Art with a Capital 'F'...

I am regularly exasperated or moved to panting squeals of hilarity by art criticism. So much hot air about so little (with a few honourable exceptions of course).

So I amused myself with having a bash at writing a page of art crit for myself a month or two ago.
All for a good cause. I've written a little gardening book which I think of as the antidote to gardening books in general, which all seem to contain a mixture of fluff and fancy on the one hand and lots of rules and must-do's on the other. I suspect that an awful lot of people would like to try their hand at growing few lettuces or carrots but are put off by all the expertise and equipment these books tell them they need.

My book aims to reassure people that gardening is not massively complicated and demanding, but just about the easiest thing in the world as long as you think carefully about what you are dealing with, and are prepared to use your native creative intelligence and a few muscles now and then. The basic principle is that the only thing a seed wants to do is to grow. The gardener's job is to not get in the way.

It is, I hope, a cheerful and amusing book, which nevertheless is full of tips and simple common sense suggestions for the absolute beginner. It aims to amuse and inform, but mainly to stimulate and energise.
Hence it needs to have a cover which reflects these intentions as clearly as possible.
Ken, who did the cartoons for both of the Scenes books, sketched one prototype to my own design, and as a bonus, came up with a design of his own. I submitted them both to Ruth, the editor at the Good Life Press, who will be publishing the book.
Ruth could not decide on which cover would be better, so she canvassed opinions. Mixed results. So I turned my hand to Art Critic, and wrote a pageful of pretentious claptrap under the pseudonym of Phyllis Stein. It went up on the GLP website, and again produced mixed responses. So I passed the article round among a few friends and acquaintances. One cover was generally preferred over the other, by a narrow margin.
But what astonished me was that out of some twenty readers, three thought my clumsy pastiche was a genuine piece of art criticism. This, I find quite alarming. It suggests that some 15% of the educated public has lost any sense of independent critical thinking.

As I've mentioned before, I put that down ultimately to the current triumph of 'Scientific' Materialism and the nihilism that it brings in its wake. We've all been told so often that there is no point to Life the Universe and Everything that we no longer trust our own judgments, and rely on 'experts' to tell us when the Emperor is wearing splendid and refulgent raiment when our own common sense tells us he's just plain old naked.

Anyway, see what you think of the covers... (if I can upload the pictures successfully! If I can't, well the text will probably give you enough clues.)

Judging a Book

By Phyllis Stein, Art Critic in Residence, Galeria Caca de Toro, Madrid

The editorial board of the Good Life Press (That's me. Ruth) has asked my for my professional input into the debate which I believe is raging in England (possibly the entire UK) regarding the cover for some new book.
Opinion would seem to be divided 50/50 between the two offerings. That probably means one each, if I know how surveys work. But anyway…. Let's see what we got here….

First on.. the Two Virgins job. Let's leave aside the heavy homage to the Lennon/Ono LP cover of 1968.

And let's just look… symbolism? Yes, I guess so. Very much so, in fact. This is no naturalistic daub. We are required to think.. to earn this image.
The cucumber (it is a cucumber, isn't it?) reminds me immediately of an Egyptian obelisk, a symbol of a beam of light. The big leaf beneath it, looks like it's attached, to give the impression of an immense green rocket thrusting off towards… the sun (The Light), held back only by Man's reticence and fear of the unknown.
And clearly the two tomatoes are powerful symbols of the yang and the monist/dualist dilemma that Mankind has always faced. Is All One and perfect, or bifurcated and perfect only in synthesis? We are not told. The question hangs, or dangles, if you will.
The other person is holding what would appear to be the two famous scale models of Brunelleschi's magnificent design for the dome of Florence cathedral. Again… a dualist dilemma. Is it a coincidence that the lady bears more than a fleeting resemblance to Boticelli's Venus? I'm thinking of the long blonde hair. The added starfish (Gastropoda merkina) reminds us inevitably of the seashell.
This is a subtle piece, which asks a question of us, full on.


What of the other contender?
A rough sketch, perhaps. Certainly a much rougher presentation, and possibly 'in the style of' rather than a perfect provenance.
But it has.. charm. That indefinable vernacular something which raises it from pastiche to an easy-flowing


picture of simple perfection. Simple is the key. The decorative carpet is gaily patterned, and we can all share in the joke that it is being erroneously laid outside. It will not even fit into the symbolic little 'house of glass' ('Light' again… but also vulnerability) and we are not privy to where the carpet will finally unfold. Its full potential has not yet unrolled. 'Fate'…
Meanwhile, in the background a common tradesman is waiting with his truck to take the carpet away to 'add to water' if necessary. We don't need to dwell upon the significance of the water here. It is frankly already too obvious, if anything.
The stereo boombox in the bottom right is 'sketchy'. We do not need a sound-track to explain this picture, is what the artist is telling us.
This is a darker piece than the Two Virgins, but carefully layered. It will not reveal itself to a casual glance.

Well, that's it, I guess.
As ever, the choice lies between Dionysus and Apollo. Do we go with the Apollonian vision of Light, as suggested by the rocket and the sun and the renaissance of post-medieval Italy? Or the more earthy Dionysian carpet, rolled out for us to disport upon?

The choice is yours. But I know which one I would go with.

Phyllis Stein


The book is to be called Scenes From aVegetable Plot and is due to be published in 2011, late summer, I believe.

Back on track..

Good heavens....

I've just noticed that my 'blog archive' has somehow turned up from the limbo it ended up in when I switched accounts.
I've no idea how it happened, but I'm sure I ought to say thankyou to somebody.
Whoever you are....'many thanks'.

Meanwhile, a woodpecker has just turned up on our peanut feeder. He comes in like an Exocet, scattering the blue tits like sparks. I wonder if woodpeckers ever get headaches? I suppose that if they do they just go and batter at willow bark until it goes away.

Thanks, Sonia...

Hi Sonia...

Thanks for your kind condolence.
I tried emailing you via your blog, but the message bounced as being a 'permanent failure'. Thought you ought to know!

Thanks again for your kind thought. Chas


***

Hey! We got some ditching done! It's all got even more urgent since a man has just paid me in advance for my old Fergie winch, and is going to be travelling 200 miles to collect it. The problem is that part of our main ditch (which drains a ten-plus acre field... not our own) has sprung a leak and has turned a previously firm and drivable track into a squishy nettle-infested quagmire, laced liberally with waving tentacles of bramble.
The winch weighs 6 cwt (~300kg) so it needs mechanical lifting. Ken next door says he can't do it because he would be sure to get his tractor stuck, and would need to call out Kevin and his 4WD JCB to haul him out. Hence, better all round if I cut out the middleman and call Kevin direct. Sound sense. But the JCB would make an unspeakable mess of what's left of the track, and the track would remain impassable once he'd hauled out the winch. This matters because we have other tools, including a plough, in that old shed, and they too will need mechanical lifting at some point. So.. a bit of a problem.

So we thought about it. Eventually we thought that maybe if we can dredge out the appropriate part of the ditch we could lower the local water table and let the rain go down to the cwm faster at the same time. Nett result... the quag would slowly drain and the track would become drivable by normal tractors again.
Very good.

We've made a start, by hauling out a 15 foot tree that was lying horizontally on the ditch bed, sending down roots from its trunk. Nature is a marvel, eh? Also, sawing out a few hazel branches to allow proper access to swing a pick-axe. Needless to say, this process involved careful trimming back of a couple of dozen ten foot bramble whips as well. Much scope for harmless fun and exasperation, and having one's woolly hat snatched off and dropped into the ditch.
En route, I discovered a hole in the otherwise shallow ditch bed, slightly deeper than my welly. Could it be, we wondered, that this hole is undermining the ruined wall between the ditch and the track, thus allowing water to flood where it didn't oughta be flooding? Could be. So the next job is not just deepening the flume, but dumping the spoil into the hole, thus a) helping to block it up a bit, and b) disposing of the rubble creatively. I love dual purpose jobs. And filling in an underwater hole would be another first. I'm looking forward to it.

Will it work? We shall see. Not today, alas, as it's bucketing down again. But soon.
Meanwhile, I've hauled the tree and hazel branches round to the house ready for sawing up for next winter's Rayburn-fodder. There's enough to heat the house for at least half a day.
Like I said.. I love dual purpose jobs.

I'm still waiting for my new webpage to sell Guide Yourself to Happiness from. How can it take so long?
Meanwhile, I've definitely decided to concentrate on putting the Grand Oeuvre onto the www and to not bother with preparing it for a paper publication until I see if there's any actual interest. It's an awful lot of work, preparing a book for publication; especially in paper.
Great relief.


Have a great day, dear reader. Chas

Of Ebooks and Flesh Eaters

Many thanks to everyone who responded to my last posting.
Overall, people seem to think that the future is coming, whether we like it or not, and that it is likely to be benign rather than pestiferous, although there are various issues to yet be addressed.

Quite so, I would say. It is, after all, a question of the spreading of democracy in publishing and personally I would support democracy wherever it pops up.
True, there will be an endless stream of drivel produced by this new democracy. But 'twas ever so. And does it matter? We all know how to access whatever it is we want to read, from Some Axiomatic Paradigms in Multiple Set Theory to Go Screw 'Em, Big Boy under the current publisher-run system. Why should it be any different under an democratic electronic one?

***

I'm still waiting for my web host to come up with a new webpage for me to offer Guide Yourself to Happiness from. The hold-up seems to be that there is a new form of PayPal now available, suited for small payments. This would suit me fine as I am offering 'GY2H' for only £2.95 as a PDF. Normal PayPal would charge me a large percentage of this price as commission. The new variety should be much cheaper. Unfortunately, my web host seems to be having trouble sorting it out. I was hoping to have the book 'out there' in time for Christmas, but that doesn't seem likely now, and the hard copy version is a non-starter until I've got the webpage. Stymied. Months of work… and now a grinding full stop, and nothing I can do about it, except to pester my web host and hope for the best.

What do you think of £2.95 for an ebook? I reckon it's about fair, myself. I've seen all sorts of complaints from people who have been asked to pay as much for an e-version as for a paper one. That is just ridiculous, in my eyes. One complainant says she was asked for more for the ebook than the paper one! Publishers are having a hard time with controlling their greed, I think.
Any views?

***

Funny how you don't spare a thought for flesh-eating fish for months on end then they come into your life twice within a few days.
A friend has just emailed to tell me of his holiday in Crete, during which he slipped on some wet stones while descending to the beach. He cut his knee quite badly but could still walk, and thought that a sea splash would help to wash the gravel out of the wound. So it did. But it also felt a bit… creepy. He looked down and was alarmed to see a fish chewing off the skin round the cut.
At about the same time I was in a midland town and was surprised to notice a shop next to M&S where you can dangle your feet in a bath of water while small tiddler-style fish chew off the dead skin. 'Only £10 for 15 minutes'. The place was over half full all the time I was there, peering through the plate glass window, miming scenes from 'Jaws'. All the customers looked a little.. 'startled' but otherwise content. Only one of them had had a leg reduced to a ragged stump, but that was probably due to a rogue piranha. I banged on the window to point it out and the management was in like a shot with an electrical stun gun and was most apologetic and offered the man a very attractive bamboo prosthetic on the spot. They also bandaged his smouldering hair with a smart little Gucci bandana.

Carpe diem!