Wednesday 1.7.09

Over to Gloucester to do an interview with John Rockley and Meurig for BBC Radio Gloucestershire. John’s very good making it fun as well as factual. Meurig says he’s the best local radio interviewer he’s come across. We return home via Cheltenham to look in the Museum’s window at the Cleeve School cardboard violins; they are as Meurig had said, stunning. Alan had told me that year 9 had worked with their art teacher on them as a special project, giving up a day to create these Kandinsky inspired masterpieces. We also look at the Brewery window where all the other Cheltenham School’s violins are exhibited; it looks amazing - there must be at least 1000 in the window, delightful images created in many different ways collage, pen, paint and sparkle.

We come home briefly then set out for London stopping at Burford en route to see Brian Sinfield in his new Gallery space, it’s the first time I’ve seen it. So I now have to consider whether I have enough work to fill it or whether I should go for a smaller show bearing in mind how busy I currently am.

We are back on the road in very good time to be at Harriet Bridgeman’s for ACS’s annual meeting of directors - or so we thought. The traffic is hardly moving, something’s obviously happened somewhere on the road ahead. When it gets to 5.30 I phone Harriet ot explain I might be late; at 6.30 we’re still hardly any distance further on. There are occasional cars overheating on the hard shoulder. At just after 7 pm we reach the problem; there’s a red car being lifted into the air by a crane but then we see a huge car transporter full of burned out cars down to the bare metal - no paint, no windows, no wheels. It’s horrendous and I feel myself shedding a tear at the thought of what might have happened to the drivers and passengers. When we eventually make it onto Westway I phone Harriet again; it’s a quarter to eight so I know the meeting is over but she says to pop in for a drink anyway. It must be after eight by the time I ring her doorbell. Jessica and Natalia, the two young women who run ACS have kindly waited so whilst I sip a Pimms and nibble some smoked salmon on brown bread, they run through the agenda and what was discussed. It is after 9 o’clock when I leave. Richard is waiting sitting in the tailgate of the open car, not chancing delivering his print to the London Business School in case it took too long. Harriet and the girls said I should have brought him in but I explain he was concerned about the parking restriction. Ironically it only takes another 10 minutes to deliver the print and we  can then set off on the return journey.

When we get home I turn the radio on to find out about the accident on the motorway - Richard looks on Google and picks up a report from the Banbury Post which says the motorway was totally closed from 1pm till 4.30 due to cars on a transporter catching fire. The blaze was tremendous, the smoke and fumes had stopped visibility as well as being highly toxic but thank goodness it appears no-one was hurt. Our slow progress was due of course to only one of the three lanes being still open.

Thursday 2.7.09

Time spent in the bigger studio working on the GC commission which becomes more colourful every day. In the evening we drive over to Gloucester for Bishop Michael’s garden party. It’s always a most enjoyable event to be surrounded by his beautiful floral  borders with the Cathedral rising above one of them, cutting its exquisite shape on the skyline. Lots of familiar faces and many new including the Bishop of Tanganyika. We chat to Edward then Mark and Julia Hurrell followed by Ian Mean who had sent an e mail this afternoon saying that he had discovered I knew his daughter - a lovely surprise to find that Vanessa, a young art consultant who works for Brian, as well as pursuing her studies on the effect that Napoleon had on art and design on which her dissertation is based. Quite remarkable as she’s just been doing her exams whilst expecting her first baby in a few days time. Brian said she’s amazingly enterprising and takes groups around art fairs. Ian tells me she and her husband have just bought an old house near stow. He then introduces us to Kevan Blackadder who has taken over from Anita as editor of the Echo. I am most touched when Bishop Michael asks me if I will create a work for his Christmas card.

Friday 3.7.09

It’s the opening of the ‘Painted Quartets’ exhibition. Richard’s parking the car when I go in and am delighted to meet John my wonderful carpenter. I’m just about to go with him to look at some of the Gerard Hoffnungs when a young man from BBC Radio Gloucestershire asks if I will do an interview beside my quartet; poor John ends up being my bag and glass of water carrier whilst two photographers also take photographs.  By the time we’ve finished it is the opening speech by Meurig, who then introduces Harry Enfield who is a great fan of Hoffnung and does a superb imitation of him. Greg Smith comes in just before they start and I also catch a glimpse of Martin Kiszko the composer (who s driven all the way from Bristol ) out of the corner of my eye. I later take Martin to introduce him to Meurig and whist I’m doing so spot Peter Swan from the Royal West of England Academy - such a delightful man who’s a great fan of Hoffnung and points to little passages within the pictures with great admiration for their draughtsmanship. There is a lovely arm of a woman which he says could almost be a Picasso and sure enough there is same purity of line that with great spontaneity maps even the little crease in her arm. I’m very pleased to see that Peter’s viola is in the same quartet as Richard’s half sized ‘cello which is also linear and depicts and makes reference to all the symphonies and quartets by Haydn that have names, including a large drawing of St Paul’s Cathedral that relates to the London series. Again his lines are very spontaneous - he’s also used a lot of lettering as has Ruth on her profile of head and map of the brain from the phrenologists point of view to which she has added ‘musicality’ to the finger board. Peter’s is a wonderful painting in oils of tree roots relating to the wood that the instrument is made of - lovely rich but subtle colours and as Meurig points out, the shirt that Peter is wearing is very similar in hue. It was so kind of him to  contribute and such a joy to meet him here.

Back to the studio and the big Gloucestershire College painting.

Saturday 4.7.0

After the days painting I change and we drive into Cheltenham for a brief visit to the private view of the Athletes and Olympians exhibition ( on loan from the National Portrait Gallery ) at the Museum which is most impressive mainly videos which include Sam Taylor Wood’s “David Beckham Asleep” and a most beautiful photograph of Linford Christie. After this we make our way to the Town Hall where again we bump into Mark and Julia Hurrell and James the photographer. The concert by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is brilliant, accompanying the dialogue by Harry Enfield who is totally convincing playing Handel running through his life story with music from the relevant period then being played and sung as with the extracts from Messiah and the Dettingen Te Deum. The eighteenth century trumpets in the balconies seemed wonderfully appropriate and powerful particularly “The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible”. During the interval we’re invited into the room set aside for Patrons and sponsors by Graham Lockwood who also tells me that he’s going to send a copy of his history of the Music Festival which has my ‘cello with Adam on the front and Eve on the back cover. We’re also delighted to see that my complete quartet has the honour of gracing the front cover of the Festival programme book. Whilst we are there Donna Renni chief executive of all the Cheltenham Festivals comes up to say nice things about my Peter Grimes violin. The added joy about this involvement with the Cheltenham Music festival is that these painted instruments will be auctioned next year for the National Star College.

Sunday 5.7.09

Good day on the GC commission. In the evening we have a double birthday supper with Richard and Rose and my Mum as it’s Rose’s birthday next week (and was mine last).

Monday 6.7.09

Working on all fronts. E mail  from Meurig saying he will incorporate a piece I’ve written at his request in response to an article in “The Strad” that strongly disapproved of painting musical instruments.

My piece:

As an artist I can think of nothing more fulfilling creatively than to take an object that has come to the end of its working life and which is destined for the wood burner, something that is already beautiful in shape but over played and worn out and to be able to breathe new life into it by recycling, to become once again an object of desire. To paint one's heart upon its surface knowing that it is going to be reborn and resold for a charity called the National Star College for severely disabled students and those with acquired brain injuries, to help raise money for their Creative Arts Centre. Thinking of composers like Handel and artists like Hogarth who gave to Captain Coram's Foundling Hospital, what better legacy could there be for artist and exhausted instrument than to serve such ideals. 

In response to this article in The Strad by Ariane Todes which seems very wasteful and certainly not environmentally friendly:

Clay, stone metal, paper, canvas, glass, timber: just some of the media available on which to imprint your imagination if you’re a visual artist. So why does anybody insist on painting flowers, clouds, pretty patterns or cherubs on violins?

The subject came up in The Strad office recently when were contacted by the Cheltenham Festival in the hope that we’d cover the painted violins that are on show at this year’s event. Little did they know that they’d inadvertently stumbled on a pet peeve of mine, and no doubt they were surprised by the vehemence of my reaction.

Why do I get so upset when I see violins covered with a layer of paint? The first problem I have is that

I just don’t get it. Why paint pictures on violins? No doubt many of the perpetrators are great artists. A quick internet image search brings up some cleverly imagined, well-executed images (as well as some monstrous kitsch). But why use a violin as merely a background? Why not just paint these images on a blank medium? To haul out the old cliché, is it art? And I don’t mean to suggest that it’s not possible to make art using real violins – it is, as long as their fundamental nature is understood and honoured, rather than simply being painted over.

The violin form is similar to great architecture and furniture in combining functional perfection with aesthetic beauty. Centuries of human care and attention have brought it to that state. To paint over it is to simultaneously ignore and destroy both.

Chemical layers rob an instrument of its power to create sound. The implication is even that the sound doesn’t matter – it is merely an object. As a player, having been around violins most of my life, I find it upsetting to see one that is no longer able to do the main thing it was brought into the world to do.

Apart from its functionality, the violin shape is intrinsically beautiful, so what is the point of superimposing an unrelated image on it, however beautiful? Would you paint a picture of butterflies and pansies on the side of a Baroque cathedral, or geometric shapes on a classic Shaker chair? Not without ruining the beauty of each of those forms. I can only imagine what luthiers feel about seeing someone’s hard work on purfling, planing and the rest swathed over with paint, but I can’t think it feels good.

I know that the instruments used in these artworks are usually past worthwhile repair or are cheap and factory-made, but isn’t it better to throw such instruments away and leave them their dignity rather than turning them into sterile objects? The only persuasive rationale I can see is that they are often used to raise money for worthwhile causes – usually struggling ensembles, youth orchestras, educational programmes – but maybe society should be looking at more secure ways of finding a future for classical music.

When I see painted instruments I’m reminded of the iconic image from the James Bond film Goldfinger, in which the villain’s secretary lies dead in Bond’s hotel room, asphyxiated by a layer of gold paint for having helped Bond. And that’s how I feel about painted instruments: to paint a violin is to kill it.

Tuesday 7.7.09

Good uninterrupted day in the studio on working on the big GC painting;  early evening transfer to Amer Baig’s commission and Madge’s after dinner.

Wednesday 8.7.09

ditto

Thursday 9.7.09

Another good day on the big GC painting. John my wonderful frame maker (who also makes theatre and TV sets ) arrives promptly at 5.30. He’s coming with us to the National Star College evening of Creative and Performing Arts. First of all we look at the photography exhibition; it’s always a joy to do so. Sue Bezani works very hard with her students who achieve amazing results especially considering that for some of them the actual physical process of taking the photograph can be very difficult. Each year I’m amazed at the high standard they achieve and it is always so nice to meet them in person. It’s good to see Michael Chambers and Abigail Price, two of last years PJC Photography Award winners. Michael is going to be a voluntary helper in the photography department at the University of Exeter next year; Abby is going on to do a new photography course when she leaves the NSC this summer. The exhibition was opened by Professor Darren Newbury, research co-ordinator at Birmingham Institute of Art & Design. The time always goes very quickly and suddenly we need to make our way to the marquee for the performances which are as usual stunning. The collaborations with the Festival Academy were particularly beautiful. The first incorporated a group of students who danced in their wheelchairs carrying colourful wooden shapes which towards the end of the performance are fitted together to become a double bass  (this was also a collaboration with Stop Gap Dance Company and the University of Gloucestershire). Paul Tarling had mentioned to me that the bass might be able to be auctioned with the painted quartets next year for the National Star College. In the second piece the students played musical instruments - big gong; bells etc. and sang. They had composed these sounds themselves with the help of Phillipa Claridge ( Festival education officer), Will Carslake (young inspirational conductor) and the Festival academy. There was also a wonderful Grimms Fairy Tale that involved the students designing their own beautiful Animal masks; a silent movie ‘Who Pays the Piper’and New World a collaboration with the Everyman Theatre. The Marquee was packed. Afterwards, delicious food served by Jacky and her team.

We and the College are currently very disappointed as the Learning and Skills Council have not kept their word in the pledge of 50% funding towards the new development at the College. Last week students travelled up to the Houses of Parliament with staff and Cotswold MP Geoffrey Clinton Brown who had asked if they could have a meeting with the Prime Minister; he did not although a meeting was arranged for today with the Minister responsible. The College and all its supporters are urging the Government to find the money to fulfil the LSC pledge. To support their petition and find out more please visit the Number 10 web site http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NationalStar/  or this page

Friday 10.7.09

Gloucestershire College painting absorbs the day and Madge and Amer’s commissions the evening.

Saturday 11.7.09

ditto.

Sunday 12.7.09

I continue the pattern of working on the large GC painting during the day which I’m really enjoying and gradually filling with more and more colour; and in the evening I work on both Madge’s commission and Amer’s.

Monday 13.7.09

ditto

Tuesday 14.7.09

ditto

Wednesday 15.7.09

ditto

Thursday 16.7.09

Arrive at the National Star College at 9.35. Today is the ceremony of Achievement where students receive their awards; many of them will be leaving the College so an occasion mingled with great pride of achievement but also the sadness of parting. The bonds between staff and students are very strong, likewise that between fellow students, so tears are shed during the ceremony. I present my three photography prizes; third prize to Amy Harbroe. This is the end of her first year and she has already achieved good picture making skills and worked hard to overcome her fear of the dark to enable her to process her photographs in the darkroom.

Second prize went to Hannah Rogers; Hannah is an incredibly determined young woman. She had elected to photograph the Riding for the Disabled group in her home County of Devon and  carried out a fantastic action plan, drawn up by herself, arranging transport and days away from college to carry out the shoots. She hopes to do photography at Plymouth College of Art and Design in September 2010 and then to progress to University.

First prize went to Helen Page; Helen suffered a stroke in her gap year prior to University and was in a coma for six months. She has worked so hard to overcome the loss of use of her limbs to became almost independent in  the dark room. This year she has put in tremendous effort and has achieved a place to study BTEC Photography at a college in Worthing.

After the ceremony we chat to the students and enjoy the buffet luncheon where I’m introduced to the a group of Mark Masons who had very generously made a donation of over £120,000 for the building of an accommodation unit for students; they were a fascinating group. I was quite amazed at the amounts they told me they raise from within the masons towards projects like buying ambulances and hospital units (which hugely impressed me) .

Before we go we have a discussion will Gill Henry about the plight of the College’s new development scheme now that the Learning and Skills Council, due to its own bad management, are not able to keep their promise of the 50% funding towards the new development. She asks if I will write a letter to the minister; all sorts of people have been or are doing so. This week he will have received a letter from Professor Stephen Hawking on Cambridge University paper and Anthony McClaran Chief Executive of UCAS. So I urge people to either sign the petition on the  Downing Street web site or write to the minister stressing the points on this link.

After this we drive up to London, to Hoxton’s A Foundation where Nathan is exhibiting an installation. We arrive in sunshine at about 6.30 and as we park bump into one of his friends Athanasias, also an artist. There’s a lovely atmosphere in this open air exhibition space and only   three or four exhibits. Nathan’s mirrored passageway leads into an inner sanctum where there are three performances created by a fellow artist, Tai. Two of her performers who look rather like automatons move in a mechanical dance like rhythm behind which we see our own reflections but when the music stops and the light goes down our reflections disappear and we see into another world where two other players are reflected numerous times. It culminates in the globe or ‘oracle’ emitting smoke and once again they disappear to be replaced by our own reflections and the continuations of the rhythmic movements of the automaton-like figures. I’m so intrigued I go in for two performances.

There are piles of tempting strawberries, watermelons, peas in pods as well as hot food and wine but as of late the weather again changes and we shelter underneath an open sided gazebo from the downpour that lasts the rest of the evening. We leave at 10 and all go for a drink in a nearby bar. Nathan and Ruth’s friends are all so nice we spend an enjoyable couple of hours with them before setting out for home arriving back at 3am.

Friday 17.7.09

A free day to just paint!

Saturday 18.7.09

During the afternoon Suzanne and Robert Godfrey arrive for tea and a studio visit. Lovely people. We get on from the word go. An hour after they leave we drive into Cheltenham for the Halle finale concert of the Cheltenham Music Festival the programme includes Thomas Ades’s Powder Her Face,  Mendelssohn’s great violin concerto with a most brilliant and passionate solo violin performance by the young Norwegian Vilde Frang, she was breath taking.

At half time we bump into Jane and David . The second half commences with Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes first performed at the 1945 Cheltenham International Music Festival five days after the opera’s London premiere with the composer conducting. This atmospheric music still conjures up the sea and captures my imagination as strongly as it evoked the same when I was a student (it was the first opera I saw). Peter Grimes was the inspiration for one of the four instruments (violin) that I painted for the Festival. Finally the Sibelius 5th Symphony that brings to this venue the chill winds and light of Finland, all the more real now that we have visited Estonia only a 45 minute helicopter flight away. Considered by many to be Finland’s unofficial national anthem with its nine chord ending which R recalls his music master at school playing for his pupils.

I invite Jane and David back for a drink and bite to eat.

Sunday 19.7.09

We’ve been invited today to Richard and Lesley Chatham’s 40th anniversary party where Richard is cooking a lunch on the barbecue (he built) for their numerous guests, there are vegetarian options too and lots of lovely puddings. We sit with Emma and Andy to enjoy ours and chat about Isaac and Samuel who she looked after on Friday morning and Rose and Jack, their own two children. Rose who I think is seven  is looking very sophisticated in black sparkly baseball boots, leggings and black T shirt. After the enjoyable afternoon we return home for a visit from my sister Gill and my Mum and more work in the studio.

Monday 20.7.09

Morning consumed by writing, afternoon by work in the garden and studios. 7.30pm Alan McConaghie arrives; he was one of the people I invited to become a Patron of The Friends of Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum and has enthusiastically embraced his new role.This afternoon he’s been in to see Jane Lillystone to discuss the Museum’s strategy for the new development and tonight he has organised that our other guest is Martin Horwood, MP (Liberal Democrat) for Cheltenham. Martin is a lovely man, full of warmth and enthusiasm; he notices everything about the house and goes from room to room with a delightful curiosity. He says I’m the only other person he’s met who has painted clouds on their walls as he’s painted his daughter’s bedroom with the four corners of the globe and clouds on the ceiling. I ask if they would like to come and see the studio, where we have interesting discussions about different works, the recycled wooden pieces on my large still life construction; the Saudi Arabian Al’dy’riiah and the big Gloucestershire College commission. We return to the house for supper and our discussion on fundraising for the Musuems new architectural development. Martin suggests the Houses of Parliament would be a good venue and says how wonderful the Pugin architecture and artwork etc. is. They come up with some really good seeds of ideas - now we’ll have to see if we can grow them.

Tuesday 21.7.09

Work on the Gloucestershire College  painting during the day with the other two commissions during the evening.

Wednesday 22.7.09

ditto 

Thursday 23.7.09

Call from Brian Sinfield re the show I am scheduled to have with him towards the end of the year. I’ve put it back a couple of times due to pressure of other work but he’s keen to hold one and would like an image for publicity etc. So scout round to see which paintings I’ve got that might be suitable; R optimistically stretches more canvases and primes them. I start a new piece and work on the Gloucestershire College commission in the evening.

Friday 24.7.09

Continue with the new piece.

Very sad to hear on the news on Radio 4 that John Ryan, the creator of Captain Pugwash, has died in hospital at the age of 88. I met him when he came to the private view of an exhibition I had at Rye Art Gallery. This generous man invited us back to his home. John had very kindly donated works to both the Star Art exhibitions (in aid of the National Star College), a beautiful Captain Pugwash water-colour for the first show at Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum in 1991 and an equally wonderful ‘Cut-throat Jake’ for the more recent exhibition in 2007 (which was bought by my friends Jane and David). He sent a most touching card with the latter saying at 85 his eyesight was now not very good but the little painting had all the strength, vigour, beauty and humour of  his earlier works and was not diminished in any way but perhaps took him rather longer to produce. He was at school at the Roman Catholic Ampleforth and later taught art at Harrow which is where he created Captain Pugwash for Eagle comic but it was thought to be a little too young for their readers -after they were published in book format the BBC saw the potential and made the animated Captain Pugwash series for their younger audience. He also created Mary, Mungo and Midge and Sir Prancelot.

Saturday 25.7.09

R drives over to the Savernake Forest to meet Henrietta and the little boys who are being delivered there by Kev’s father John. They are back by lunch time.

Sunday 26.7.09

We take Isaac and Samuel into the Museum; they love the children’s ‘Stay and play’ area and also very keen on the badger in the woodland scenario with the jay. He spotted the owl perched above the cases; they liked the penguins in the Edward Wilson room too and the Dowdswell  Pike. Samuel got excited about several of the sculptures near the stay and play area. They both enjoyed the visit so much that we were still there when the Museum was closing. We go back to prepare the 87th birthday tea for my Mum.

Monday 27.7.09

Phil Hicks from Montpellier Marketing e mails to ask if I can send him a quotation for them to use in the Echo’s campaign ‘be a Star for the Star’ in support of the National Star College’s campaign to put pressure on the Government to reinstate the half funding that they pledged to the College towards its new development. As I’m dictating it to Richard whilst doing things for Isaac and Samuel, Phil rings to ask if I could make it as long as possible and send it as soon as possible so in the middle of the chaos I’m trying to type whilst R is now trying to amuse the boys. Once I’ve sent it off we take the boys to Pittville Park after dropping Henrietta at the hairdressers. We’re thrilled to see that the peahens are accompanied by pea-chicks. Both boys love looking at the animals although Isaac’s quick to run down to the playground to clamber on the big climbing frames. After an hour or so in this part we move on to the lake to feed the ducks but are surprised that when we throw in bread bubbles rise to the surface and the bread seem to be devoured by fish we cannot see in the darkness of the water - so we imagine they are quite large. But moving around to and area where the sunlight hits the water we see that there are shoals of small fish - thousands - of them darting for our offerings often before the ducks can reach them. On our return after the boys and Henrietta have gone to bed I write a letter to the Minister, Kevin Brennan, to ask him to put pressure on the Government and the LSC to find the 50% funding that they had promised to the National Star College towards it’s new  development. 

Tuesday 28.7.09

R drives Henrietta and the boys back to London (whilst I work in the studio) before he goes to Cornellisen’s to collect large amounts of paint and brushes as my local supplier is closing. Before they left he went to collect our copy of the Gloucestershire Echo and I’m delighted to see that Edward Gillespie has written a very nice piece for his quote and so have Lady Ashcombe of Sudeley Castle and also her son Henry Dent-Brocklehurst.

Brian Sinfield rings to see if I’ve got an image for him. I explain that Richard’s not here but will send him some in the next day or two.

Wednesday 29.7.09

Trying to refine three images to give Brian S a choice. R sends them off at 3 am when I decide to quit for the day.

Thursday 30.7.09

R takes one of the three paintings to The Darkroom to have a transparency made and I work on Madge’s and Amer’s commissions.

Friday 31.7.09

R drives up to London to help Henrietta and Kev with the big move from the flat they were renting into storage for the next month -they are waiting for the purchase of a house to go through but there is a chain along the line. Meanwhile I’m working on all fronts. Henrietta, Kev and the boys arrive back about midnight and R shortly afterwards, with his car loaded with goods and chattels that somehow escaped the storage unit.

Linford Christie by Alistair Morrison, 1996   © Alistair Morrison

from the National Portrait Gallery exhibition Athletes and Olympian at

Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum until 30 August 2009