Vlogpost: Sweary Squirrels

A new vlogpost today:

Tree Trumps

No it's not a blogpost about rainforest gas emissions. 

Nor is it about comparing politicians to large lumps of wood. 

It's a fantastic deck of trump cards produced by Forestry England to help make tree identification more fun.

Get your free PDF download here and start playing (though it will be easier when the tree leaves have all grown back).

And my thanks to Graham Phelps for making me aware of it.

The Haxey Hood

Today is the day of the Haxey Hood - one of the oldest and oddest sporting traditions in the UK.

      

The origins of the Haxey Hood probably date back to the fourteenth century. At midday on January 6th each year at Haxey, Lincolnshire, the Lord of the Hood and his Boggins begin a tour of the four public houses in the parish - The Carpenters Arms, The Kings, The Loco and the Duke William, singing three traditional songs in each establishment. They then proceed to a mounting stone outside St Nicholas parish church from which the Fool makes a speech of welcome, during which damp straw is placed at the foot of the stone and lit. This generates a certain amount of smoke and is known as 'Smoking the Fool', but it is only a watered down version of the ancient ritual which involved suspending the fool over a bonfire of smoking straw. This practice was abandoned years ago after an incident in where someone forgot to damp the straw and the Fool caught fire. 

At the end of the Fool's speech, he urges the crowd on by proclaiming: 'Oose agen oose, toon agen toon, If a man meets a man, knock im doon. But d'oant 'ot' im!' Which translates into 'House against House, Town against Town, if you meet a man, knock him down but don't hurt him!' This indicates that the Haxey Hood is about to begin, and everyone proceeds to the field on nearby Upperthorpe Hill 

Events begin with a few Wort games where the children chase after hoods made from tightly-rolled pieces of sacking and attempt to carry one off the field to a local pub, where they are rewarded with a few pounds in cash. Then the main game of Haxey Hood is played.

The hood is a two-foot length of stout leather, this being the nearest modern equivalent that can be employed in place of the original hood which was allegedly a freshly slaughtered bullock's head. The basic rules of the game are these: no one is allowed to run with the hood and no one is allowed to throw the hood, the game consists of one large rugby type scrum or 'sway' in which the Hood is pushed or pulled or 'swayed in the desired direction. The object being to manoeuvre the Hood into one of the four public houses in the parish, with the game officially ending when the Hood is touched by the pub landlord standing on the front step of his establishment. The landlord then takes possession of the Hood and proudly displays it for the following year There are no official teams as such, all participants simply join in and attempt to move the hood to their favoured public house. The Lord acts as referee as far as this is possible and the eleven Boggins have the task of rounding up any stragglers as well as attempting to protect property from any damage. It is this latter responsibility which is the most onerous as the sway is quite capable of demolishing the odd fence along the way and has on occasion severely dented carelessly parked motor vehicles. 

The official explanation for these fun and games is that sometime in the fourteenth century when Haxey, together with the rest of Axholme was owned by the Mowbray family, the wife of John de Mowbray the local landowner, was riding across Upperthorpe Hill when a stiff wind whipped away her silk riding hood. There happened to be thirteen farm workers who were working nearby who thus rushed around the place trying to retrieve the hood. It was finally caught by one of the field hands who, feeling unable to approach the lady of the manor personally, handed it to one of his braver colleagues who duly handed it back to her. The Lady de Mowbray remarked that the worker who had actually caught the hood but failed to return it had acted as a fool, whilst he who had returned it had acted like a lord. She was however sufficiently impressed as to bestow thirteen acres of land to the parish on condition that the chase for the hood was re-enacted each year.

However, it has also been suggested that this official explanation is nothing but a cover story invented to allow the villagers to continue with their enjoyment of a time honoured pagan ritual without interference from the authorities. Its survival into the modern era is a testament to the enthusiasm with which the modern day Englishman and woman will adopt any old excuse to spend most of the day down the pub.

Source: Haxey Hood website

Oh and there's a great first hand account of being in the Haxey Hood scrum by author J R Daeschner in his excellent book, True Brits.

Art Myth #5: My work isn't as good as other artists' work

Look at these two quotes: 

'Comparison is the enemy of happiness, stop measuring yourself against the world' - Seth King. 

'Comparison with something that is better is the thief of joy. Comparison with something that is worse is a joy - full of relief and gratitude! You cannot always choose what happens to you or your circumstances but you can always choose your attitude by what you choose to compare your experiences or circumstances to and therefore how you will feel!! We can make any experience either a heaven or a hell by what we compare it to. Our emotions are 'an inside job!'' - Theodore Roosevelt.

In this final essay we'll look at a common problem - when people judge the worth of their own art by comparing it to the work of others.

Don't do it!

And here's why:

Have a look at these four portraits of French musician and film maker Serge Gainsbourg. One is digital, two are painted and one is made of felt. 

Which do you like the best?

The digital piece is by me. The portrait top right is by Simon Gurr, and bottom left by Joan Xavier Vázquez. The sculpture is by the wonderful Feltmistress. 

I wonder why you chose the one that you did? There must have been something about it that appealed to your personal taste. 

As we've discussed in previous essays, the validity of a piece of art isn't measured by gallery-worthiness or monetary value; most of the great painters and sculptors were unappreciated in their own lifetimes and many died in penury. Some were abused, imprisoned or even killed for being different from the mainstream. But they persevered because they had self-belief. And many are now revered for showing us a new vision, for opening up the definition of what art is. In many ways, we celebrate them for proving the point that all art is valid and that anyone can create it. Warhol’s pop art, the Impressionists’ light and airy canvasses and Henry Moore’s abstract reclining figures all broke new ground when they were first exhibited … but not because they were beyond the ability of most of us. It was because they were different and exciting and new. The artists were confident enough to make them, despite the prevailing fashions. As the result, they helped to redefine what art is. 

Breaking the mould is important. Not being the same as other artists is important. 

I firmly believe that one of the big reasons people believe they can’t create art is because they make the mistake of comparing what they produce with the work of other artists, particularly ones that they like. Artists are their own worst critics. Even polymath Leonardo da Vinci, on his deathbed, declared: ‘I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.’ 

Ouch. 

But what standard of quality was Leonardo measuring his art against? Only one that he had put in place himself. We sabotage our own confidence by entering a competition that doesn’t exist. 

Let’s imagine a person called Karen Smith. Karen is a huge fan of Beryl Cook’s happy paintings of chubby people having fun. So she sets out to paint just like her. And she's immediately set herself up for disappointment. By comparing her work against Cook’s, she’ll believe that she's somehow failed if it falls short of the mark. She’s come second in a competition that she should never have entered and can never win. The very best she can hope for is a draw (no pun intended). 

But look at it another way ...

What she can create is a 100% Karen Smith piece; inspired by Beryl Cook maybe but as unique and valid as anything Cook ever produced. 

Elvira's Cafe by Beryl Cook

To put it another way, I can’t paint like Dali but, conversely, Dali couldn’t paint like me. 

This ‘comparing yourself to others’ business is why I believe so many ‘how to’ art books fail. What they show you is not how to paint or draw like You, but how to paint and draw like the author. And if they provide a step-by-step ‘paint along’ guide, what you will eventually produce is a finished piece that probably isn’t quite as good as the author’s original. That can only mean disappointment surely? 

If our imaginary Karen Smith enjoys painting and is happy with what she produces – that’s all that matters. Her art has worth. It only loses that worth in her eyes if she compares it to another artist's work and marks it according to how similar it is. It's her lack of self-belief that is skewing her perception and making her see a problem that isn't actually there. If she'd never seen a Beryl Cook painting would she be happier with her own work? Of course she would. The ‘competition’ wouldn’t exist. 

Kindergarten children don’t compare themselves to other artists. They are ignorant in the true sense of the word. And ignorance, as we all know, is bliss. 

When Picasso first shifted an eye to the wrong side of a painted head, he didn't think to himself, 'People are going to hate this'. Even if he did, he did it anyway because it felt right and to Hell with what the rest of the world thought. He wasn't comparing his art to some benchmark of public opinion. He painted for his own satisfaction. He painted what he felt inside. Creating art is making something from nothing; it's an expression of our personalities. And because we're all different, the art we create is all different. A Degas doesn't look like a Chagall. A Basquiat doesn't look like a Banksy. 

Even conceptual pieces carry something of the artist with them. It's all very well saying 'Anyone could put a shark in a tank' but they didn't, did they? 

Damien Hirst did because it's a very Damien Hirst idea. 

I love the sculptures of Anish Kapoor and Henry Moore, the scratchy and savagely satirical pen drawings of Willie Rushton and Ronald Searle, the clever draughtsmanship of W Heath Robinson, the ebullience and child like fun of Leo Baxendale, the lush canvasses of Walter Langley … and so many others. But my art could never be mistaken for any of theirs. The fact that I love all of those artists doesn’t mean that I should be able to create art that looks like theirs. How could I? I haven’t had the same life experiences as them. I don’t see the world the same way that they do. I don’t think like they do. Therefore, why would I ever expect my artwork to look like theirs? However, I can be inspired by them. And I can learn from them. 

Although my work doesn’t look like the work of my favourite artists, there are little clues to my influences. The way I draw hands has some similarity to hands by Rodney Matthews. The way I draw hair looks a bit like hair drawn by Brian Bolland, and so on. That’s because, before my personal style evolved, I spent a lot of my time copying them. Yes, I said the C word. The other C word. These essays are all about laying old myths to rest and this is one of the biggies: 

Copying is cheating.

No it isn’t! Copying is good!

Okay, so copying someone’s work and passing it off as your own is a bad thing. That's plagiarism. Copying someone’s work and claiming it’s an original by the artist is a bad thing too. That’s called counterfeiting and you can get locked up for it. But copying in order to learn is a good thing. Copying is how we learn almost every skill we have, whether it’s cooking a roast dinner, putting up a shelf or tying our shoelaces. I know chefs who got their start by copying Delia Smith and Keith Floyd. I know painters who learned by copying Bob Ross and Nancy Kominsky on TV. I know comic artists who learned their trade by copying the greats like Gil Kane and Jack Kirby. The very action of copying makes you familiar with the shapes and techniques used by other artists. Do it enough and those shapes and techniques become second nature. And, guess what? You have a lifetime of influences and a unique personality and, faster than you know it, you’ll develop a style that is yours and yours alone. Then, you’ll naturally start to impose that style on the techniques you learned by copying and soon your work won’t look like another artist’s work anymore. 

And now I’m going to take you one step further by suggesting that … it’s not even a bad thing to trace (horrors!) artwork or photographs. Trust me, you won’t be the first artist to use tracing as a tool to create art. It’s been going on for centuries. Canaletto used a device called a camera obscura – basically a giant pinhole camera that you stand inside – to project an image of the outdoors onto a canvas whereupon it could be traced. Many of his most famous Venetian landscapes started life that way and his camera still survives to this day in the Correr Museum in Venice. Sir Joshua Reynolds also used one and recent evidence suggests that Johannes Vermeer may also have done so. They were in common use by many artists. 

The camera obscura remained in common use for centuries along with a portable version called a camera lucida. There were also Claude Glasses (sometimes called a ‘Black Mirror’) that reduced a landscape image to a small tonal version that could be copied, scaling grids where pictures are broken into smaller squares and then the detail transferred by hand to larger corresponding squares. And there was the pantograph, a mechanical concertina affair that allows the user to make an exact copy of an original or to make a larger scale copy by the simple act of tracing the original. 

Then along came the magic lantern, the slide projector and the overhead projector. And these days we have data projectors and lightboxes and many artists use them to sketch out their artwork. 

Learning to make art takes practice. It's a skill just like any other. If you're learning to ride a bike you attach stabilisers and they give you a degree of support and confidence while you attempt to find your balance. Copying and tracing perform the same role; they are your art stabilisers and you use them until you have the confidence to create the work without help. I suppose, if we were to take the broadest possible interpretation of copying, any kind of realist artwork is copying. In portraiture you’re copying a person, still life is copying objects, and landscape is copying the real world outside. That said, the artist will usually stamp their originality into the piece; something that identifies their work from others. A Constable doesn’t look like a Monet and neither of them look like a Pissarro or a Sisley. 

So, trust me, it’s okay to copy and it’s okay to trace. Both of them will increase the range and depth of your skills. Both will develop your fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Whether it’s from life or from photo reference, it’s fine. And copying the work of other artists is fine too … as long as you’re only doing it for yourself and not with the aim of selling it. By copying, you learn to ‘see’ how artists achieve the effects that they do. In time, you’ll find yourself cherry-picking skills and techniques you like and you'll learn how to do them by copying. Eventually, you won’t need to copy any more. The stabilisers will be off and you’ll be riding all by yourself in your own unique style. 

Oscar Wilde once wisely said: 'No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.’ 

Don't compare yourself with others. Celebrate your original vision and your unique creations.

Be proud.

Be happy.

Make art.

It's written in the dwarf planets

On this day in 2005 the dwarf planet Eris was discovered by astronomers at Mount Palomar Observatory. It was the event that led to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) having to define the term 'planet' for the first time. 

When I was younger, we were told that there were nine planets: (in order from the Sun outwards) Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Then Eris turned up and NASA initially described it as the Solar System's tenth planet because it was significantly bigger than Pluto (27% bigger).  However that raised the issue of how to classify Ceres - a small planet that lies in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. And some of the moons of the larger gaseous planets are actually bigger than Ceres, Pluto and Eris (and even Mercury).

And so, with the prospect of more objects of similar size being discovered in the future, the IAU redefined what a planet is and Pluto, Eris and Ceres became 'dwarf planets'. 

And, sure enough, they've now been joined by a whole bunch more.

This got me wondering ... how does all of this fit with astrology?

Now, cards on the table time, I'll admit that I don't get astrology. I may hang out with witches and druids and I do have a very open mind. But I can't quite get my head around the idea that the movements of planets and the patterns of stars in the night sky affect our destinies. 

For a start, those patterns are only patterns in our heads.

When our ancestors looked up into the night sky they saw a series of bright stars that formed a kind of saucepan shape. In some countries it's known as the Plough. In others it's Ursa Major - the Great Bear. Depending where you are it's also known as the Camel, the Shark, the Skunk, the Sickle, the Bushel and the Canoe. The Chinese know them as  The Government or Tseih Sing. In Hinduism they are known as the Seven Sages.

But here's the same view from the Hubble Space Telescope. And, as you can see, there are a lot more stars in that part of the sky that we can't really see with the unaided eye. Do none of the others count as part of the constellation? Some of the smaller, less bright stars are closer to Earth than the seven bright stars. And the bright stars are not even vaguely close to each other.

The first bright star on the left is called Eta Ursa Majoris (formerly Alkaid) and it's 104 light years away from Earth. A light year is the distance travelled by light - travelling at 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million mph) - in one year. When we look at the star, we're seeing it as it was 104 years ago - it's taken the light that long to reach us.

The second star from the left is Mizar. It's 82.8 light years away. So it takes nearly 83 years for its light to reach us and 21 years for it to reach Eta Ursa Majoris. Dubhe, the star at the top right of the 'box' is 123 light years away and Merak, the star below it is 79.7 light years away. Not only are they too distant to have any kind of effect on us, they are also all so far from each other that they can't possibly have any influence on each other either.

So how can your birth sign have any bearing on the kind of person you are?

Now, I do appreciate that astrology is much more complex than that and you would need to have a full astrological chart drawn up that takes into account the date and time of  your birth, where you were born, and other factors. But the fact remains that predictions are based on the position of planets within the constellations. 

Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE and Western astrology can trace its roots to 17th century BCE Mesopotamia. But when it was first formalised people only knew of a few celestial bodies - the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Uranus wasn't recognised as a planet until 1781. Neptune wasn't found until 1846. And Pluto was found less than 100 years ago in 1930. Surely each new discovery would have upset the systems used by astrologers? If, as they claim, they can explain aspects of a person's personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects then surely all predictions will be inaccurate unless you are aware of every object? Were predictions that were made prior to Pluto's discovery wrong?

And now we have all of these new dwarf planets to factor in - if Pluto is significant enough to feature in horoscopes then so too must Eris, Sedna, Haumea and the rest. Any system that works on tracking the predictable movements of a set of objects must surely be thrown into disarray by the introduction of a whole new set of objects? And why do Mercury and Pluto have an influence on astrology but not the moons of the outer planets - some of which are bigger than Mercury and Pluto? And what about the objects we have yet to discover - do they not have an influence already?

I will just reiterate that I endeavour to keep an open-mind and am always happy to discuss any subject in a reasoned, polite and interested way. I'm not setting out to alienate astrology believers or to trigger non-believers (I have friends in both camps).

But I am genuinely stumped and I'd be interested to hear how astrologers make their systems fit with constantly changing modern astronomical knowledge. 

Meanwhile, happy birthday Eris! 

Glad you got to join the party.

Art Lesson #4: It's not proper art unless it's fine art

Have a look at these five paintings. 

They are (top row): The Hold House, Porthmear (1932) by Alfred Wallis, Woman V by Willem de Kooning (1953) and Take care of the environment by Nino Gotsiridze (2007). The bottom row are The Great Lion by Eric Tournaire (2007) and Big Dog on the Back Seat of the Car (2009) by Emma McClure. 

Which is the odd one out … and why? 

Nino Gotsiridze’s painting is the odd one out. Because he painted it when he was eight years old. 

Did you get it right? 

Some people do, some don’t. But it doesn’t matter. Putting aside whether you like them or not, four of these pictures are considered to be fine art. One isn’t. Why? Because a handful of experts have said so. And what criteria do you suppose they used when making their decisions? Probably the fact that some millionaire liked a painting so much that they were willing to pay big money to own it. 

The Alfred Wallis picture (top left of that group of five) alone is worth in the region of £50,000 – but would you hang it on your wall? Some would, some wouldn’t. But that’s the point. Unless we are serious collectors or investors, what we usually care about most is whether we like a picture, not whether it’s considered Fine Art or otherwise. 

So how do experts decide what falls into the category of fine art? Sometimes it's because the work is part of an art movement like the Impressionsts or the YBAs (Young British Artists). However, very few individual pieces of art fit neatly into any one single, rigidly defined category. 

Image: MoMA, New York/Scala, Florence

Every profession has its own language. Nuclear physicists use terms among themselves that we outsiders would probably not understand. Bankers use terms and references at work that would make no sense to non-bankers. It’s the same for doctors, builders, police officers, brewers … and for people in the art profession. Having a professional language makes communication easier (it can also be elitist, of course). For people in the art business, categories of art are part of their professional language . However, the categories are pretty meaningless outside of the rarefied worlds of art criticism or art history. While the labels can be handy for tracing the evolution of artistic styles and movements, most of us don’t really care if something is classified as Fauve or Constructivist or Fluxus or Bauhaus. 

The philosopher Kendall L Walton once said: ‘Paintings and sculptures are to be looked at; sonatas and songs are to be heard. What is important about these works of art, as works of art, is what can be seen and heard in them’. Who made them, what medium they used and which category a piece of art falls into should always be of less importance than the art itself. Besides which, the categories people insist upon don’t always hold up to scrutiny. 

For example, many experts will tell you that anything produced for a common or practical purpose – knitting, furniture making, flower arranging etc. – is a craft or a skill, rather than fine art. But that’s a rather snooty attitude and it’s insulting to anyone who has conceived an idea and then spent many hours turning it into a reality. Of course, if you’re already a famous artist or celebrity, anything you do will end up in a fine art gallery because it's bankable. Secondly, when it comes to crafts not being fine art, history begs to differ. 

That's Nike of Samothrace (or the Winged Victory), a 2nd century Greek marble statue now on display at the Louvre, Paris. Modern excavations suggest that it was once an altar decoration at an open-air theatre. The artist is unknown. And, more importantly for this discussion, they were not considered to be an artist in their lifetime. In classical Greece and Rome, statues of gods, goddesses and other minor deities served the same purpose as hanging a horseshoe over the door does today. Most homes had one and the bigger you could afford the better. But they weren’t works of art. They were knocked out by the thousand as ornaments and good luck charms by unnamed craftspeople who were seen as mere manual labourers, little better than slaves. For the Greeks, the arts were the domain of the Nine Muses. Art was epic poetry, hymns, love poetry, comedy, tragedy, song, history, astronomy and dance. There was no Muse associated with painting or sculpture. Consequently, those works were not considered to be art. Nowadays, of course, they fill museums and galleries and exchange hands for a small fortune. 

So how about this item?

That's a Shaker ladderback chair circa 1850 from Maine, USA. Like Nike above, the maker is unknown. And they were not considered to be an artist. The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (known as the Shakers due to the ecstatic and animated nature of their group worship) believed that making something simple and well-constructed was, in itself, an act of meditation and prayer. Consequently, the furniture they made for their insular communities was designed to be plain and austere in keeping with the lives they’d chosen to lead. However, in the 1950s, many architects and designers found themselves hugely inspired by the clean simplicity of Shaker design and began to incorporate it into their own work. It is now seen as a major influence on the development of art and design in the USA and original pieces can be worth thousands of dollars. 

Neither Nike or the Shaker chair were considered 'fine art' until some influential people said they were.

I also have a particular issue with the categories ‘commercial art’ and ‘graphic design’. These are labels generally applied to artwork created to a brief for a client, rather than art created on an artist’s whim. Should such artwork ever be considered fine art? Of course it should.

Look into the history of the world’s greatest symphonies and you’ll soon discover that they were composed to a brief. Many of the artworks on display in the world’s most exclusive galleries were painted for paying customers. Professional artists don’t work for free.  Any number of classical artists had patrons who paid them a living wage if they turned out artwork to order. 

Those are Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster for Le Divan Japonais (1893) and Mucha’s Biscuits Lefévre-Utile (1897). Many of their best known images were created for use in advertising. 

Now consider Sir Peter Blake’s LP cover for The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Andy Warhol’s screen-printed sleeve for The Velvet Underground and Nico’s first eponymous album. Would we call these people commercial artists rather than fine artists? 

Incidentally, I’d argue that there are many other LP covers (or even paperback covers) that are just as iconic and as important to the history of art and design as these two – but they don’t get the same accolades because they weren’t created by established fine artists. Consider Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, or Close to the Edge by Yes, or the Sex Pistols’ Never mind the Bollocks, or Nirvana’s Nevermind. These were albums that helped to define and inspire a generation and you probably know the artwork for each very well. But could you name the artist in each case? 

(They were Storm Thorgerson and George Hardie at Hipgnosis, Roger Dean, Jamie Reid, and Kirk Weddle.)

It seems wrong to me that they don’t get the same accolades as Blake and Warhol just because the album covers were ‘jobs’. Michelangelo didn’t just break into the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City and start daubing the ceiling you know. It was a paid gig. 

There is a small group of people who hold an extraordinary position of power over the world of art. They make a career out of telling us what fine art is and which artists we should all be watching. They are gallery owners, art buyers and critics. They are unquestionably knowledgeable people. They are also obviously lovers of art. But they also have a vested interest in maintaining their dominance and control because, without that, they would have no jobs and their collections/businesses would be worthless.

However, as we’ve discussed, you cannot define what is or isn’t fine art because there is no universal benchmark. Opinions and tastes vary. You also cannot say that a piece of art is either good or bad art because every piece is different and you can't compare unlike with unlike. Thirdly, this small group of people may have several lifetimes of experience looking at art but they only get to see a very, very small proportion of all the art created. Therefore, 99% of art never gets to be appraised and valued by them. More often than not, the only work they see has come through the university/art school system or is produced by celebrities. Anyone outside of that system is excluded. Does that mean the work they produce isn't fine art? Of course it doesn't.

I therefore contend that the term 'fine art' is almost meaningless.

If you make a piece of art and you love it, it's fine.

Vlogpost: Old Arch, New Arch

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