Requiem for the Norm

 

I will soon address a conference in New York about my work in the 1980s. The conference was entitled Requiem for the Norm, and celebrated the life and work of Lorenza Böttner.   This Chilean/German artist was born in 1959, and although  her artistic career spanned just sixteen years, Böttner created hundreds of individual works, using dance, photography, street performance, drawing, and installation to celebrate the complexity of armless embodiment and gender expression. Casting herself as a ballerina, a mother, a young man with glass arms, a Greek statue, Böttner’s work is irreverent and hedonistic, filled with the artist’s joy in her own body.

 

Curated by Paul B. Preciado, the exhibition was co-produced by Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany, and La Virreina Centre de la Imatge Barcelona, Spain. This touring exhibition is organized by the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Canada, in collaboration with the producers, the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany, and La Virreina Centre de la Imatge Barcelona, Spain.

 www.leslielohman.org

26 Wooster Street

New York, NY 10013

Dutch Hansa Championships

 Delighted to have come 5th in the Dutch National Championships in Heeg, today

All wild, windswept and interesting . .

 if you have been reading this blog for a while, I imagine you think this artful life is interesting and full of strange encounters?

Well, you are right. This week was no different. The studio visitor was all wild, windswept, and interesting (as well as a bit 'flappy'). I did not entertain him for long. He left abruptly, somewhat disgruntled.

Now, to be fair, I know him well. He visits regularly. In fact, his family has been guests under our roof for as long as I can remember (well over two decades). They are all intrepid, independent traveler types. They drop in, poke about and stay the whole summer.

This week, when one of them popped into the studio, the welcome was a little cold, unfriendly, possibly even, a bit, dare I say . . hostile?

It was not a good time.

These days my studio is busy. I am preoccupied, dealing with numbers. There is a lot of measuring and labeling, stacking and storing to be done, as I force myself to focus on preparing for not one, not two, but three exhibitions before the end of the year.  As a result, I can't do much painting. I rely on most of my visual thrills in artfully arranging cucumber peel or lime zest over baba ghanoush. But now as the measuring and labeling, storing and stacking continues, I can actually see an end in sight. In the past, it was different. There was never any sense of completion until the work was dispatched to the gallery. At that time, my biggest failure was to keep painting until the day before the exhibition was hung, madly framing anything that didn't move. This meant when it came to hanging the show, I would have many options, few regrets, and lots to choose from. This is no way to organise an exhibition. Trust me. So, now, I am doing it differently. I am determined to do it better. For weeks now, most of the work has been spread out all over the floor. Five months out, I find myself working with what I've got until I have it all finished, framed and ready to go.  I have even ordered bubble wrap. In this context, yesterday's visitor proved quite the disruption. With the sun shining, and a light breeze blowing, I had flung the doors wide open with abandon.  He swoops in, with a flourish. He was all glamorous and noisy, purposeful and speedy while managing at the same time to be darkly dramatic. I was in no mood.  I reached for the floor brush sweeping it about, hoping to discourage his enthusiasm for an unscheduled visit. This didn't work very well as a strategy.  Instead of getting the hint and going back out as quick as he came, he artfully avoided the messy floor by soaring above it all. At the same time, I must admit, he was making very appreciative noises (I can only assume it was about the artwork). Because my workspace is full of wet, white-painted frames, I couldn't help noticing his rigout. He was stunningly attired . . . black dress suit complete with tails, and a lovely bright orange sash to the front. As elegant as he was handsome, as noisy as he was nimble, I still urged him towards the door. But he wasn't having any of it. Eventually, tiring of us I suppose, and the artwork, he started to screech so alarmingly I feel sure the whole neighbourhood would rush in to find what the commotion was about. In desperation to see him leave, I closed the blinds. It had the effect of darkening the space. It left him one option. And thankfully he took it, leaving as swiftly as he came. For my troubles, on his departure, he endowed me with a gift of his own. During his swooping strike on this studio, he shat on the nice, clean, white frames.  As it is being washed off and repainted, we can only marvel and be forever grateful that he missed each and every one of the paintings.

On Bravura and Barmy Requests

 

"How long did it take you to paint that?" It is a question that I am asked frequently and I never quite know how to answer. In the old days, I would say (with a smirk), “half a day and half a lifetime”. But that was me just trying to avoid the question. It was not true then, and it's not true now. My paintings are always like open-ended conversations. They start at some point after I begin with bravura* and end only when the painting leaves the studio. Tone, of course, is everything. Often the question sounds like an attempt at polite conversation . . . (which it is not). Like the question awkward adults often ask children . . “What class are you in at school?” Other times, it presents as a challenge.. . . If it costs this much, and it took you that long, "shouldn't we all have a go at this painting craic?" And yet, other times, the tone has a dollop of “All the same, isn’t it a great way for you to pass the time?” So, really, how long does it actually take me to paint a painting? I finished a commission recently so I should really be able to quantify it. Since December 1st, I have worked mostly on this one commission (although I have tried and failed to finish 3 other paintings as well). That’s about 9 weeks. In getting to the final piece, I used three large canvases (most bigger than myself). I knew what was the right size for the job, but in the Brexit / Covid climate, it proved hard to get. And so, as I waited, I couldn't resist starting on a smaller canvas (small means 120 cm in height), in order to reach the deadline of the end of January.  But even then, as I discarded the one that was too small, and started on a larger one, the conversation turned slightly weird . . The image began to represent something not at all suitable for the living room of a couple starting out in life. And so it was a big brush and lots of white paint to pivot that conversation.  That painting reminded me of a woman in the supermarket who explained to me in all seriousness that she can't wear a mask because she needs to lipread. I resisted pointing out that a mask would not cover her eyes and therefore would not interfere with lipreading. Instead, I just moved along.  At last, I am learning to disengage with all the daft conversations that exist in my world. . . like the intense, earnest young man who asked me to teach him to paint “with his feet”, because he said he had “tried and tried and read all the books" and he still couldn't paint. He told me "Seriously, I really couldn’t manage it with my hands. I need your help" He had tried very hard. Now he wanted to try using his feet. He said I made it look "easy".  Right.  I confess I did look around for the hidden camera. But he was serious. I was, he said, his last shot. Would I not help him realise his dream of being an artist?  As I said, it is really enough to have the paintings talking to me without him at it in that slightly too serious tone of voice. The conversation with the painting does not begin easily and certainly, not straight away. There is that awkward bit of making a start first. This ball is firmly in my court. I start really without knowing what to expect. But when it does begin, the talking back never stops. I can only get to appreciate the painting when I take it out of the studio and place it on what I call, “my breakfast wall”, my wall of contemplation (what I see before I try and do anything else in the morning). When on the contemplation wall, something changes. The conversation on both sides ceases. But back to the big painting I delivered recently. I had some instructions for the commission before I started. . . It had to be big. It had to light up a large 5-metre high dark wall. It had celebrate the colour orange and mark the start of this couple’s lives together. It does all this and more. Happy Valentines Day to you and yours,

Bravura . . I had to look up the definition to make sure it meant what I intended and the answer is yes. "a show of daring or brilliance"

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 As the year turns, my focus in the studio is laser-sharp on taking stock, tidying up, and ordering supplies. It is a temporary phenomenon that evaporates in early January as effortlessly as the morning mist.

My focus has been so sharp on that task of cleaning up that I found time to throw together a short studio tour. This shows my nice, once clean, new and tidy studio is a glorious mess once more and the task of taming it forgotten momentarily.

Over Christmas,. due to the confines of Covid, I was left to my own devices and free from the seasonal conventions of food with company. I had instead, the pleasure of scouring the fridge each evening to see what might be scrambled together. 

At this task, I excel. My fridge clearance dinners are legendary for their beauty and elegance. So when I find myself sculpting cucumber and moulding it artfully around carved avocado, adding a complementary red tomato, it is a siren call . . . I know that it is time to stop cleaning, cooking and tidying the studio. 

It is time to paint.

But before I head out again, I see that my last blog had a subject line of "On life being very interesting . ." and it reads like a curse., I am reminded of the Chinese saying "May you live in uninteresting times". So, for 2022 and beyond, May We All Live in Uninteresting Times". A life without masks, sanitising gel or degradation of the earth, poverty, storms, fires or floods. 

Too much to hope for? 

Probably. 

But this is what I wish for the coming year . . that we live in uninteresting times . .

On Heading West

 It is not yet 6am and I am typing here and trying not to spill my cup of tea. It is of course, pitch dark outside and I am doing "one last thing before I go. ." . . 

Later in the morning I will be driving off west on what I think of as my "painting retreat". In order to get away for ten days, I have been working hard but mostly, I must admit, failing to catch up.

It was not possible to do anything except focus entirely on getting to Palermo, being there and getting home again. In fact, it was all very challenging and if you have an appetite for it you can read about an account I wrote about my experience and especially about my last race for Irish Sailing magazine. It is called "You All have Someone and I have Nobody" and it's a frank account of the emotional toll stuff like this takes. Despite appearances to the contrary, living in this world without arms is not easy, (while it does make life very interesting). However, because it was written for sailors it has some terms that are frankly, very strange. The short version is that in sailing ropes are called sheets and pulling ropes is called "sheeting in".

A Crazy Distraction from the Stuff of Life?

 I was busy up to my knees in paint a few weeks ago, when I got a call asking would I like to represent Ireland in the World Championships for my type of boat, in Italy?

Well, uncharacteristically, I did hesitate to answer The Call.

Of course, there was Covid to consider but the major issue was not the virus or the vaccinations, but how was going to get my boat there? I have my own specially designed dinghy and I can't hire a boat so I cannot sail without it. Normally I tow it to where I am going, but I was not quite ready to drive over 3,000 km to Sicily. The caller offered to put it in a Container (funded by World Sailing) if I would agree to bring it to the UK. So, of course, I peeled off my painting bootees and picked up my buoyancy aid, and I am off to Palermo in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The other interesting thing happening in my world is that RTE came out some weeks ago to my studio and filmed a short feature for Nationwide , the television programme on RTE 1. It is going out tonight at 7 pm.

I try to avoid watching these things because I will remember forever every stupid thing I said, but I thought you might remember not what I said, but how beautifully it was made, or what create pictures were featured in it. But, also, I do understand that you might be interested to know that Best Foot Forward, the young students' documentary made last spring, is being well received all over and has been selected as a finalist for Kerry International Film Festival, the Clones Film Festival, and is nominated for Louth International Film Festival.

It is actually not possible to organize participation in a World Championship Sailing and paint at the same time, even for someone like me, used to juggling lots of balls in the air. It is not possible to do anything except deal with something like this. So, in recent weeks everything got ditched as Palermo got prioritized.

It was interesting for me to note that lately,  all my paintings have a maritime theme . . So it feels serendipitous to be heading off sailing and not, as some might suggest, a crazy distraction from the stuff of life.