who were cool and the Dave Clark 5 were not; who else was adjusting their school uniform to just this side of school-rule legality whilst still managing to express their individual self. It was in this setting that I was first able to find friends during my grammar school years, and it was into this group that Pete arrived. It was the art room which brought us together. I was a wannabe cross between Paul McCartney and Illya the Man from UNCLE Kuryakin; Pete could have been Syd Barrett’s twin.

Previously, I’d always had things my way in the art lessons. My work was no doubt as dull as the set tasks I was given. Nevertheless, “Top of the Class” awards usually came my way, so art gave me an identity amongst my peers. Pete challenged all that. Whereas I had always been encouraged and rewarded for a high level of technical competence, qualities considered desirable for future employable, Pete had a much stronger creative streak. Not only that, he was already selling his work. He would produce these ten-minute water colour sunsets, washing the paint across the page, before adding a few strategically placed silhouettes. Simple stuff, but awe-inspiring to those with no art skills. On one occasion a neighbour came knocking to see if he had any more for sale. Pete ran upstairs, rapidly dashed off a sunset, placed it still dripping wet into the neighbour’s grateful hands, and duly received his £10 note in exchange. When you’re fourteen years old that kind of enterprise is impressive.  Even more impressive, he had the gall to hang back after class and present our ex-military, strict schoolmasters with his portfolio, touting for custom. It wasn’t long before I was copying his example, selling scraper-board depictions of vintage cars to chemistry teachers who had hitherto only noticed me, if they noticed me at all, when reprimanding me for my complete failure to understand what function their complex equations were ever going to serve in my life.

So it was that Pete and I came together amidst a sea of pupils who were more likely themselves destined to follow their fathers into the district’s coal mines. It seemed not everyone’s curiosity was piqued by the copies of J. D. Salinger that got passed around, or that single snare drum’s thunderous introduction to “Like A Rolling Stone”. Soon to be regarded as a “bad influence”, Pete was certainly of positive benefit to me; the first creative spirit I’d encountered apart from my great great grandfather’s paintings on the bedroom wall.

Grammar school uniform regulations were tough in the late 1960s. As the older boys approached shaving age the headmaster would line them up after assembly and, using a ruler, check that no-one’s sideburns extended below a point on level with the corner of their eyes. Also, that no hair at the nape of the neck made contact with the collar. Hence the popularity of the “square-cut” amongst mods, in which the hair was cut square just above the collar, remaining quite thick without tapering. Failure to comply resulted in the offending boy being sent home to get a haircut and / or shave. If on occasion Pete fancied taking the day off, he would deliberately flaunt the rules. That’s when he would turn up wearing a purple shirt, “gold” tan flared trousers, white corduroy shoes, and bright red plastic mac. And this before any of us had even heard of a Monterey Pop Festival. Knowing full well he’d be sent home, Pete would arrange in advance to be meeting up with a girl in town. Legend.

The girl’s grammar school was situated at a safe distance on the other side of the sport’s field, and never the twain shall meet. We weren’t even within shouting distance. Nevertheless, news of “the one called Pete” quickly spread, and my social life soon broadened its horizons beyond a black and white T.V. screen. Instead, I would now follow Pete down the after-school steps of the town’s coffee bar where his new-found girlfriend, complete with her own entourage, would already be in-waiting around the seat specially reserved.

I was a stone-cold virgin in my late teens. Pete was often teased about his choice of girlfriend, but it wasn’t too difficult to see just which of her glamorous attributes he’d been attracted to. One weekend he and his girl came out to visit me at my parent’s house. We all sat around on the bed, listening to Donovan albums, before going for a walk and writing a terrible song called “Sitting in the Country with My Friends”. (I can play it still). Then he promptly took his girl into our upstairs toilet and screwed her. That was Pete. No-one else had an audience in the town’s coffee bar, and certainly no-one else was having full sex in our upstairs toilet.

In our final years at school the powers that be were never going to make Pete and I Prefects. True, we lacked the muscle power. But more to the point, we were no longer judged to be responsible. So, by way of compensation, our blazer lapels in need of some kind of symbolic enamel badge embellishment, the headmaster put us in charge of the library and the tuck shop. We were happy with that. Firstly, it gave us an excuse to be inside, drooling over the mysterious delights of a well concealed Sgt Pepper’s album cover, rather than face the bleak winds sweeping across the school grounds where, regardless of the season, everyone else was compelled to stay at break time as if in some kind of dubious character-building exercise. Secondly, the profits from library book fines, (overdue or not), and tuck shop ice cream portions cut wafer thin, were most acceptable. Teachers never asked for a proper accounting when we handed over their share of the takings.

My last year with Pete was our first year together at Art College. It was his idea we enroll on the Foundation Course. Otherwise, it is quite possible I may not have even thought of art as a career option. My teacher wanted me to go paint roses on tea trays at the nearby Metal Box factory. The only other semi-creative friends I’d made at school were bound for architecture or, more likely, “draughtsmen” in some local industry. Whatever that meant. I certainly had no specific ambitions of my own. Then as now, it was typical of me to simply pursue what I enjoyed.

It was Art College which defined Pete as the Fine Artist and me the Graphic Illustrator. That was a bit tough to take, but I accept the lecturers’ opinion held an undeniable truth. Whilst my work would always stubbornly adhere to a readily decipherable figurative approach, Pete’s ideas could develop and take flight to an entirely different place. He was always one step ahead of me. Also, I had started to find other distractions: A desire to play music as well as just listen; a girlfriend who tasted of tobacco; and the small night clubs opening in small rooms above the town’s pubs. Pete never chose to socialize in that way. For all his rebellious spirit, he preferred to stay within clear parameters. He was either doing art or doing his girlfriend. During that Foundation Course year his art blossomed. We would work together throughout the day, take a brief juke box café break in the late afternoon to replenish our creative juices, then go back into college to work until early evening, before a last pint at the local pub and a last bus home. Next day, more of the same. At the end of that year, we went our separate ways. Separate courses in separate cities. I dutifully took the graphic illustration route, he, for a while at least, pursued Fine Art. We would meet again, purely by chance, one last time:

I was home from Liverpool for the summer holidays, out shopping, a rock album under my arm, when our paths crossed. He now owned a small terraced house. I think he may have “done the right thing” by his pregnant girlfriend and got married. I think he had dropped out of college and was hoping to sell his art and craft-work to local shops, much as he had to his teachers some short years previous. It was all a bit unclear. I do remember the album we listened to that day: John Lennon singing “I don’t believe in Beatles”. We both laughed at the boldness of the lyric, shocking at the time, and smiled at the irony of it: The band whose life span had been in perfect synch with our teen years was no more. The song said “the dream is over”. I think for Pete it perhaps was.
But I hope there was more.

All text copyright ian g craig

Nightclubbing in the 70's. Part 1.

 

Night Clubbing 1.

He’s late. Again. He’s always late. It’s just his little game of one-upmanship. Middle class parents and all that. Assume the higher ground. True enough he has the wheels for this evening’s entertainment, but we both know when it comes to pulling the girls, I’m the one expected to go in first.

I use the time to go over my choice of wardrobe for the evening, Roxy Music playing in the background. I’m so vain I actually make fashion style sketches of my outfits for every time I visit a club. Each sketch is dated and bears the name of the club underneath. This way I’m never seen in any establishment wearing the same combination twice. I check what I’m wearing now against the chart: Light double breasted Paul Smith jacket; two-tone platform shoes; dark brown Oxford bags; broad tie (it is a Sunday after all), yes, the striped one I think. Everything checks out. I’m looking good. If we don’t pull at least we’ll look like Robert Redford and Paul Newman in “The Sting”.

We show our membership cards at the door. We have ALL the membership cards necessary across two counties and some as far afield as Leeds and Liverpool. We check our hair in the Gents. We sip our Dry Martinis and check out the crowd. They’ve noticed us but don’t yet know us. The dance floor is small and tight. The music is bliss. Stax soul and late Motown, with a side dish of Brian Ferry for seasoning. I love to dance. I’m actually good at it. Not many guys in here can say that.

Two girls are stood on the other side of the small dance floor, all summer dresses and blonde. Surely out of our class? He doesn’t think so. He wants to give it a go. I’m dubious. If they turn us down, and I think they will, every other girl in the place will do the same for fear of appearing second choice. Or third. Or fourth. Fourth choice is not an unusual scenario. We’ve gone down the scale a lot lower than that. Many times. No pride in the heat of the night. I also have other reservations about these two. Because even if we do pull them, the evening is only likely to be one of conversation, expensive drinks and Goodnight Vienna. Too classy.

He’s still keen. Okay, I go in. Polite, attentive, charming. Leave no awkward silences. Style is more important than content. And separate them as soon as possible. As it turns out, no worries. This pair are way ahead of us. They’ve already decided who’s going with who before I even reach them. Refreshing. We’ve clearly met our well-matched match.

After a few Marvin Gaye’s, her polka-dot mini dress flirting in all the right places, she asks the usual: “What do you do?” That old line. I never use it. But I’ve known the words “art student” to loosen miners’ daughters’ knicker elastic at a hundred paces. And some of their wives. “You don’t look like an art student”. She’s right. These truly are my schizoid years. Mild mannered art student by day, dance hall dandy by night. She tells me she’s a secretary. Later in the relationship she will tell me her boss chases her around the office. Such fantasies are a turn-on for some boyfriends. It’s all Benny Hill to me.

The four of us have a great evening. We really do. I will even write a dumb song about it when I get home. Come closing time we walk them out to the car park, splitting into couples, hopeful of that goodnight kiss. There’s even a full moon. She kisses great, not always the case on such first meetings as this, and suggests I sit in her car for a while. Hey, no problem. Polka-dot mini-dress inside a mini-cooper is my favourite décor.

My hand settles above her knee. A little too soon? Maybe so. But I don’t necessarily always go through all the bases in numerical order. The tips of my fingers slip just inside the very rim of her knickers. She kisses back harder, settling into her seat, ready to enjoy herself, knees slightly parting. I take my time. Some things are better not rushed. She doesn’t touch me in return. Classy.

 All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Nottingham.

 
Nottingham.

Nottingham,
Did your undiagnosed industrial tumour
Cause the cancerous death of the Sherwood?
The ghost shells of your factories are still beautiful
As the hollow husks of ancient oaks to me.

Nottingham,
Did you pave old market square for the price of a hospital?
The overfed footless pigeons now have no place to laze.
The flowers have no beds on which to rest homeless heads.
Council step cool kids are expelled and moved away.

Nottingham,
Your chemistry Boots Were Made for Walking,
And that’s just what they did,
But lose no sleep over deceased Players, Please.
It kept the job figures up, and the population down.

Nottingham,
Was Mansfield Bitter during our four year separation?
After-hours’ puddles of forty percent proof piss
Now converge where intoxicated pigeons dance the Bolero,
And Home Ales are never home when I knock.

Nottingham,
Your pub house musicians are made to play for free.
Strumming mostly 4 x 4 time, they know nothing of picket lines.
Alan-A-Dale hangs his head in shame.
Jake escaped.

Nottingham,
Are you still Lonely as a Long Distance Runner?
Meet me tonight by the Left Lion.
Wear something red. But don’t mention Liverpool.
I did, but I think I got away with it.

Nottingham,
I missed you, I doubt you missed me.
I came back to teach your children, but can’t reach them anymore.
Their student accommodation skyline blocks the view
Of their life in the clouds.

Nottingham,
Did no one Raleigh ‘round when your bicycles were taken?
I went to the factory but found only supermart specials.
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, they all taste the same,
And two for one lunch time deals won’t carry me as far.

Nottingham,
I have traced the footsteps of your patron saint outlaw,
Placed an armistice poppy on an ancient Scarlet grave,
Once persuaded Chatterley’s daughters
To disrobe of your Lace.

Nottingham,
I now hear the skeletal hooves of abandoned pit ponies
Still roaming the haunted mine shafts below
Retro-brick alleys and sandstone made caves,
Looking for a way out.

Nottingham
I am here for life.

All text copyright ian g craig.

 An updated version of this poem would be published in my book "46 Contemporary Poems".

Hayride through Thoresby Park.

17th June: Finished an acrylic painting, “Thoresby Fields Forever”, based on a sketch I made in January of last year. I really like the sketch, not so much the painting. I can never get the same feeling a second time around.

19th June. Thoresby Hayride: I was a little disappointed the hay ride route didn’t go past Nelson’s Pyramid as it has in the past, but thrilled to see my old home The Woodyard, and delighted to spend some time afterwards in the Village Hall and bar, where I was surprised to see an old primary school photo with me in it on the wall.

It being impossible to hold a sketchbook steady on a trailor I made some sketches from the video I shot.

 Above: The original Duke's carriageway clearly visible through a line of Silver Birches.

Video of Thoresby Estate Hayride on THIS LINK.

 All text, pros, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

random pictures in June

 

Sketching on Thoresby Estate.

Currently hooked on Staedtler Mars Micro mechanical pencils and the small sketchbooks I won in an award in 2013. (THIS LINK). And of course I’m always hooked on Thoresby Park as a location for sketching. It is my constant muse.

All text, pros, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Still (life) December #stilldecember 2.

Is it really a year since I last did this Twitter theme on still life? My choice of subject here speaks for itself. Merry Christmas.

All text, pros, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

David Hockney: “Hockney” documentary DVD & Live from LA event. Review.

 

“What do you think of it?”

The voice came from the woman in the otherwise empty row behind. The one I’d been chatting to in the foyer whist waiting for the Savoy’s Screen 3 projection room to be relieved of its mass of hyperactive children more than a little excited by an afternoon of “Annie”. Mercifully, the cinema’s air con dispelled the subsequent stale odour of pop and popcorn with equal efficiency.

I pondered her question: What did I think of it? Asking me what I thought of Hockney’s remarkable artworks would have been easier to answer. But the Randall Wright documentary, and subsequent Live from LA interview we’d just watched? Not so sure.

“I thought it was okay. I expected a bit more. But I’m not sure of what”. She felt the same, and we both tried to formulate and express our opinions as the sparse audience around us listened in, attempting to do the same. It was a discussion with more space than statements. Later reviews in the press would be similarly challenged in their critiques.

David Hockney was and is something of both icon and idol to former art students of my generation. His media savvy predates and anticipates the later Britart activities of Emin and Hirst. It ensured his work reached the attention of the public eye, and not simply for a fashion sense which rapidly escalated from bowler hat and brolly to blond bespectacled beach boy. With few obvious exceptions, to have art books published about oneself in the early 1970s one usually had to have been dead since the end of the 19th century. So in 1971 Hockney’s own “72 Drawings” found little competition from his contemporaries, and soon found itself onto every self-respecting student’s bookshelf, whilst miniature first editions of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales he illustrated, protruded from Levi pockets as a symbol of cool.

This ready access to his work beyond the gallery walls of London helped establish him as a kind of saviour to those of us who felt the possibilities of a previous generation’s Abstract Expressionism had been exhausted, and the ready-made imagery of Pop Art of limited substance. Hockney’s work was at one and the same time contemporary and traditional. It put observational drawing back on centre stage. It still does. So, sat there looking up at the now blank cinema screen, why my lukewarm response to this documentary? Why my difficulty in answering that woman’s question? What did I think of it?

We live in an age when the works and lives of artists, musicians, writers, can grow in estimation in direct proportion to either the tragedy or excesses of the lives they live. An early death via car or plane crash is seen as a particularly good career move. Failing that, a serious drug habit can prove a marketable alternative. Nothing quite like a cocaine confession to give a teenage pop star a little credibility. Never mind the quality, feel the notoriety.

Paul Simon once said, with a commendable honesty not usually associated with the entertainment industry, that after one achieves a certain level of success it is no longer appropriate or convincing to write angst ridden songs about “sitting in a railway station with a ticket for my destination”. His solution, responsible for the longevity of his success, has been to explore the technical aspects of the medium itself (in his case music) as the motivation. The African rhythms of “Graceland”, not typical of a Jewish rock star from New York, would be one such example.

David Hockney can be said to have pursued a similar course of action. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art, leaving his solitary student tea breaks behind, he has been a hugely successful, famous artist. He’s done this by exploring his chosen medium via a series of technical challenges: Depicting water in the pools and sprinklers of California; the photographic collages and composite Polaroids; stage set designs; and the changing seasons of the Yorkshire landscape depicted across multiple canvases, to name just a few, and not to mention his theories on the use of mirrors and projections in classical art. At the time of writing (and the documentary reviewed herein), his latest fixation is “reverse perspective”. It won’t be his last.

“Hockney” showed the majority of these projects in chronological order, with an impressive digital clarity not experienced on the printed page. Home movies and photographs punctuated the proceedings with appropriate biographical detail. But that’s it. And why should we expect more? Hockney’s life hasn’t involved any greater tragedy or notoriety than most people reading this post. Accordingly, it is simply his passion for and exploration of the painting / printing medium, and the possibilities by which it can depict his mostly contented environment, which fuels his quite remarkable work. The paintings resist any political or social context. There is strong personal style, but not necessarily personal statement.

So that’s what I thought of it: A perfectly fine journey across the surface of an impressive range of beautiful canvases. The hero of the piece is not going to cut off his ear, choke on his own vomit in the back of an ambulance, or shoot himself in a drug fazed game of Russian roulette. In short, Ken Russell would never have made a film about David Hockney. The skilfully applied surface colours and textures are dazzling, but there is no revelation regarding deeper waters, if indeed deeper waters exist. That’s not what "Hockney" does. But what he will do, at age 77, is appear briefly “live” at the end of a documentary about his life, totally (and exclusively) excited about what he’s doing in this moment, (“reverse perspective”), and attempt to convey to us what this latest artistic challenge he’s set himself is all about.

Copyright Ian G Craig. All opinions expressed are the authors own.

Inside and out.

Still on my observational drawing kick, both inside the house and outdoors. Never much cared for charcoal in the past, but these hard grade charcoal pencils are impressive.

All text, pros, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

sketchbook landscapes.

 Top: Trees and Rhododendron bushes in the grounds of Newstead Abbey. Below: Landscape around the Oxton area of the county.

 All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Drawing August 2.

Twitter's art theme / challenge comes round again. Last year I think I was into coloured pencils. This year I'm into pound shop gel pens. In a big way.

 

All text, pros, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

The Selfie. Self portraits.

 

Above: 10th January, 1963. “Love Me Do” moves up to number 17 from last week’s 24. Elvis Presley’s “Return to Sender” at number two has already made me a music fan. The Beatles ensure it will remain a lifelong passion. My art teacher has set me the only worthwhile homework he manages to dream up in the seven years I will know him. His problem is he doesn’t dream. Maybe two years National Service took that away. I am a grammar school boy, identified as an arty type, but only ever directed to copy from books, add some lettering, and contemplate the painting of roses on tea trays at the nearby Metal Box factory as a better career option than the coal mines. I don’t know why. It pays far less. But for this one Thursday evening at least, studying my face in the mirror, it felt like I was doing Art. Assessment rating: Seven out of ten. Very fair.

So why do artists’ make self-portraits? Certainly not for money. The general public are not keen to purchase the portrait of a complete stranger for their home. One answer to the question can be found in the work of the two greatest masters on the subject. Rembrandt and Van Gogh both used the painted selfie to document their respective journeys through life. Rembrandt ageing with dignity, tinted by sadness; Van Gogh striving against mental instability.

For infinitely lesser mortals like myself the motives are usually much simpler. As long as one has a mirror one has a model; a challenging subject on which to develop the skill of recording from observation. However, no matter how simple the intent, can capturing a likeness ever be the sole outcome of a self-portrait? Or is some other aspect always destined to show through the surface image and disclose more about the person inside? Recently, as I use my own life experiences to inform a book I am working on, I looked back through my sketchbook selfies and was surprised at how much they reveal.

Above: July 1972. I am living below street level in a basement flat. Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral is so close its shadow merges with those of the feet passing by my window. The feet are all I can see and, as I’ve developed the fatal art student practice of “staying at home to do some work”, life is decidedly subterranean. This month nineteen bombs will explode across Belfast in eighty minutes, Gary Glitter will begin his abuse of the pop music charts, and I am on a poorly tutored graphic design course rapidly losing all enthusiasm for art let alone the ability to draw. I'm sure it was all foretold in Revelations somewhere.

Above: August 1979. The Yorkshire Ripper is afoot. The Trade Unions refuse to listen to their own Labour Party Prime Minister and make the ensuing Thatcher Years inevitable. Former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe is cleared in court of allegations of attempted murder, whilst Syd Vicious dies in his prison cell before reaching trial. I am living under a pitched roof high above it all. It is a time of much after hours drinking and introvert music. Ironically I teach myself more about art and its history whilst working as a full time teacher than I ever learned as a student. After a couple of years in the profession I feel confident enough to devote more time to my own painting. To my amazement my first serious artworks gain a one man showcase in Nottingham Castle. I may have peaked too soon.

For obvious and understandable reasons a full time teacher adopts a kind of alter ego, and I see now in retrospect a clear division between self-portrait sketches made during classroom lunch hours and the more expressive, perhaps more personal studies produced at home. This was also the time when rejection slips started coming thick and fast, as the political landscape turned art galleries which once took risks into formulaic commercial craft shops.

Above: 1990. Glasgow is awarded Culture Capital of Europe whilst London streets are beset with poll tax riots. I am the son of a carpenter. Our relationship is not close, and I can’t walk on water. But I can modify my approach to self-portraiture. Less raw, hopefully no less expressive, the result is exhibited in the Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham.

Above: January 2006. James Blunt and Coldplay win Brit Awards. Thinking this must surely herald the “end of times” I resign from full time employment and, as a bonus for never buying their records, award myself a five year playtime.

Below: 2013. The ghost of Mrs B returns to tell me playtime was long since over. I must not have heard the bell, having been accepted by ten Open Exhibitions, published twice, and awarded a truck full of sketchbooks which still spill from the loft. She leads the way back to class.

 Below: 2014. Twitter becomes a good place for feedback and further experimental self-portraits. According to Rembrandt, “Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses or kindnesses.” If that’s the case I really should smile more.

 All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Accepted in June.

 

My "Skeggie Day Trip" painting on show this month in Patchings Gallery.

 All text, pros, photos, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Pastels in Newstead.

I haven't wanted to get involved with any serious painting projects for quite a while now. But I do seem to be rather prolific when it comes to observational studies. This month's favoured medium was oil pastels, the location Newstead Abbey.

 

All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Nottingham Musicians.

 During recent years depicting musicians performing live in various Nottingham venues was a recurring theme in my work. Suffice to say I didn’t paint any subject whose performance I didn’t enjoy. 

Spending the early 70’s in Liverpool it was commonplace for me to see rock bands and beat poets sharing the same billing, as the preceding decade’s Mersey Beat morphed into the Liverpool Scene. It was a city where the Arts informed everyone’s way of thinking, assisted in no small measure by its Irish and West Indian links. Simultaneous to this, the steel works of Birmingham were forging sixties beat music into Heavy Metal whilst, before decade’s end, disillusioned youth in London gave vent to Punk.

By stark contrast, whenever I came home to Nottingham during the 70s, one’s social life was very much about Night Clubs. No wonder then that our city’s greatest claim to musical fame became Paper Lace of “Billy, Don’t be a Hero”. Such show bands thrived and made a good living on the chicken-in-a-basket circuit of Tiffany’s and Working Men’s Clubs across the Midlands. Punk and post-Punk bands were all happening elsewhere. We got the ones still in flared trousers with feather-cut hair.

Happily, today one can see any number of fine musicians in Nottingham, often in pubs utilizing their (usually unpaid) talents as a prop against the recession’s diminishing customer count. Listening to Nottingham bands today one is more conscious of the content of their individual record collections than any communally shared musical agenda, but that is more a comment on the city than the artist themselves. “Madchester” was never going to happen here.

Johnny Johnston Quartet at the Bell Inn:

Trad Jazz was never a favourite of mine, but the Johnny Johnston Quartet at the Bell Inn were always superb entertainment. The first band I ever thought of painting, it established at the outset how I would proceed with future similar subjects. Sketchbooks in the dark were almost impractical, but I could watch closely to memorize typical poses and expressions, and take small cell phone type snapshots, without flash, to cut up, arrange, and work from back in the studio. The background here is an impression of sound rather than an imitation of the interior.

Pictured are Johnny Johnston (left), sadly now deceased, and Brian Bocel. The band were amused and excited to see the final piece, and I enjoyed sharing it with them. The manager of the Bell Inn asked if he might put a copy on display. Fine. But I had not envisaged it would be reduced to sepia tones and pinned next to the gent’s toilet. The painting was more successfully exhibited in the Thoresby Open Exhibition of 2012.

Stuck in 2nd at the Jam Café:

The Jam Café Nottingham, functions as both licenced coffee bar, and live music venue. Pictured here are reggae band Stuck In 2nd. I remember the lighting on that occasion was particularly dark, so more than ever I relied on a liberal use of shadows to disguise my lack of information, and think some of the final painting a little too static. But I was happy with the way I captured the movement of the conga player on the left, his entire body swaying and playing the instrument. If you can play an instrument yourself (I can manage about four chords), it helps when trying to convey rhythm pictorially, or having to make up small details in the final piece.

Will Jeffery at the Malt Cross Inn:

As readers will know from previous posts, the Malt Cross Inn was a music hall in eras gone by, and the small stage is still used today to present live entertainers. What obviously caught my attention in this scene was the very dramatic lighting from the spotlights, making pools of light on the stage and casting large shadows on the wall behind. An opportunity to paint an upright bass in such a setting was not to be missed. Never successfully exhibited publicly, this one remains my personal favourite.

Jonathan Beckett at the Guitar Bar, Hotel Deux:
 

 When Jonathan Becket performed a retrospective of his songs at the Guitar Bar I was especially taken by one called “The Midlands”, a recurring theme in my own work. Once again I returned to my studio with some very hazy snapshots from which I could produce a “likeness” of the two musicians involved, working from blow ups on the computer screen as if they were seated before me. But this time I created a background based on images associated with the Midlands. One can see references to miners, Sherwood Forest, and factory building skylines. The painting was successfully exhibited in the Patchings Open Exhibition of 2012.

Rosie Abbott, singer songwriter:

 Between 2006 and 2010 I made a series of music promos for Rosie Abbott. This portrait came from an image made during one of those video shoots. Rather than depict a public performance, I wanted to convey more of the creative spirit of the songwriter. The painting was successfully exhibited in the Patchings Open Exhibition of 2011.

Thee Eviltones at The Maze:

 My last musician painting to date. The Maze is an especially dark venue, and certainly one of Nottingham’s most popular. Once again it was a matter of crawling about below audience eye level, not distracting from their entertainment with an intrusive flash, taking small snapshots. Back in the studio I chose and arranged what seemed like a typical “pose” for each band member. I knew I wanted a dynamic setting for such a high energy band. The solution was inspired quite simply by the band’s striped t-shirts. If it was such an important motif to them that they each wore one, then it was important enough to incorporate in the painting.

All text, pros, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

The Malt Cross Inn, Nottingham.

 

It was more by chance than design that I started making so many sketches of the Malt Cross Inn, Nottingham. This was where my ever-present sketchbook met with other creative spirits as a good place to meet and chat.

The daylight as it streams through that antique arched glass roof, to then sweep steadily across the room as the hours go by, creates a visual effect akin to being inside a huge sun dial. Or, if you’re on your third pint, maybe a kaleidoscope. The atmosphere is an interesting juxtaposition of contemporary events, against a respectfully tended backdrop of red and green 19th century music hall ironwork. The harmonious result offers sanctuary to those of us not particularly enamoured with the garish multimedia lights and fast fry delights of menus elsewhere in town. If I want to look at a TV screen I’ll stay home.

It’s impossible to do justice to the Malt Cross in a photograph. There’s too much visual information for the lens to digest. One needs to edit. Are my sketches any more successful? A little.

Some of my sketches come from the times I sat here engaged in half sober conversations imagining we were perhaps the Ginsbergs at the San Remo, the Dylans at the Café Wha?, or even the Lennons and the Henris at Ye Cracke. Until we sobered up and had to accept we were not.

Malt Cross Inn has much in common with other favoured subjects in my portfolio: A dramatically lit scenario where history still lingers in the shadows.


All text, pros, & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Above: A later piece from 2018.