It’s been such an intense, surreal and difficult year. Even so I think I’m in a better situation than many with regards to the pandemic and its effects on my life. I have a good, steady job as a Fine Art lecturer which has continued since March, a roof over my head, food on the table, space for my kids to play outside. At one point in time these were seen as almost the given basics if you could hold down a job, but since the Eighties and Thatcherism, accelerated at unbelievable speed since 2010, so many have seen a complete degradation in their job conditions, can barely manage to find and keep an affordable home, and even put food on the table. These things have preyed a lot on my mind lately and especially over the Christmas period.
It’s the incredible work of scientists, hopefully with the vaccine, that will help the world return to some sort of, albeit deeply scarred, normality in 2021, but I think it’s important to acknowledge how our cultural lives can offer so much support as a way of navigating ourselves through difficult periods in our lives. Art, music, books, film, theatre and TV can be incredibly inspiring, affirming and consoling as we see aspects of our lives reflected back at us- it’s what I seek in much of the culture I seek out- but also can be a great escape from it all. I’ve been thinking about what I have discovered this year that has helped me through these times….
With galleries closed for so much of this year I’ve not been to see much art, but before lockdown in March I loved visiting the exhibition of paintings by Denzil Forrestor. ‘Itchin’ and Scratchin’, at Nottingham Contemporary. That was a definite highlight of the year- the paintings were so full of life, be it in the character’s lived depicted in the scenes of the Afro-Caribbean community of dub clubs and tough streets, or in the artist’s very sophisticated use of colour and form and his use of drawing in his vast, complex compositions. They had something to say that felt borne out of a lived experience and possessed a sincerity, directness and honesty that reached out to a wider audience. They were a refreshing change to so much art on display and spoke deeply to me, taking me back to some of my own formative roots in painting. I looked closely at Denzil’s paintings as a student in the early 1990’s, and even had tutorials with him, and learned a lot of lessons from his work which I still apply. There is a great lively interview with Denzil on the ‘TalkArt’ podcast that you can find on many podcast apps. I use Castbox to download or stream the regular ones I listen to.
If I were to choose any music that has been a good companion this year it will be the discovery of some of the thematic compilation albums of music created by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs. This began with ‘Gather In The Mushrooms’, an album recommended in the ‘A Year In The Country’ book I have discussed in previous recent posts (this, alongside Mark Fisher’s ‘The Weird and the Eerie’, would be my other book of the year for how many cultural doors it has opened to me), a collection of Psych and Acid Folk Music from the late sixties and early seventies, whose songs from a wide variety of artists is rooted in a slightly otherworldly English folk tradition. I love it and found myself really immersed in its musical landscape during the long summer evenings in the studio. A particular standout track is ‘The Herald’ by Comus, which is such a stunningly atmospheric song. I have a vivid memory of painting late one evening in July a scene of local woods and sitting exhausted at about midnight having finished the painting as this haunting track played on my Walkman and filled the room. I was pleased with the painting but the whole experience felt quite emotional: the effort of painting, my tiredness, the somewhat heady transportation of the album’s music to this amazing end track and coping with the whole pandemic and the effect it has had on my family in various ways.
This album remains my favourite of the compilations but I have also loved ‘English Weather’, a collection of early Seventies rock, in its broadest sense, by long forgotten and overlooked bands, ‘The Tears Of Technology’, also dubbed ‘the sadness of synthesizers’, a superb collection of late seventies and early Eighties English synth and electronic bands and solo artists including the brilliant lost classic ‘Private Plane’ by Thomas Lear (And if the opening short melancholy instrumental opening track by China Crisis doesn’t floor you well I just can’t help you, I really can’t). The most recent one I bought was the brilliant ‘Tim Peaks’, a collection of lost indie Eighties classics interweaved with more recent music by various artists with a binding link to the aesthetic of early Factory records (well apparently according to Bob Stanley and Tim Burgess who put this one together). Conceptually it is also a reimagining of Twin Peaks and it’s diner being relocated to a café in North West England and is thus an imaginary soundtrack to a late wintry afternoon near the Pennines with a mug of tea and a great jukebox in the corner looking through rain lashed windows. I like afternoons like these and have had my fair share of them when I lived up north in the West Riding.
In all of these records the sleeve notes are lovingly and enthusiastically presented by Stanley and Wiggs. It’s like listening to a great compilation tape put together with the joy and care of an older brother or good friend. It brings back fond memories for me of these experiences in my twenties when a new compilation tape would land on the doorstep from one of brothers at Uni, or the hours I spent putting one together for them or my wife. It seems from a time when these things seem to matter more.
And my escapism? That would have to be ‘The Mandolorian’, the Star Wars spin off series on Disney+. How cool is that show? I love it and is everything the Star Wars prequels and recent sequels have promised but never really delivered on, from the great storylines but also the design of it all, which is always the part of Star Wars that has made the deepest impression on my imagination from when I saw it as a kid.
It looks like 2021 is going to continue to be a rough ride for several months still, so hang on in there. Thanks to all those who continue to support me and show an interest in my work. Wishing you all well into 2021...
https://www.frieze.com/article/denzil-forrester-i-had-find-something-shook-me
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/13/roger-robinson-poets-can-translate-trauma
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/aug/29/adam-buxton-dad-more-proud-of-me-but-he-was
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/mar/24/the-mandalorian-review-baby-yoda-has-finally-come-to-the-uk-was-it-worth-the-wait-disney
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