“I loved it! This is a great story with a wonderful concept and excellent background.” Readers’ Favorite
As they continued slowly down the centre of the aisle Omri resumed his photography taking pictures of each of the six apses, of the ceiling, of the floor and the seating and then the stairs leading up to the transept and the choir.They passed behind the raised altar and stared up at the cupola before arriving at the two marble slabs denoting the tombs of Franco and de Rivera, about ten yards apart.‘So where exactly is our object?’ asked Omri in a lowered voice.‘You’re standing on it now’ Alex said looking at the slab beneath Omri’s feet. ‘You’re right on top of it.’
Normally, we fly to and from Malaga airport when traveling to our Spanish home from the UK, but due to COVID-19 flight disruptions we were forced to fly in and out of Gibraltar this past trip. Not having been to Gibraltar for more than twenty years, and with mostly bad memories of the place, we were not too happy about this particular expedience. However, we found it almost unrecognisable in the harbour areas especially, where there has been billions of pounds of investment in new port-side developments. We also sensed an energy and a confidence about the town which was missing before, making it a far more pleasant place than we remembered to spend time in.
Sadly, Gibraltar’s gastronomy has yet to get the same overhaul as much of its architecture, and remains firmly stuck in the Britain of the 50’s and 60’s. Those wishing for a decent meal, that isn’t fish and chips, or a full English, are best advised to walk across the border into the Spanish town of La Línea de la Concepción.
Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed our little break, which offered plenty of nourishing fair for the eyes, if not for the stomach…
1) LOOKING SOUTHWEST: We stayed at the famous Rock Hotel, which offers splendid panoramic views of the bay, Algeciras, and across the straights to Morocco, where sits the mountain in this picture, Jebel Musa – widely believed to be the Rock of Gibraltar‘s fellow “Pillar of Hercules…”2) LOOKING NORTHWEST: Algeciras – one of Spain’s busiest cargo ports – lies across the Bay of Gibraltar (Bay of Algeciras for the Spanish) and together with Gibraltar’s own, far smaller harbour, offers a constantly changing vista of animated shipping. A ship spotters paradise…A small container ship leaving Gibraltar shortly before sunset, heading for the Straights and the Atlantic Ocean beyond…3) The La Alameda Botanic Gardens were just across the road from the hotel, and although dating from 1816, were new to us, and were a particularly exotic and lush surprise… 4) Although relatively small, the gardens are beautifully laid out, and crammed full of flora and fauna from all over the world…5) Of all the airport lounge views we have ever seen, this takes some beating.
Lady Dozing (Rhodes old Town) – 1983 – pencil on paper
For reasons far too mundane to go into here, the next couple of months are going to be among the busiest and most frenetic for quite a while, and hence I will have far less time than usual to devote to these posts – at least in written form. Thus, for most, if not all of the next half-dozen or so offerings, I will revert to primarily presenting series of images, hopefully, linked by some kind of theme.
Boy Jumping off Diving Board – 1978 – pen on paper
In keeping with this temporary minimalist expedience, I present here a series of my old line drawings, ranging roughly across a couple of decades, from about 1976 to the mid 90’s.
Macedonian Hipparchy at Issus (after Dali) – 1980 – pen on paper
A tutor at Harrow School of Art once told me that “the line is the foundation stone of picture making…master the line and everything else will follow. She added that “artists who fail in this are like musicians attempting to compose tunes without being able to read music…”.
Resting Girl – 1978 – pen on paper
It was a simple message, and all the more powerful for that, and one which stuck with me ever since – its truthfulness being self-evident. Then, when I taught for a while myself, I would begin every class with at least an hour of line drawing exercises, to the point where it drove some of my students to distraction. However, they would invariably tell me when we met up years later, how much they now appreciated, ironically, the freedom and confidence this grounding had given them to develop their artistic styles, however figurative or abstract.
Dido at Work – 1993 – pen on paper
But, apart from anything else, and continuing the musical analogy, the simple line drawing, when done well, offers so much in and of itself in a way similar to how a piano sonata, or a string quartet, may express a deep intimacy and subtle power, lacking in a massive orchestral work. And, hopefully, the selection of doodles here give some idea of what I’m talking about – all very much “quiet, solo instrumental pieces”…
As I pressed the “Publish” button for this post, exactly ten years ago to the day, the hour and the minute, my mother Hannah died. Knowing the exact moment of a loved-one’s death well before it happens is a dubious privilege, which until very recently in human history was the sole preserve of the relatives and friends of those on death row. However, in recent times this situation changed when, in a handful of places in the world, the laws on assisted dying were liberalised.
One such place was the country of Switzerland, which in addition to permitting assisted dying to its own citizens, allowed the setting up of Dignitas, a unique facility, on the outskirts of the city of Zurich, for the use of foreigners.
My mother was diagnosed with terminal stage-4 lung cancer in 2008, and was “given” about two-and-a-half years to live. After her first round of chemotherapy, she contacted the organisation Dignity in Dying to discuss her options for placing the end her life within her own control. Ultimately, as a British citizen, her only option when the time came, was to travel to Zurich.
And the time came in September 2010: The cancer was now spreading throughout her body and she was facing about six months of a slow and increasingly painful death. Rather than take the normal option for her compatriots, of moving into a hospice and relying on palliative care with ever-increasing doses of drugs – or, as mum regarded it, surrendering to the cancer – she decided to “take control away from the cancer, and put it into [her] own hands”.
So, on the 6th of September, accompanied by a companion, but crucially, under her own locomotion, Hannah flew to Switzerland, where four days later, at 11 o’clock Swiss time, she took a fatal draught of pentobarbital.
These are the basic facts of my mother’s passing. This post is not intended as either a vindication or a condemnation of Hannah’s actions, nor is it a discourse on the rights and wrongs of assisted suicide. Moreover, were I ever to be in a similar situation, I have no idea whether or not I would make the same choice. The one observation I will make, is that while I totally respected my mother’s decision, being aware of the exact moment of her suicide added a strange dimension to my sense of grief and loss, even as she left for the airport. Whether or not this particular form of grief and loss is preferable to what I would have gone through watching her slow demise in a hospice bed, I genuinely cannot say. The one great comfort I did have, and continue to have, is that she died in a manner of her choosing and; according to her companion, in a state of peace; and most wonderful of all, with her sharp sense of humour intact until the end, as evidenced by this closing anecdote…
When mum and her companion arrived at the house used by Dignitas, they were met by two nurses and shown into a sitting room. One of the nurses (a male), was exceedingly friendly, and especially chatty, to the point, that when he went off for a few moments to prepare the overdose, Hannah, leaned over to her companion, and whispered, “I don’t envy you having to listen to him for the rest of the day!” This says much about my mother’s indomitable personality, and I hope this small selection of photographs , taken between 1961 and 63, reveals her outward beauty too…
This beautifully tender portrait of Hannah, having just been deserted by my father, dates from early 1961, by her brother Sidney.
This picture – also 1961 – is very special to me. It was one of a series taken of me as a baby by Sidney for the Johnson’s Baby Powder campaign featured in another recent post – but this one shows mum clearly.
This dates from 1962. The model Sandra Paulwas late for a Max Factor shoot and Sidney had his make-up girl prepare Hannah to stand in.
In 1962 again, this was taken (also by Sidney) at the sports day at my brother’s boarding school – mum, always stylish in those days.
We grow three types of almond here on our finca in southern Spain, including the indigenous (earthy) “fina” , the (scented, sweet) “desmayo” (similar to the Californian nut, and what is typically seen on the shelves of north European and British supermarkets and fruit shops) and (the dry) “marcona“. With summer water so scarce here, Andalusian farmers, as a rule, do not irrigate their almond trees, which on the one hand means lower yields and smaller fruits, but on the other, ensures their fruits are intensely flavoured. All delicious in their different ways, we find that the marcona works best for most cooking purposes.
Before we spent so much time in Spain, I only knew the almond as something seen in the nut bowl at Hanukkah / Christmas time; and in its ground form, as a cake ingredient (my great aunt Fanny’s almond cake was my favourite), and as the famous Jewish party nosh, rozhinkes mit mandlen (raisins and almonds).
However, that all changed drastically, and much for the better once we discovered the local cuisine, here in Andalusia, and throughout the Iberian peninsular, where the humble almond (always known to be a “super-food” by the long-lived locals) is a key constituent of every cooks larder.
Of course, just about everyone around here, with a finca, like us, or just a small patio garden, has at least one almond tree, so that in addition to the ubiquitous sack of stored almonds in the pantry, or the bodega, there’s generally a proliferation of the fresh fruits from mid-July until the end of August. Whereas the older nuts will typically be used for such winter staples as Almond Chicken and Albondigas (meatballs) in Almond Sauce, in summer, the fresh, softer fruits, will be blended with stale bread, garlic, olive oil and spring water to produce, rich-yet refreshing ajo-blanco – garnished with halved moscatel grapes, perhaps the greatest of all chilled soups (commercial “almond milk” – eat your heart out!).
But undoubtedly the simplest of all our regular almond recipes, is also the most moreish and is equally good made with fresh or dried almonds. It even works quite well with the sort of (mostly American – heavily irrigated) almonds one has knocking about in plastic packets in British, European and American kitchen store cupboards. The only thing I would suggest doing differently from my recipe below, is to use a cheap, refined olive oil, rather than the first cold press oil I use. Unless one has a Spanish finca like ours, with our own olives and copious amounts of the finest oil, or is extremely wealthy, the taste benefit of using extra virgin oil over refined olive oil is minimal.
Whatever olive oil you use, if you’ve had a packet of almonds hanging around for too long, this recipe is a simple and delicious way to use them up. Salud y buen provecho!
Just the three ingredients; almonds, olive oil and sea salt…
Blanch the nuts in a deep bowl of boiling-hot water…
Set sufficient olive oil to comfortably deep-fry the almonds, over a high heat…
Stir the almonds constantly to prevent them sticking and ensure they cook evenly as possible…
When all the almonds are at least a deep honey colour (some will be darker), lift them out of the oil with a slotted spoon, and place in a shallow dish lined with generous amounts of kitchen role. Toss well to remove as much excess oil as possible. It’s better to slightly over-do the almonds than under cook them and have them bland and oddly “milky” – rather like the tasteless “roasted” almonds in those little bags one gets given on aeroplanes with a drink…
Toss the almonds in a generous pinch (or two) of sea-salt, to taste. Do not be sparing with the salt, and remember, that this is not a low-sodium snack. Better to restrict oneself to just a couple of well-seasoned nuts than to spoil the dish by using too little salt, or foregoing it altogether…
The almonds are fabulous with an ice cold beer, though equally delicious with just about any aperitif, spirit, or cocktail.
It took us about six years to fall in love with our Spanish home and to begin to appreciate its full value to us as both somewhere to escape, and to recharge our intellectual and emotional batteries…
Followed by the reestablishing our lives in London (via-Tunbridge Wells) and getting ourselves back on our feet financially…
Until eventually, the resentment we had felt toward our distant Spanish home, for being the ruination of our lives, very gradually transformed into yearning, as we came to understand the sanctuary it offered us from our daily grind…
And so, in 1999, I felt the need to celebrate with this set of colourful, impasto gouache sketches, done as postcards; intended to express our sense of freedom and joy at the regaining of our lost paradise. But never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined, even in that seminal year of 1999, just quite how fortunate we really were…
Not until experiencing the madness of three months of semi-house arrest in a small Oxford apartment (I refuse to dignify the “L” word by using it), followed by the oddly, even more disturbing new “normality”, did we truly grasp how blessed we are to have our little, private, mask-less, socially intimate, sanctuary of peace and sanity.
(I should add, that I still have the entire original set of 10 postcards, signed, titled and dated, and in near-mint condition, and far brighter and more charming in real life. I had originally intended to send them to select friends and family, but for some reason never got around to it. So now, I would be happy to sell them as a set for £200 – or other currency equivalent – plus postage. If anyone is interested please contact me through the “Purchasing artwork” link at the top of this page.)
…and the stark difference between copying and INTERPRETING.
This is not the post I had planned. But that was before I had the great misfortune, not to say fright of seeing the latest portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. A few posts ago I discussed how I came to paint from photographs, and how and why it can work brilliantly in the right hands. What I did not discuss however (and perhaps I should have done), was the converse of this, when photographs are simply copied as a form of craft, with the art all but forgotten.
The “artist” has succeeded in confirming every prejudice I ever had thrown at me by detractors of “photograph-method”, and arrived at a plasticised and peculiarly scary image, obsessed with technical finesse while utterly devoid of empathy and artistry. This is not so much a majestic portrait as a grotesquely kitsch, 2-dimensional waxwork. This is the produce of a copyist and not an artist all, and says much – none of it complementary – about the judges of the BP National Portrait Award; the winning of which landed the alleged “artist” this most august of portrait commissions.
As I attempted to illustrate in a previous post, copying from photographs offers so much more than the absolute stability of the reference material (i.e. total stillness and unchanging light). IN THE RIGHT HANDS – from Vermeer (with his Photo Obscura) to Rockwell – it offers up an essence and intensity of “moment” that resulted in some of the most empathetic and compassionate pictures ever achieved.
While I would never be so hubristic as to place my own photograph-method creations on a par with those of the great masters of the past, I dare to claim, that at their best, my efforts do at least show some of the positives of the genre. Three of the pictures below were not only exciting and fun to create, they are human expressions accentuated by technique rather than masked by it. The fourth picture is an example of my own, of what happened when I allowed technique to subsume the human moment.
Jolanda – 1983 – oil on canvas:- Jolanda was the first love of my life, as I hope and believe this tender portrait betrays. Using a tiny snap from a then-recent visit to Cremona, I wanted to capture the romance of her, bathed in the Renaissance tones and light of her native Lombardy.
Lynne – acrylic on board – 1996:- Lynne was an ex-ballet colleague of my wife Dido and a close friend. I can’t recall if this was a commission or a gift, but it comes from a series of images of her, and her and Dido, dancing for my camera at our house in Spain. Again, I used the photo as a sketch upon which to elaborate both Lynne’s graceful movement and her vibrant personality, and all drenched in the bleaching Andalusian summer light.
Marie and Juan Junior – 1998 – oil on canvas (detail):- Juan and Marie were our only full-time neighbours when we first moved to our country home in Spain. However, unlike us, who sought solitude and lived remotely by choice, they were outcasts from the local village and desperately poor. Nevertheless, they were a cheerful and extremely loving couple, always pleased to offer us the modest hospitality they could. In this picture of Marie feeding her new baby boy (and second child) I tried to express a mixture of our compassion for their kindness, and our admiration for their dignity, despite their arduous circumstances.
Margaret and Pete’s Party – 1994 – gouache on Daler Board:- In fairness, this was always intended as more of an exercise in technique and excruciating attention to detail, than as a work of artistic expression. The drawing alone took me the best part of a week, and I think I spent over four months on the piece altogether (it was also intended as a way to help me pass the days during the months of depressing boredom while stuck in Boulogne sur mer ). Although not quite so dire as the Queen’s new portrait, it is equally sterile, and that probably explains why I never completed it. Interesting to note, that the hands on the nearer completed figure (actually yours truly), despite being immaculately drawn/copied, have the same “banana bunch” feel as those of Her Majesty in the new portrait.
…my brief spell “DESIGNING” JOKES FOR A top GREETINGS CARD COMPAny.
In previous postsI have described the frustrations I often experienced at the hands of unscrupulous greetings cards companies (of which there were a surprisingly large number), who would reject my artwork but then use my jokes and ideas without paying me. As described, I would submit a folio of cards designs; the company would sit on them for several weeks (sometimes months) and then return them with barely an acknowledgement (sometimes none); and then, a month or two later, cards with my jokes and ideas would suddenly appear on the shop-shelves made by different (presumably in-house, and thus far cheaper) artists.
“Love skiing”
I don’t know if things have changed since, but the problem back in the late 80’s, early 90’s, was that, unlike in almost all other areas of commercial art/illustration, there was no formal contract system in place for freelance artists doing work for greetings cards companies. Normally, you sent in your work on “spec”, and took a chance on the integrity, or otherwise of the company.
“Mernaught”
Thus it happened, that around 1990, I found myself with a pile of ideas and jokes, but wary of being stung yet again, I decided to try a different tack.
“Ashes to… ashes” (This could be a touch oblique for non-cricket lovers, however for those in the know, the bowler is of course the one and only Jeff “Thommo” Thomson.)
I telephoned the-then biggest card firm in the UK (they might still be, for all I know now) and asked to speak to their art director. I had never approached them before because I knew they only used in-house artists for their finished cards, but as I’d now reached the point where I would be content with at least earning something for my ideas, I guessed I had nothing much to loose.
I was put straight through to the lady in question, and told her of what I had experienced at the hands of several of her rival companies, and asked her frankly if I would be taking the same risk sending my material in to her for consideration.
My guess was, perhaps naively, that such a large company would be more straightforward to deal with, for the sake of their professional reputation if not for their innate honesty. However, she explained that they could not enter in contractual arrangements with freelancers as this undermined the morale of their in-house artists. Nevertheless, she offered to put a non-binding assurance in a hand written letter that her firm would definitely pay me a fair price for each and every idea of mine they liked.
(There’s a cereal ad currently on UK TV which tells a similar joke…I wonder?)
Good to her word, the letter arrived a day or two later, containing her assurance, and a request for sketched roughs of my jokes and ideas – about 12 of which I duly dispatched to her, albeit on a wing and a prayer.
“Birdy – no birdie”
After hearing nothing for weeks I began to think the worst, but about two months later I was pleasantly surprised to not only receive back my roughs, but also a cheque for the half-dozen or so ideas they had decided to use.
Wrong ball!
Several of those roughs are displayed here, and I wonder which, if any ring a bell…?
I nearly titled this as a third straight “yearning” post, in the sense that after three months lock-down here in Oxford we are desperate to get back to our finca in southern Spain. But seeing as we are actually returning there tomorrow I decided on a catchier and hopefully more optimistic heading.
In fairness, when we’ve been in Spain for as long as we’ve now been in England there’s plenty I miss about our other lives in London and Oxford, but the longing is rarely as intense as what we are experiencing right now for our Andalusian home.
And perhaps there’s the clue; the fact that our little farm in the foothills of the Sierra Tajeda is the nearest thing Dido and I have ever had to a settled home. We’ve certainly owned it for more than three times as long as any of our previous homes (separately or together), and then there’s all the sweat and blood we’ve dripped into the building of our house and the rocky soil upon which it stands.
But perhaps, more than all of that, it’s simply the way the setting of our finca has ingrained itself into the fabric of our being through the sheer power of its ridiculous beauty.
So, although we missed wonders like the almond blossom display this year, thanks to about thirty years of memories, and images like the ones on show here, we can never truly miss them – they live inside of us, rendering us unusually fortunate.
A fact of the current restrictions upon our normal lives is at once curious, obvious and virtually universal; that being the loss of, and consequent longing for, normal, boring, and even tedious everyday experience. Missing erstwhile unremarkable pleasures of life, like going to the pub, restaurants and concerts is bad enough, but when one starts to get nostalgic over things like hopping on and off buses and even journeys on the tube, it’s apparent that the present regime is really starting to bite.
This nostalgia struck me keenly the other day when I was trawling through slides of old sketchpads dating from the time of my commutes to art school (an incredible forty-plus years ago). And, as an artist’s sketchbook is often a tool for magnifying the seemingly mundane into something more meaningful, it occurred to me that the drawings from those old books might provide a peculiarly apposite reminder, for all its apparent dinginess and dreariness, of the glory of normality…
Buses – 1978 – (blue) pastel on paper This and the drawing below date from toward the end of my two years foundation course at Harrow School of Art when I travelled from my home North London suburb of Edgware to Harrow on the 288 bus. I rarely sketched on the buses as it was mostly impractical and nausea-inducing…
Friday’s Bus – 1978 – Charcoal on Paper …Judging by the folio case between his legs, I’m guessing that this guy might have been going to the same place as me…
Person in a Paddington Bear Hat – 1979 – Felt-tip on Paper (Gouache hat paint, added later) …Following my foundation course at Harrow, I began Saint Martin’s in the autumn of 1978. I swapped from the bus to the Northern Line tube for the journey from Edgware to Charring Cross Road (I can’t recall why I did what I did with the hat, or when)…
Spectacled Reader – c1980 – Charcoal on Paper …Although I was never as prolific a sketcher as I ought to have been, I did a relatively large amount of drawing on the tube...
Scarf with a Lady – c1980 – Charcoal on Paper …By going into school early and returning late (usually after a few pints and a frame or two of snooker at the Cambridge Pub), I managed to avoid the crush and could observe and draw in relative comfort…
Lady with Earring – c1981 – Biro(ballpoint pen) on Paper …I generally used whatever drawing implement I had to hand for sketching and I particularly enjoyed using a Biro. I think it was because a Biro is so unforgiving and tests an artist’s confidence and instinct to the ultimate degree…
Girl with “Two Mouths” – c1981 – Conte on Paper …Having said that, Conte sticks could also prove somewhat committing, as seen here. Of course, the girl only had one mouth! Unless my memory deceives me…
Girl with Large Book – c1981 – Biro on Paper …One of the paradoxes of using Biro was how one generally ended up with a strong likeness of the subject – again, most probably something to do with the way the limited medium forces the issue…
Lady with Large Bag – c1981 – Charcoal on Paper …The complete opposite of charcoal, where gesture and mood takes over from technically clean drawing, resulting in more drama, if less refinement.
a PICTORIAL celebration of my WIFE DIDO’S sixtieth birthday*
2020 is a particularly auspicious year for my wife Dido and I, for, not only do we both turn 60 this year, on New Year’s Eve we will have been married for 30 years. As a rule, we don’t pay too much attention to birthdays or anniversaries, but for this rare accretion of events we had for once made some serious celebratory plans. However, Covid-19 has meant that both main birthday plans have been (in my case), and will be (in Dido’s case) put on hold for the duration, to possibly both be enjoyed together with our anniversary – a kind of 150 year grand party.
In the meantime I didn’t feel I could let Dido’s big day pass without some kind of surprise acknowledgement of the 32 of those 60 years I have been privileged to share with her. So, with apologies to any strangers happening upon this site, I am dedicating this post to a series of highly distinctive picture impressions of my remarkable life companion and love…
When I met Dido I got two beautiful female companions for the price of one, as she came together with her fabulous Maremma Sheepdog, Aura…Waiting for laundry to dry on our first trip away together – a modest skiing excursion to Les Deux Alpes…December 31st 1989; our first evening of wedded bliss – understandably, the happiest of my life, albeit from the little I can remember of it…Working with the orphaned and abandoned boys at a “hogar” in Santiago, from our first trip as a married couple to Chile in 1991…Dido relaxing by the pool of our hotel in L’Hospitalet de l’Infant on a 1992 trip which was to prove to be the beginning of half-a-lifetime’s involvement with Spain…My sleeping beauty just after we’d moved into our new home in southern Spain in 1993. We slept on the floor of the half-ruined cottage for the several months it took us to find a builder prepared, and sufficiently competent to build our house…
After being forced to abandon our original plan of permanently settling in Spain, we spent several years driving to-and-from Boulogne-sur-mere, and then later to England. This picture dates from about 1994/5, during a one-night stay at the-then faded-but-pleasant Chateau Rosay in Normandy, and captures our mood at the time, perfectly…
During that transitory period, whenever we had the money, and needed an emotional pick-me-up, we would stop in Montreuil for a comfortable night and a good meal. This photo, from about 1994, would have been on a pre-supper stroll through the pretty old citadel section of the town, with Dido looking suitably enchanting…Despite not being able to live full time in our Spanish home, we have always managed to find the time for several visits a year, including a long one at the end of the summer for the grape harvest. This dates from about 1998/99 during just such a visit, and illustrates perfectly why Dido finds our finca to be the perfect place to recharge her mental and emotional batteries…
We always tread our grapes in the old way, as here in about 2000. I think that’s a tequila and lime helping Dido’s treading rhythm…After we settled back in London and Dido’s career took off, we got to travel all over the world for her work. Between the conferences and meetings there was always plenty of time to explore and have fun, such as here in Melbourne, in 2008, at the top of the Eureka Tower…Apart from London and in Oxford, Dido has held academic posts in Israel and Sweden. This dates from 2011, when her time at Tel Aviv University gave her plenty of opportunity to indulge her passion for wild-water swimming. Here she’s enjoying a post-swim beer at the beech-side bar near our apartment in Netanya… This is photo is particular favourite of mine, although I don’t believe Dido has ever seen it. I think she looks suitably stylish for our brief 2016 stop in Venice… Finally, Dido doing what she enjoys most – some of the time…working.
* Header photo shows Dido approaching the Great Crater during a drive through the Negev Dessert in 2011
We always tread our grapes in the old way, as here in about 2000. I think that’s a tequila and lime helping Dido’s treading rhythm…
