By Guy Sangster Adams

In 1949, whilst running a lottery machine on the pier at Clacton-on-Sea, in eastern England, the 24 year old Anthony Quinn met a man working at a nearby funfair who had once been part of a variety mind-reading double act. After paying the man £25 for a trunk full of all the prerequisites of the act, Quinn changed his name to Paul Raymond, employed a female assistant, and took the act on the road as, The Modern Man of Mystery. Though he struggled to find bookings as a mind-reader, his purchase of the act and his name change foretold the career that was to follow for Raymond, in which he demonstrated an high level of prescience in his acquisitions, in judging the zeitgeist, and in always giving, as he maintained, “the public what it wants, not what I think it should have.”

The die was further cast, when in 1951, seeking bookings for a follow up to a successful touring variety show he had produced the year before, having moved to London and moved from performer to producer, Raymond was told by the manager of the Queen’s Park Hippodrome in Manchester, that he would only book the act if  it contained a nude act. Rather than lose the booking, Raymond offered the two tap dancers he had already taken on for the show an
extra ten shillings if they agreed to pose topless.

Seven years later in London’s Soho Raymond opened the Raymond Revuebar, the strip club which, with its ‘Festival of Erotica’, was set to become internationally famous, and over the 45 years (40 of which with Raymond at the helm) it was open its famous neon sign became a London landmark. Fittingly, given Raymond’s first foray into a theatrical career, The Beatles filmed a segment of the Magical Mystery Tour at the Revuebar, and during its heyday the venue attracted a famous and infamous clientele, including Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Peter Sellers, and The Krays.

The success of the Revuebar quickly afforded Raymond the opportunity to not only buy the premises but also other venues, such as theatres, along the way becoming a successful theatrical impresario, and in 1971 in buying and turning around the fortunes of the ailing top shelf magazine, Men Only, adding a highly profitable pornography publishing business to his portfolio of companies. Astutely, throughout his career, Raymond used the lion’s share of his the profits he made to invest in property. Most notably buying up the freeholds to large parts of Soho when very few other people could see the worth of the area. Though his property holdings also spread to commercial properties in Chelsea, Kensington, Notting Hill, and Hampstead. The value of which was underlined three years before his death in 2008, when Forbes magazine listed him at number 13 in their list of British billionaires.

But such a placing only tells of the glitter, and unsurprisingly for a career that a large part of which was based in pushing at the boundaries of what was legal, a career which had nightlife as its epicentre, not only is ‘all human life here’ (as the News of the World advertising slogan used to have it) in Willetts’ fascinating biography, but also quite literally a lifetime of trials and tribulations. Not only as a result of his near constant monitoring in the first few decades of his career firstly by the Clubs Office of the Metropolitan Police, and then by
Obscene Publications Squad (which would itself be the subject of a widespread corruption investigation), but also via libel cases and as the target of an extraordinary extortion campaign. His personal life was similarly riven with complexities, that lead him to be largely estranged from his extended family. Save for his daughter and protégé, Debbie, whose death at the age of only 37
in 1992, engendered him to lead an increasingly reclusive life until his own death at the age of 82.

Through his assiduous research for Members Only, Willetts interviewed friends, relatives, acquaintances, and employees of Raymond, and a number of former Metropolitan police officers, amongst this roster, even now, intriguingly there  are many who would only agree to talk if Willetts undertook to preserve their anonymity. His printed sources also include many documents only just released under the Freedom of Information Act, including witness statements, police files, and the transcripts of telephone taps. All of which he has marshalled to present a very balanced, fascinating and richly evocative insight both into Raymond’s life and the changing face of a notorious square mile of London’s West End which has mirrored the nation’s changing views towards sex and pornography over the last half century.

Links

Serpent’s Tail
www.serpentstail.com

Everything's Coming Up Roses, from the Beneath the Surface series of paintings by Amy Guidry ©Amy Guidry

Throughout the summer of 2010 Amy Guidry has enjoyed a very busy exhibition schedule in which her paintings have been included in a sequence of shows across the USA: from the multi-media, 2010 Art Melt at the Louisiana State  Museum, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which opened on 15th July, to the Cam Rackham curated, The Black Plague Art Show, which opened the following week at The Congregation Gallery, in Los Angeles, California, to the Wally Workman Gallery’s 30th Anniversary Exhibition in Austin, Texas, which opened on 7th August. That schedule continues from summer into autumn with her work included in two shows which both opened on 27th August in her home state of Louisiana, Where Are They Now? at the Slidell Cultural Center, Slidell, which runs until 25th September, and the 23rd September Competition, at the Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, which runs until 8th October.

For Guidry, who was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, but grew up in Slidell, exhibiting at the Slidell Cultural Center carries an added resonance. Because on 29th  August 2005 Hurricane Katrina, which caused so much destruction and loss life along the Gulf coast from Florida to Texas, made its final landfall near the mouth of the Pearl River, with the eye straddling St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana and Hancock County, Mississippi, before sweeping North East, where it caused its most severe devastation in Louisiana’s largest city, New Orleans. St Tammany Parish, as Guidry explains, “consists of several cities and towns such as Slidell, Mandeville, and Covington,” and as a result of the damage caused by the inundation created by the hurricane, the Slidell Cultural Center’s original premises have been in disrepair ever since, and it is now housed within the Slidell City Hall.

All of the artists included in Where Are They Now?, which features fine art, photography, sculpture, culinary arts, animation, graphic design, and performing arts, were former students from St. Tammany Parish who have gone on to pursue careers in the arts.

“Exhibiting in Slidell is important to me for several reasons, Katrina was devastating, but Louisiana has proven to be resilient,” says Guidry, who still lives in the state, in the city of Lafayette, “I really wanted to do something positive for my hometown, for the community, and for the arts.  I would often go to the Slidell Cultural Center to see exhibits while I was in high school and I was always impressed by the gallery.  When they had closed due to Katrina, I was disappointed, but glad to know that they still had the funding to rebuild.  Though they are in a new building, it’s still nice to go back and to be a part of one of their shows.  I grew up in Slidell, I went to school there, and I was actively involved in the arts whether it was through school or local art competitions.  Coming back, I hope to serve as a good example of their arts programs as well as a positive role model for students that are interested in a career in the arts.”

Guidy’s paintings in the exhibition are taken from her series, Beneath the Surface. Working in acrylic on canvas, Guidry’s paintings stem from, as she says, “two loves: psychology and art,” and the themes she explores, “involve the human psyche, who we are and how we interact with each other, including our relationship with other animals and the natural world.” For Beneath the Surface, as she explains, “I took issues of current social as well as personal interest and portrayed them in a sometimes humorous manner.  I felt humor helped soften the political blow a bit in order to reach a broader audience.  I was more direct with the content in hopes of getting the viewer thinking and questioning, and hopefully taking action as a result.”

Adaptation, from the series of paintings New Realm by Amy Guidry ©Amy Guidry

Her entry for the 23rd September Competition is taken from, New Realm, the series of paintings with which she followed Beneath the Surface. The New Realm series is, “essentially a modern fairy tale which re-writes the role of women,” says Guidry, “I wanted to challenge the notion that women are weak and always in need of some prince to save them and whisk them away. New Realm portrays women as strong and independent.  The overall look of the series is more dreamlike: birch trees and white, wintry backgrounds.  I did incorporate a lot of imagery typically considered ‘feminine’, such as high fashion, butterflies, as well as a light color palette.  However, many of these symbols represent freedom, growth, and change.  The haute couture fashion incorporated into the series alludes to royalty, which is typically seen in fairy tales, but with a modern approach to make the series more current and relatable to the viewer.”

The Alexandria Museum of Art is housed within the former Rapides Bank Building which was built c1898 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The September Competition is held annually and is open to any artist aged 18 or over from across the USA. The sole judge and juror of this year’s competition is the artist Kelli Scott Kelley, who is also Professor of Painting and Drawing at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Kelli Scott Kelley’s involvement was an added draw to Guidry, as she says, “I’m a fan of her work, though I’ve never met her, so I was especially interested in entering.”

For me, the six canvases that Guidry has already completed of her new series, In Our Veins, make a more pronounced break from her two previous series, and represent something of a change of direction, and I am keen to find out if she agrees and if so whether this change is in response to specific stimuli. “I have to admit that “In Our Veins” is certainly a more pronounced break from my previous work,” she replies, “I’ve worked in a surrealist vein for quite some time, but I did up the ante on this series. At the time that I started In Our Veins, I felt that I needed to challenge myself technically and conceptually.  I think that once I made that realization, that’s when I stopped censoring my own ideas.”

To do this she has adopted a very different conceptual approach for In Our Veins. “Most of  the imagery has come has come from dreams and free association exercises,” she says, “which is the complete opposite of what I was doing before.  I would brainstorm and write down words or phrases and do numerous thumbnail sketches in order to come up with a concept.  Now I’m letting my subconscious lead me to the concepts.  Any dream or image that comes to mind while half-asleep, I quickly sketch it as soon as I can and make sense of it later.  I’ve never been a risk-taker, which is all the more reason why I think it’s time to take the risk with my work.”

The Wild West, from the series of paintings In Our Veins by Amy Guidry ©Amy Guidry

That she is now taking direct inspiration from her dreams, and given the change in direction that In Our Veins represents, leads me to ask Guidry whether her dreams were always so vivid, or has there been a motivating factor that has made them become more so of late. “I don’t think my dreams have changed, I think that it’s my approach that has changed,” counters Guidry, “by not censoring, or maybe I should say editing my creativity, I’ve noticed that images and ideas are much more abundant even if I’m sleeping.  I’ve also learned to tune out noise, whether it’s environmental or mental noise such as thinking of errands or my to-do list.  Tuning out everything else has helped my creativity, or at least I’m more aware of it now.”

In common with her two previous series, In Our Veins continues to showcase Guidry’s latent talent to create acutely detailed, beautifully realised canvases, that cleverly subvert the initial welcome, or the ‘no need to think further’ security of being within familiar territory, that a benign style may provide, such as the pop art of Beneath the Surface, or classic fashion illustration of New Realm, with surreal flourishes, darker symbolism, details that only jar on closer inspection, or a message that percolates and reaches fruition upon reflection.

But taken as a whole, this juxtaposition is more immediate and more pronounced in the canvases of In Our Veins. As across phenomenally dramatic and beautiful land- and desertscapes, the paintings meld The Searchers’ VistaVision vast panoramas with the unsettling vision of Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. Because these iconic wide open spaces are inhabited by the likes of a human skeleton surmounted with the skull of an horse, an hare atop the ravaged corpse of a man, and traversed by the disembodied heads of animals and birds that have roamed free across the lands. Forget mere high definition, the exceptionality of Guidry’s mix of photorealism and surrealism, creates a fantastic heightened definition that presents a hyperreality that forces one to address and, with hope, redress our reality.

Untitled Heads, from the series of paintings In Our Veins by Amy Guidry ©Amy Guidry

“I have never been particularly impressed by how Westerns portrayed life as good vs. bad,” says Guidry, elaborating on the themes behind In Our Veins, “in reality, the land, environment, people, and animals were all seen as a means to an end.  I wanted to portray this in my own work by using this ‘character’ that I came up with while half-asleep, the skeleton with the horse skull, as well as the desert, as symbols of cowboys and horses, all typical Western imagery. I called the painting, The Wild West, as a reference to how the United States, itself being part of the West (hemisphere), is still taking over land, resources, etc. to this day.”

In addition to the Dali-esque air to In Our Veins, there is also an element of Magritte, as there is in various paintings from her earlier series, particularly Everything’s Coming Up Roses and Complacent from Beneath the Surface. I am interested as to whether the work of these artists was a conscious inspiration on In Our Veins. “I wouldn’t say that I was consciously thinking of Magritte since I try to tune out everything else when I’m working and let my creativity take over, but I’ll gladly take the compliment!” replies Guidry. “Even with a positive influence such as Magritte, I feel that it may inhibit my ideas and lead me to something more contrived. I will say that Magritte and Dali have been two of my favorite artists since a very young age, so their initial influence occurred long ago.”

Six canvases in, In Our Veins is still ongoing, as Guidry says, “I have a ton of ideas that I’m still working out as I go. I’m letting each painting lead me to the next.  Since I was looking to challenge myself technically, these pieces are also taking much more time to complete due to the detail, complexity, and the fact that I’m now adding glazes to make my paintings more like oils.  I’ll be working on these for awhile…” It is a fascinating and exciting prospect to see where Guidry’s journey into the landscape of dreams and a nation’s collective memory will lead next.

Where Are They Now?
runs from 27th August -  25th September 2010
at the Slidell Cultural Center, first floor City Hall,
2055 Second Street,  Slidell, LA 70458-3403, USA
Telephone: +1 985 646-4375

Open: Tues-Fri, 12pm - 4pm; Sat, 9am - 12pm
Free entry

23rd September Competition exhibition
runs from 27th August to 8th October 2010
at the Alexandria Museum of Art
933 Main Street / P.O. Box 1028, Alexandria, LA 71309-1028, USA
Telephone: +1 318 443-3458

Open: Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm; Saturday 10am-4pm

Links

Amy Guidry
www.amyguidry.com

Slidell Cultural Center
www.slidell.la.us

Alexandria Museum of Art
www.themuseum.org

Wally Workman Gallery
www.wallyworkmangallery.com

Louisiana State Museum
lsm.crt.state.la.us

The Congregation Gallery
www.congregationgallery.com

By Guy Sangster Adams

Portal to a Beautiful Place by JT Burke, from the exhibition Beautiful Again (Perpetuating the Myth of Paradise)

A glittering and gilded ornithic array, including flamingos, peacocks, humming birds, and wide-eyed owls, grace the 26 resplendent images that make up JT Burke’s latest body of work, Beautiful Again. Which also cascade luxuriously with glistening flora and fauna, as daisies, roses, thistles, and leaves, kaleidoscopically merge with frogs, rabbits, and iguanas. Drawing inspiration from ancient Rome, Renaissance manuscripts, Muslim arabesques, Hindu and Tibetan mandalas, Burke has crafted each work from individual photographs of discarded costume jewellery which he finds, as he says, “at swap meets and yard sales and conjure them into new images of life in ebullient and glorified forms. They dance and soar in front of me in harmonic expressions of trinket afterlife joy. A big, blingy, bijou Shangri-La.”

The images presented in Beautiful Again, both explore Burke’s theme that “paradise is a myth,” that it is “a concoction of our own devices created to comfort us from the rigours of daily life and the sorrows of the human condition,” whilst he also seeks to “perpetuate the myth” as he “create[s] visions of a remanufactured utopia.”

Beautiful Mask by JT Burke, from the exhibition Beautiful Again (Perpetuating the Myth of Paradise)

From 1984, JT Burke worked as a commercial photographer, cinematographer, and graphic designer, work for which he garnered many awards. But in 2006, he and his wife the artist, Leanne Triolo, retired from commercial practice and reconfigured BurkeTriolo studio as a fine art studio and publishing house, and began exhibiting their work from 2009.

Beautiful Again, is presented by Richard Scarry, the executive director of the Los Angeles based Corey Helford Gallery, and the exhibition’s arrival in Bristol comes hot on the heels of the highly successful Corey Helford curated exhibition, Art From The New World, which ran at Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery from 15th May to 22nd August 2010. READ PLECTRUM - THE CULTURAL PICK’S PREVIEW OF ART FROM THE NEW WORLD

Beautiful Again (Perpetuating the Myth of Paradise) Images by JT Burke
runs from 28th August - 2nd October 2010
at The Grant Bradley Gallery,
1 St Peter’s Court, Bedminster Parade, Bristol, BS3 4AQ
Telephone: +44 (0)117 963 7673

Open: Mon-Sat, 10am - 5pm
Free entry

The exhibition is also showing:

from 2nd July - 28th September
at The Hotel Estela Barcelona
Av. Port Aiguadolç, no. 8, 08870 Sitges, Barcelona, Spain
Telephone: +34 93 811 45 45

Open daily: 9am - 9pm
Free entry

from 5th August  - 29th August 2010
at Brooks Institute Gallery 27
27 Cota Street, Santa Barbara, California 93101, USA
Telephone: +1 805 690 4928

Open daily: 10am - 9 pm
Free entry

All works will be for sale, prices ranging from £600 to £3500.

Links

JT Burke
www.jtburke.com

The Grant Bradley Gallery
www.grantbradleygallery.co.uk

Hotel Estela Barcelona
www.hotelestela.com

Brooks Institute Gallery 27
www.brooks.edu

Corey Helford Gallery
www.coreyhelfordgallery.com

(Faber and Faber) £12.99

By Guy Sangster Adams

‘The greatest belief would be to believe in people,’ is the quote from the Czech writer, Karel Capek, which opens this collection of his journalism and letters which has been selected and translated into English for the first time by Sárka Tobrmanová-Kühnová. The line is taken from his 1922 novel, A Factory to Manufacture the Absolute, his vision of consumer society, which alongside a number of his other works, is seen as an early example of, though the terms had not then been coined, of science fiction and speculative fiction. Which include, probably his best known work internationally, RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots), the play which premiered in 1921 and gave the world the word, ‘robot’, inspired by the Czech word, ‘robota’, which relates to feudal forced labour. Though Capek was keen to point out, as an article from The People’s Paper included in Believe in People states, that it was his brother the artist, writer and poet, Josef Capek, who created the word.

Capek’s belief in people, his avowed humanism, remain undiminished throughout Believe in People, which instil the writings with both a wonderfully inspiring positivity and also an increasing poignancy, as the chronology of each section leads the reader through the all too brief life of the first, liberal democratic republic of Czechoslovakia, from it’s birth in 1918 to the Munich Agreement which sounded its death knell in 1938.

Even in the face of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s radio address infamously labelling Czechoslovakia as “a far-away country” made up of “people of whom we know nothing”, which pre-empted Britain’s signing of the pact with France, Germany, and Italy, in Czechoslovakia’s absence, Capek remained optimistic and as the final piece in the collection, Greetings, demonstrates he continued to believe in, and hold no malice towards the peoples of the signatory nations of the Munich Agreement, and counter to Chamberlains’ words, he found it all too easy bring to mind images of ordinary people in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, going about their day-to-day activities.

“Indeed,” he writes, “one is cross with many, and keeps saying to oneself , what has happened can never be forgotten: how can we possibly communicate with one another in the midst of this unprecedented distance and alienation? And then you think of, say, England, and suddenly you see the little red house in Kent before you. The old gentleman is still trimming the bushes and the girl is pedalling away swiftly and straight. And see you’d like to greet them. How do you do? How do you do? Nice weather, isn’t it? Yes, very fine. So you see, that’s it, and you feel lighter.”

Very sadly, the same day that Greetings was published Capek died from pneumonia, though his friend Dr Karel Steinbach, who was present when died, as Tobrmanová-Kühnová quotes in her introduction, wrote, “As a doctor I know that he died because in those days there were no antibiotics and sulpha drugs, but those who say that Munich killed him also have a great deal of the truth.”

Though had he lived, as a critic of both fascism and communism life would have been very difficult for Capek in the years that followed. Indeed, as Tobrmanová-Kühnová states, when the Nazis arrived in Prague on 15th March 1939, “he was said to be number three on the Gestapo list, and they arrived at his house that same day to find that he had been dead for nearly three months.” His brother, Josef, who had also criticised fascism and Hitler, was arrested, and died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

It would be another fifty years until Czechoslovakia could return to being a liberal democracy through the Velvet Revolution of November 1989, lead by Václav Havel. Karel Capek was a key inspiration on Havel, for whom, as he is to many Czechs, as Tobrmanová-Kühnová writes, “he is not only a master of the word but a moral example.” Believe in People is a wonderfully engaging collection, reflective, funny, inspiring, and philosophical. It provides a fascinating insight to the excitement and joie de vivre inherent in the birth of nation, and the devastation at its loss and betrayal, whilst also bursting with insight and wisdom that is as relevant to peoples of  all countries today as when the words were first written.

Links

Faber and Faber
www.faber.co.uk

The Cumbernauld sculpture taking shape

Watershed is a new poem written by award-winning Scottish poet, Jim Carruth, which is now being inscribed on Andy Scott’s 10 metre high steel sculpture which is due to be unveiled in late summer 2010, overlooking the A80 northbound, the road which bisects the Scottish New Town of Cumbernauld. The sculpture, which is a female form, features two, large swooping arcs, the inspiration for which came from the original Gaelic name for Cumbernauld, ‘Comar nan Allt’, which translates as ‘coming together of waters’.

The public artwork is at the heart of the Cumbernauld Positive Image Project, created by Campsies Centre Cumbernauld Ltd (CCCL), which is a North Lanarkshire Council company set up to facilitate the redevelopment of Cumbernauld. The aims of the project are to create a distinctive image of Cumbernauld, increase residents’ pride in their town, raise awareness across Scotland of Cumbernauld’s attractiveness as a destination to live, work and play, and create a sense of place and provide a positive statement about the town.

Jim Carruth (left) and Andy Scott (right) with one of the early designs for the Cumbernauld sculpture

Scott’s portfolio of public art covers over 60 commissions both across Scotland and internationally, including the Falkirk Helix Water Kelpies, the Heavy Horse on the M8 motorway, which has become a Glasgow landmark, and The Thanksgiving Square Beacon in Belfast which has become representative of the regeneration of the city as whole. Of his new work, Scott says, “Cumbernauld has had its detractors but we hope this sculpture will go some way to changing the outdated perception of Cumbernauld and prove something of a watershed for the town.”

Carruth was born in 1963 in the West-Central Lowlands of Scotland in the town of Johnstone in Renfrewshire, and grew up on his family’s farm close to the nearby village of Kilbarchan. After spending a number of years in Turkey he has returned to live in Renfrewshire. In 2009 Jim won The Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship and the James McCash competition. In June 2010 “Grace Notes 1959″ a poetry sequence commissioned by the Glasgow Jazz Festival was launched. He has three collections of poetry published to date. His first, Bovine Pastoral, published in 2004 was runner up in the Callum MacDonald memorial award. The follow up, High Auchensale, was chosen as one of the Herald books of the year in 2006.

For Carruth it was important that his poem sought to “capture the pride local people have in their town and the importance of listening to their voice”. In taking the ‘meeting of waters’ as his start point, Carruth wanted to, “to give a voice to the statue, the tributaries and the community and create a poem that would talk of the central and national importance of Cumbernauld.” He continues, “I have been disappointed by the negative, unfair focus that Cumbernauld has attracted over the years, as the town has such a lot to offer. I have countered this in my poem by trying to capture the pride local people have for the town and the importance of listening to their voice.”

The Cumbernauld sculpture taking a dip at Highland Galvanizers

The poem, which is included below, followed by a further selection of Carruth’s poems, will be inscribed in dynatomic font, reflecting the 1960s influence which Scott has incorporated in the sculpture’s design. Each letter will be cut individually and the poem will wrap round the base of the sculpture encouraging visitors to walk round its base and appreciate different aspects of the public artwork.

WATERSHED (Comar nan Allt)
by Jim Carruth

The first sounds spoken

from the spring’s core

are of a new beginning

of people and place

a poetry that bubbles

and gargles to the surface

to leave this watershed

flow east and west

in a rush of words

that tumble and fall

to join the conversations

of two great rivers

a voice calling out

I belong I belong

adding to the language

of sea and ocean.

A further selection of poems by Jim Carruth

DIFFERENT FIELDS

i. workmanlike

Standing behind the shearers
Fleecing their moment for verse

ii. salt licks

Long tongued cattle
lick loose copper

hollow small blocks
to season their days

Should we value salt licks
less than a Henry Moore

or wonder as much
on their practical forms

as at Easter Island’s
weathered heads.

iii. RS

You drew me in
with honest detail
hardships in grim valleys

though I struggled
to free from a priest’s severe verse,
empathy for the peasant.

to balance your cold
distance from man
with a nearness to God.

iv. 300 Spartans

Another field, another stand
remnants close ranks

huddle by a hedge
strong heads bent down

their hunched backs
knuckles of clenched fists

drenched hides, russet shields
against incessant rain.

v. ploughman without honour

Aye that’s as maybe
but he wis nae fairmer

didnae mak the maist
o his faither’s place

sic a waste o
aw thit guid gruin.

He didnae hae the hairt
fir the haird win hairst.

vi. poor harvest

Seeding your verse with epigraph
will never green your barren land.

TAKING ON GOLIATH

I shepherd
will not pick up a shield
or swing a sword

but because your roar
drowns the words of this land
I’ll reach out

pluck pebbles
from the throat of the stream
a small flock

each one smooth as birdsong
hard as rams’ horn
a bright clarion call

I pull back and let fly
seed my country’s voice
deep in your forehead

(A village elder’s advice on) THE WHITE CROW

Why do you search
for false auguries of hope?

Nothing followed the triple rainbow,
last winter’s one wild rose

Now this feathered messiah.
Can I speak plainly here:

a white crow is still a crow;
a lifeless sheep is still a corpse;

a bloated corpse is still a meal
for your white crow.

It still rises with its flock
flies with its flock

still falls with the black
on the weak and the dead.

Links

Follow the Cumbernauld Sculpture on Facebook
Cumbernauld Sculpture Facebook Page

Jim Carruth
www.jimcarruth.co.uk

Andy Scott
www.scottsculptures.co.uk

North Lanarkshire Council/Campsies Centre Cumbernauld Limited
www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk

by Guy Sangster Adams

Jay Clifton’s and Sam Collins’ Brighton Live Lit series, Ace Stories, continues apace with the third in the five event sequence taking place in September. This time the literary headliner is novelist, Scott Bradley, whose unsettling latest novel, The People Who Watched Her Pass By (Two Dollar Radio, 2010), tells the story of Salome Jensen who as a three year old is taken from her home by a man fixing the hot water heater, with whom she drifts through other people’s homes and laundrettes across California, along the way developing an insightful understanding of people and perspective on society. Bradfield is also the author of The History of Luminous Motion (Picador, 1994) which was adapted into the 1998 film, Luminous Motion, starring Deborah Kara Unger.

Michael J. Sheehy

The live music set which concludes each Ace Stories event this time features singer-songwriter, Michael J. Sheehy. The former vocalist for late 1990s cult rock band, Dream City Film Club, Sheehy’s solo work draws on a breadth of influences from early American rock ‘n’ roll, blues, gospel, and country through to traditional British hymns. His most recent albums are Ghost on the Motorway (2005) and With These Hands (2009) a concept album which recounts the rise and fall of a fictional Irish boxer called Francis Delaney.

Support readings come from Brighton based writers, Neil Palmer (author of Place Explosion) and Lucy Harvest.

Ace Stories, Sunday 12th September, 2010, from 6pm to 8pm,
at Hotel Pelirocco, 10 Regency Square, Brighton, East Sussex. BN1 2FG
Admission £3.

Links:

Ace Stories Facebook Page

Ace Stories
To be added to the mailing list for updates on forthcoming Ace Stories events, email:  Jayclifton330 AT googlemail DOT com
with ‘Add me to the Ace Stories mailing list’ in the subject heading.

Hotel Pelirocco
www.hotelpelirocco.co.uk

Michael J. Sheehy
www.myspace.com/michaeljsheehy

Plectrum - The Cultural Pick preview of the inaugural Ace Stories event

Plectrum - The Cultural Pick preview of  Ace Stories #2

By Guy Sangster Adams

“Imagine what it is to be rejected by the most sophisticated and casually stunning place in the world. A place filled with the highest percentage of women on the planet able to pull off chinchilla wraps with jeans. To not be welcome in the City of Love is tantamount to being rejected by love itself. Why couldn’t I have gotten thrown out of Akron, Ohio? City of Rubber.”

Though the French authorities have never “formally banished” Sloane Crosley, the sequence of adventures and misadventures that have befallen her in their capital city, as she recounts in Le Paris!, one of the nine essays in How Did You Get This Number, including out of loyalty to a Protestant friend, making a confession at the Catholic cathedral of Notre Dame, despite being Jewish and speaking little French, to a French/Japanese speaking priest, have lead her to feel that she “will not be ‘asked back’ anytime soon.”

Sloane Crosley

Crosley has a magnetic attraction to, come mischievous delight in pursuing, happenstance and circumstance that often leaves her out of step with accepted mores, but in falling out of step she observes and spotlights the absurdities all too common in following the pack and the path of doing something just because that’s what everyone else does. Whilst, with the same wickedly spot on humour and terrific insight, she also navigates and highlights the complexities and perplexities facing a just-turned-thirty New Yorker, both in her home city, following on from her 2008 debut collection, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, and also, as above in Paris, in an SUV in Alaska with a ‘hen party’ wearing bear bells on their pony tails, and in Lisbon in an open air bar with three amateur Portuguese circus clowns…

Smart, sassy, subversive, with a Noir edge - not least in Crosley’s trip to McGurk’s Suicide Hall whilst searching for a new appartment - How Did You Get This Number is a terrific mix of funny, reflective, and revelatory.

Links

Sloane Crosley
neverrockfila.com/crosley/

Portobello Books
www.portobellobooks.com

By Guy Sangster Adams

From the vantage point of last year’s Margate Meltdown, the Ace Café’s annual Spring Bank Holiday charity motorcycle ride-out from North London to the Kent seaside town, Travis Elborough, whilst wryly observing the promenade juxtaposition and proliferation of black leather jackets and Mr Whippy ice cream, also reflects on the contemporary, happy camaraderie and intermingling of the Ace Café Rockers and a group of Mods from the nearby Deal Scooter Club. A far cry, he notes, from the violent clashes between Mods and Rockers in the town over Whitsun 1964, which lead local magistrate, Dr George Simpson to not only hand out punitive £50 fines to all those arrested, but also infamously to decry all those involved as, “petty little saw-dust Caesars.”

A speech which served the headline writers very well in stoking moral outrage of the, young people are uncontrollable, it was never like this in my day, variety. As ever it was, as Elborough reveals, “rowdy teenagers had, in a sense, been menacing Bank Holiday festivities since their inception in the 1870s,” and in following this line of research he has uncovered a wonderful article from the Bournemouth Times in 1938, reporting events from the August Bank Holiday and “frothing at the mouth at the mere arrival of ‘groups of youths, some wearing gaudy paper hats with inscriptions such as, ‘Come Up and See Me Sometime’, parading along the Drive singing the latest dance hits.’”

The seaside allure for youth culture is only one component, Margate but one stop along the route of Elborough’s hugely enjoyable exploration of the full English - be it served up by an eccentric landlady in a B&B, dished up en masse in an holiday camp, or under cling film on a paper plate and entirely fashioned from rock - seaside experience, from Brighton to Blackpool, Skegness to Scarborough, New Brighton to Bexhill-on-Sea, and all the people, architecture, and entertainments that give it such redolence, and which has proved such a successful international export.

Travis Elborough © David X Green www.davidxgreen.com

But his Quadrophenia-tinged chapter does serve to highlight the facets that make Elborough such an engaging cultural companion, mixing astute personal observation with gems that only the most assiduous research uncovers, informed by a breadth of sources all of which he approaches with the same informed passion be they historical document, literary text, pop cultural reference, or beach hut conversation, both his erudition and enjoyment of his subject are always to the fore in Wish You Were Here, as they were in his two previous books, The Bus We Loved: London’s Affair with the Routemaster, and The Long Player Goodbye: The Album from Vinyl to iPod and Back Again.

As with the two latter titles, Wish You Were Here is not an exercise in nostalgia, Elborough is adept at choosing cultural subjects to examine and contextualise at points after periods of decline when they prove that the final words in their histories have not been written, in light of the London mayor’s competition to design a new Routemaster, the resurgence in vinyl record sales, and the renaissance that is gathering pace in even the most rundown English seaside towns, which lead Tatler to dub Hastings the ‘Notting Hill of the South Coast’ three years ago, and which makes Wish You Were Here as much a snapshot of the here and now and a penny in the slot telescope view of where we are heading, as it is a postcard of where we have been.

Read an exclusive article by Travis Elborough, A Postcard From Brighton’s Colonnade Bar, written whilst researching Wish You Were Here,  in the Brighton Focus section of issue 5 of the print edition of Plectrum - The Cultural Pick, which also includes contributions from Biba founder, Barbara Hulanicki,  and Brighton based poet, Abi Curtis. FOR MORE DETAILS

Links:

Sceptre
www.hodder.co.uk/sceptre

(Optimum Home Entertainment)
On release

By Guy Sangster Adams

First broadcast between 1965 and 1966, with series 4 The Avengers entered the era for which it is best remembered and which was also its most influential, as
Diana Rigg, in the role of Emma Peel, took over from Honor Blackman’s Dr Cathy Gale, as sidekick to John Steed, played by Patrick Macnee. Emma Peel’s name, so the story goes, came from ABC’s (Associated British Pictures, the programme’s production company) press officer, Marie Donaldson, saying that the character need to have ‘man-appeal’, which became abbreviated to ‘m-appeal’… Emma Peel.

The crackling sexual tension that had already existed between Steed and Cathy Gale, was ramped up to become far more overt in Steed and Emma Peel’s relationship. Equally the use of leather and PVC costumes, which had been introduced in series 3 for Cathy Gale, particularly for the fight scenes, was continued and became more body conscious and more markedly fetishistic, with zips and buckles. The fetishism was taken even further in the episode, A Touch of Brimstone, when she is dressed as the ‘Queen of Sin’, in a leather corset, knee-length stiletto heeled boots, and a dog collar studded with six inch spikes. All of which played up the vaunted man-appeal of the character, but Emma Peel also, as with Cathy Gale before her, equally and importantly subverted stereotypical roles for women combining not only brains, beauty, and independence, but also physical prowess; she dispatches her male, whip wielding adversary in A Touch of Brimstone in very short measure. Emma Peel became just as much an icon for women as she did for men. Though the dominatrix look proved too much for the American censors, and the episode was banned in the US.

With her striking op-art clothes designed by fashion designer, John Bates, Emma Peel also became a key fashion influence. Under the label, Avengerswear, Bates also licensed his designs to a number of manufacturers, and they were available in shops around the country from the moment series 4 aired. Bates’ geometric designs were also groundbreaking in that before their use in The Avengers it had been considered they would not work on the film cameras of the day. Both reflecting the times and setting the times, Emma Peel’s Mod style, replete with Lotus Elan and Vespa 150 scooter, juxtaposes pleasingly with the continuance of Steed’s bowler hatted and furled umbrella, dandy-edged, vintage Bentley driving, English gentleman.

Sexy, stylish, witty, and inventive, this first series of the Emma Peel era of The Avengers remains as influential and enjoyable now, extraordinarily 45 years on, as it was first time around.

Links:

Optimum
www.optimumreleasing.com

By Guy Sangster Adams

“Landscapes, bodies, animals, history, nature, objects: this is the world reinterpreted by Pop Surrealism,” say Alexandra Mazzanti and Gianluca Marziani in describing their current exhibition, and continue evocatively, “a no-space where everything looks like the real thing, but where we perceive suspended atmospheres, a sense of agonizing waiting and silent doubt and danger, where abnormal silences or strange noises are coming.”

Depending on one’s point of view, Pop Surrealism is either interchangeable with Lowbrow art, or a separate but closely related movement. The term Lowbrow was coined by painter and cartoonist, Robert Williams, for the title of his influential 1979 book, The Lowbrow Art of Robt Williams, which collected all his paintings to date.  Following its publication, as Barret S. Bingham writes on Williams’s website, “the seminal elements of West Coast Outlaw Culture slowly started to aggregate,” or to put it another way, a new art movement was born. A style of art that Williams has described as, “cartoon-tainted abstract surrealism.”

Portrait of Romeo & Gelsomnia by Joe Sorren

In 1965, having pursued a career as a fine artist, Williams had joined the studio of Ed Roth, Rat Fink creator and legendary figure in California’s hot-rod and Kustom Kulture, and his work was influenced not only by this, but also by the underground comix culture which he became part of in 1968, when he joined the San Francisco based, Zap Comix Collective, whose number also included highly influential underground artists Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton. These influences fused with inspirations from film noir and apocalyptic, and from across a subcultural breadth including psychedelia, and punk rock, to inform Lowbrow art, though equally earlier art movements, particularly Dadaism and American Regionalism.

In 1994, Williams founded the magazine, Juxtapoz, which has gone on to be one of highest circulation art magazines in the USA. Juxtapoz has played a key role in championing the new American art scene, both through celebrating and helping to define Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism, whilst also embracing and showcasing the work of diverse range of urban and contemporary underground artists, across a multitude of genres, such as neo-figurative, street art, pervasive art, which have mushroomed through the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Landscape with Deer by Marion Peck

The impressive and exciting line-up of forty international artists that Alexandra Mazzanti and Gianluca Marziani have gathered for the first exhibition to provide an overview of Pop Surrealism are no strangers to the pages of Juxtapoz. They include husband and wife, Mark Ryden and Marion Peck, Joe Sorren, Todd Schorr, Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Gary Baseman, Sas Christian, Ray Caesar, and the leading Italian proponents of the style, Nicoletta Ceccoli and Niba (for a full list of participating artists scroll down). The exhibition features more than eighty works from the participating artists, works which Mazzanti neatly encapsulates as:

“The confusing and hallucinated psychic automatisms of the surrealist movement are now mixed with the American hot rod culture, underground comics and punk music, creating a perfect chaos , where absolute iconographic anarchy reigns . Pinups from the 50’s smile at a gothic Alice rival of Lolitas dancing softly to the songs of the Pixies and Cure. Scenarios inspired by Hieronymus Bosch are filled with strange animals, clumsy figures and comical demons. A paradoxical atmosphere with weird presences that reminds us of a David Lynch film, a multicultural melting pot: street culture, pure pop, bizarre illustration, manga culture, tattoo art. It’s everything that comes from videogames, indie music and sci-fi to strange multicoloured skulls celebrating the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos.”

Pop Surrealism runs from 26th June to 15th October 2010
at Museum Carandente,
Palazzo Collicola, Piazza Collicola, Spoleto, Italy.

Full list of participating artists: Mark Ryden, Joe Sorren, Todd Schorr, Shepard Fairey, Marion Peck, Camille Rose Garcia, Alex Gross, Ron English, Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Sas Christian, Kris Lewis, Ray Caesar, Jeff Soto, Travis Louie, David Stoupakis, James Jean, Adam Wallacavage, Tara McPherson, Missvan, Lola, Esao Andrews, Scott Musgrove, Jonathan Viner, Naoto Hattori Natalie Kukula Abramovich, Kathie Olivas, Natalie Shau, Mijn Schatje, Ana Bagayan, Michael Page, Tim McCormick, Nathan Spoor, Paul Chatem, Ken Keirns, Aren Hertel, Leila Ataya, Aaron Jasinski, Nicoletta Ceccoli, Niba.

Links:

Dorothy Circus Gallery
www.dorothycircusgallery.com

Jonathan Levine Gallery
jonathanlevinegallery.com