It's good to have constraints sometimes (by Luke Drozd)

Written to accompany Mick Welbourn's exhibition '200 Lengths Per Year' at Leeds College of Art and Design. Mick's work can be viewed at http://mickwelbourn.blogspot.com/2011/01/200-lengths-per-year-exhibition.html

A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, a place of relaxation and contemplation, exercise or sloth. At some point in the history of the bathhouse there was a shift from bathing to swimming, we became more mobile, sought other goals. We kept pushing. Apparently Olympic pools must be 50 metres in length by 25 metres wide, with a depth of at least 2 metres, divided into eight lanes with the water kept at 25–28 °C (77–82 °F) and the lighting level at greater than 1500 lux. It’s good to have constraints sometimes.

But of course this work is not about pools, swimming or otherwise. Welbourn's is a body of work, not of water after all, concerned with technique and texture and a way of humanising mechanical gestures or perhaps mechanising human ones. Within their picture planes we see surface noise, interruption, fluff and degradation, a perfect replication of the imperfect, because after all, life too has surface noise. There are systems at work here buried within these seemingly arbitrary lines, some dictated by the production of the work, others by the hand of the artist. They talk of creativity at play with long dead mathematicians and topographers where tiny exceptions to the rule become gigantic, and where the gigantic is reduced, and perhaps a little about time well spent and a job well done. It’s good to have constraints sometimes.

Welbourn's work invites us to ponder, to immerse ourselves, to dive in. They shimmer and shift, like light glancing off the ripples and debris of an out-of-season Lido. But as I mentioned, this work is about many things, but it is not about pools, swimming or otherwise.

Fog in Moscow (by Rosie Dunnet)

The fog in Moscow was awful, and the heat was worse, but he might have stood it all had it not been for the loneliness, and the cats.

The fog itself was a toxic inorganic thing which had rolled down from the atmosphere once the heat had thickened it. He had made his way home from work with a sleeve held over his face. All day he had watched others do the same from the high vantage point of his office window, but by now the air was so dense that none of the scurrying bundles could be seen even from across the road. Now and again in front of him he would catch a flash of the back of a shoe, and at other times a head would rear briefly out at him as he felt his way along streets which, unfamiliar to him at the best of times, were now still more so. He considered, when he became actually afraid, shouting into the dense air, asking for someone to confirm his position. But mostly he was calm, and unworried. He was fascinated by the infinity of his white blindness. Because he could not see his own hand in front of his face, his eyes were sending him messages of an immeasurable distance.

Stumbling off the edge of a curb he landed hard, right on his side. He had never fallen like that before, from such a small height. This was what it was like to be old, he thought, everything defeated you, a curb could kill you, navigation was an embarrassment, and finding your way back to your own home felt like an impossible dream. The fog was yellowish and smelled faintly and unpleasantly of the sea. Handling the inconvenience of foreignness was not usually a concern of his; being mildly disconcerted by even simple tasks like buying fruit was, honestly, a bit sexy. It was why people travelled, and it was one of the reasons he travelled. But now an anonymous catalyst had precipitated a reaction in the air of Moscow, and now nobody could see a hand held up before their faces. He must emphasise that: nobody could. It was just vanity that made the whole thing feel like a psychological experiment directed at him.

When he found his way back into the flat it was to be treated to the smell and sound of heatstruck cats.

The cats, which were hairless, and three, and apparently suicidal, were his principle source of irritation in a city where as yet he knew nobody of his own species well enough to irritate him personally. The cats, and their upkeep, were a burden of precisely half the price of the flat, weekly, or at least this was the opinion of his landlord ,who managed to irritate him only in absentia with emails of a pedantic style and content.

Initially, this had seemed to him to be a misjudgement on behalf of the owner and one which, in deference to the man’s superior stupidity, he felt no compunction not to take advantage of. However, as it had turned out, keeping the psychotic trio of cats alive had turned out to be a job so time consuming it impacted on his time spent earning the other half of the rent. The cats, in his absence, would instantly pine, sicken, bicker, do themselves and the furniture great injury. Left unsupervised they would embark upon all kinds of neurotic and un-feline activities, chewing wire cables, attempting to drink bleach and once, memorably, gouging an eye on the television aerial. He and the cats lived on the sixth storey of a block, and the cats were either unaware of this or eager to test the theory that they must always land on their feet, because no window could be left open without the cats trying to make a break for it. The only reason that they had not all died within a week of his having moved in was their habit of lining up in front of the window rather than going at it all at once. The simple solution to the fact that the cats all had a death wish was to keep the windows closed. However, to do this in the middle of the most stifling Russian summer since records began would have killed them all anyway. He had no option then, but to spend the greater part of his free time in the flat intermittently shooing them out of whatever room they had (inevitably) followed him into and airing it out, one at a time, all the way round the flat. It hurt the cat’s feelings a great deal to have this done to them, and exacerbated their complex feelings of attachment to him in lieu of their owner. As a result, the task of getting them out of each room became, in aggravating stages, more and more difficult.

His opinion about the cats was complicated because , although it was painful to admit it, the time, energy and attention they required bled off a little of what, alone and working in an office full of people half his age, he had in abundance with little chance to expend. He hated the cats, and he loved and needed the cats, and he hated that he loved and needed the cats. They were also objectively repulsive looking. They slept, lined up, at the end of his bed.

He felt less than usually ambivalent about them today however; as one of the unfortunate effects of the heatstroke was that they had thrown up and voided their bowels all over the flat. Thank God, he thought, that a cat can hold only so much in itself at once. Nonetheless the mess was impressive, the stink overpowering and the fog actually seeping in through the edges of the window panes. He himself briefly caved and was abundantly sick in the sink. He had the fog, and the foreignness, to thank for the fact that he neither broke down nor completely lost his temper. Had he come back to his home in London to find it stifling and full of sick cats for whom he was responsible after a hard day at work (in a suit) he would never have kept it together. As it was, he simply proceeded with his usual rounds of the house, cleaning up the partially digested contents of the cats as he went and opening the windows, even though all that that achieved was to let in an eruption of boiling, polluted fog, which turned the atmosphere in the flat a grotesque shade of sulphur.  Once he had done this, he assessed the cats, who seemed to be not quite dead. While he was loath to do it, he saw little option but to consult the babushka who lived on the other side of the landing, who loved him in strange bouts, even though he was too too skinny, and who was a great dispenser of advice on all things cat (she herself had two marmalade specimens with evil eyes of china blue).

He let a puff of yellow smoke out into the hallway behind him and shut the door on the unnerving silence of the three cats. He crept over and knocked, addressed his question in a defeated voice to the capricious bosom (stifling, alien, like the fog) into which his face was instantly pressed.

‘Towels, damp towels!’ came the answer, after clucks and gasps of sympathy and distress (on behalf, he suspected, of the moggys). She wanted to talk to him today, she wanted to discuss the fog and the doorway to her nest was already half open. Through it he could see the clutter of her cushions, which were made of carpet the colour of blood, and spangled with mirrors. The table, which rattled when you sat at it, was covered in thick black paint and the shelves clustered with rows and rows of delicate and dusty china cups. Here and there were little curls of yellow, steeping through the edges of the windows as they had across the way. He had no real objection to the company of the old woman, but he thought her flat smelled overpoweringly of rugs lived on by animals. And so with surprising swiftness he got himself back over the landing and through the door, this time leaving only the faintest tendril of brimstone hanging in the hallways, and began the farcical task of wrapping up the landlord’s cats.

They took great exception to his coming at them with wet towels, and each used all of their (thankfully depleted) strength and cunning with great determination in an effort to avoid the treatment. They lashed their tails feebly but with insectile malice, they hissed from the back of their throats and laid back their naked rat ears. He gripped them mercilessly between his knees and, as they stretched their ancient necks longingly towards the ultimate blankness outside the window, he swaddled them like horrible babies.

He had used large bath towels, so he had to prop them up to stop the cat’s heads from hanging down from the bulk of the wrapping at uncomfortable angles. The dampness did indeed seem to be having a beneficial effect on the cats, who had stopped retching and rolling their eyes. He was not certain that they were not just too exhausted even to exhibit their symptoms.

Three stiff cocoons lined up on the sofa, staring balefully out of the window. Two things occurred to him. The first was that for the first time since he had first arrived in Moscow he had presented his cats with an undefended trajectory towards the open window, face on, but that, wrapped up as they were, he was exposing them to a kind of torture of feline desire. The second was that, should he choose, now, to launch the cats himself, one by one, out of the window, it was almost impossible that they would not smash their skulls open six storeys below.

He eyed them, as he stood by the window. He let it be known, in his expression, what he was contemplating. Just you watch it, from now on, he was saying to the cats. Just you be careful now.

Cross Country (by George Cutts)

I say goodbye to the Principal’s secretary and walk back through the deserted hallway enjoying the rush of giddiness that follows an interview. The squeak of my footsteps adds to the sense of absurdity. Rows of teal lockers line the corridor, punctuated by water fountains and doors, through which I get snatched glimpses. I push through the double doors and step outside; even with a covering of clouds the light is different and the paving stone path glows white against the grass. Reaching the car park, it takes a second glance to locate the hire car[i] amongst the rows of unfamiliar American models. I sit toying with the promotional key fob thinking about the answers I gave and the ones I should have given; ‘Why didn’t I mention the enhanced studies project and why did I say I liked the music of Johann Strauss[ii]?’

 

In front of me, the athletics field is framed by the windscreen (if I stay, how long before ‘windscreen’ becomes ‘windshield?’) and pockets of activity create a Brueghel-esque scene[iii]. A group of student’s jogs into the picture wearing matching red and yellow athletics kits and the Principal’s questions are replaced by thoughts four thousand miles and twenty years away.

 

-----

 

A cold damp February morning in the Midlands in 1989; twenty-odd 13-14 year olds, who make up Class K, huddle outside of the gym block in a loose uniform of white t-shirts and black shorts. Arms are clasped around bodies for protection against the cold and awkwardness. The pasty skin on exposed arms and thighs is beginning to take on the appearance of mace covered nutmeg[iv] as we wait for the P.E.[v] teacher to emerge from the warmth of his office with a mug of instant coffee.

 

The three hours of P.E. every week in the autumn and winter terms consists of football, rugby and cross country running. Today is cross country and we wait at the start with a lack of alacrity. It would take around forty five minutes for those of us running the length of the course. The rest; knotty groups of girls and boys would slope their way around through either indifference or incapacity. The occasionally fearsome gang of brazen girls with hair sprayed fringes would wait in the thin bushes just outside the school grounds ready to re-join the back markers.

 

The P.E. teacher appears, accuses me of wearing my nan’s socks, gives a warning about taking shortcuts and blows the whistle. Mark ‘Hooky’ Peters (who has the fatal combination of being short, slight and inarticulate) reprises his tactic of setting off at full speed across the school field. Four hundred metres later, Hooky would be caught and passed, puffing out his blotchy red cheeks and settling into walking the rest of the distance. Today, he disturbs the mist that has settled across the playing field and as we pass, he mutters incantations, chin pressed into his chest.

 

Those first few minutes, running alongside brightly lit class rooms bring on a rush of freedom as we make our escape from the school grounds, expressly forbidden at all other times. Covert dinner-time journeys would occasionally be made to stand in line at the bakery to buy sausage rolls and vanilla slices. Others revelled in the escapade, but those sausage rolls, eaten walking the surrounding terraced streets were tainted for me by the fear of capture and punishment.

 

Only three of us were running today, which offered the comfort of guaranteeing a finish in the fictional medal positions. One of the usual leaders was off school (ill or truant, I don’t remember) and another had decided to hang around at the back with the girls, an increasingly regular concession made to a budding girlfriend.

 

Outwardly, we weren’t interested in racing; we just wanted to get back as quickly as possible to play football or jump the canteen queue. I was short-ish for my age and carrying something my brother called ‘puppy fat’[vi]. Compared to my friends’ long lean limbs, conducive to long distances and changes of pace, the only weapon I had was attrition. Aged thirteen, after perhaps twenty odd races over the last three years I had never won the cross country. Third, second, fourth, second again, fifth and so on every week. Sometimes I was allowed the luxury of leading but I was always overhauled and arrived back to ask who had won. Today, I have the opportunity to attack.

 

We reach the border of the school field where the grass gets longer to become a trap for crisp packets and drinks cans. My trainers and socks are damp from the wet grass. Two stone posts mark the exit and the start of a ten minute climb along a cobbled bridleway. It’s a grey scene; the overcast sky merges into the clay earth of the ploughed fields which sit either side of the path, showing no signs of what might be grown there. I settle into my rhythm; breathing in through my mouth (four paces) and out (four paces). Half way up hill, Paul ‘Belly’ Bell pulls away a step at a time. On some days he’ll be out of sight and back in the changing room knotting his purple striped tie when I arrive back shattered, but on others he’ll show no form and give up, waiting for the girls lagging behind to catch up. I’m running alongside Steve ‘Ste’ Slater, in silence we watch him disappear over the brow of the hill. As we approach the top, Ste says ‘shit’ and stops. I carry on, looking back to see him knelt down tying his shoelace. Ste is a steady runner who rarely leads and is happy to take his chance with a sprint finish. Behind him, white shirts are strung out along the bridleway.

 

I hit the plateau. Across a triangular road junction is an old sandstone house with an outside tap and a dog is drinking from what looks like an old ice cream tub. The owner strides on. I run for a short distance on the pavement alongside the empty road, my breathing heavier from the effort of the climb and turn sharply right through a narrow gap onto a downhill path surrounded by thorny hedges. Unconsciously picking my pace up as my legs run away with me, I get the sharp stabbing pain in my midriff; a stitch. It’s only fifteen years later when training for the Great North Run[vii] that I find out from my training partner that this is the stress on my diaphragm of the combined weight of my liver, spleen, stomach, small intestine and colon. The pluck[viii].The pain stabs with every step. Slowing down, I jab my hand into my stomach and hold it there. In a few minutes the prodding subsides and I settle back into some kind of rhythm; breathing in through my mouth (four paces) and out (four paces), saliva pooling below my tongue. Later in the year the hedges will be loaded with sloe berries[ix], blackberries and blackcurrants. When I was younger I was sent up here to bring back carrier bags full.

 

For long stretches, the arched branches create a tunnel of hedges, where light is lost. Sounds are absorbed and I’m unaware of where my competitors are. I concentrate on avoiding the rocks, pot-holes, clumps of roots and dog turds that litter the path.

 

Running downhill can give a false sense of security in your legs, but I enjoy the last few easy steps and shoot out from between the bramble walls, turning right onto a wide path of black earth. The trees are thin, stunted and willowy and the leaves have a yellow tint. Large areas of boggy mud surround the path. From now on its faux flat, 15 minutes of visually imperceptible uphill drudge.

 

I get a welcome shock. Up ahead, Belly is bent double staring at the wet patch at his feet. I approach shouting my concern ‘y‘urate?’ but he waves me away with a grimace.

 

This is it. My best chance to win the race. The nervous excitement rises in my stomach and two options run through my mind; I can either carry on as normal, saving something for the finish? Or I can try to get as far ahead as possible?

 

I tell my legs to go faster and they groan: ‘what are you doing?’ I concentrate on landmarks I can see ahead; the tree with the overhanging branches, the pool of muddy water, the skew-whiff fence post and the tell-tale stiff carrier bags[x]. Each one is a finish line that I am first through. My personal victories are interrupted by jeering and withering wolf whistles from the girls standing indolently in the trees. I ignore them and wipe the saliva from my chin.

 

I start to fret about being in first place. The path twists gradually right giving a limited view behind me and I expect Belly or Ste to join me at any moment. A burnt out car, which is slowly being overrun by foliage marks the way back to the school. I try to pick up my pace and leap through the stone gateposts. For a second I am flying, but the leaden thump of my feet breaks the spell. Remembering my breathing I concentrate on evening it out; in through my mouth (four paces) and out (four paces). I risk a backwards peek and don’t see anyone.

 

Retracing my steps along the school field I approach the familiar sights of the school. The caretakers hut that we avoid, the back of the flaking pink canteen building, past the shouts and clatter of pans. On past the two temporary classroom huts that became permanent until they were set on fire. The mist has lifted in the forty minutes we have been out and I can see the P.E. teacher at the finish.

 

On past the blackened sandstone assembly hall with imposing arched windows, where I fainted with a moan on my first day at school.

 

On past the long jump pit, with sand as hard as cement, where split my lip open during a fight about a stolen football.

 

On past the deserted ‘smoker’s corner’, where the rebellious gathered at lunchtime as it gave clear views in all directions of any approaching teachers. I wouldn’t smoke a cigarette until I was 21.

 

The finish is around 200 metres[xi] ahead and I have the premature glow of victory. I can see myself at the end watching with hands on hips as the others trail in, commentary and applause ringing in my ears; ‘Against all the odds, this young lad from a small town in Nottinghamshire has defeated all before him, battling the appalling conditions and the limitations of his own body.’ I turn to survey the margin of my victory. I get my second shock of the race. The two of them are running side by side, eating up the ground between the long jump pit and ‘smoker’s corner’.

 

With just over 100 metres to go, I still have the race in my hands. For another 15-20 seconds I just need to keep going at the same pace and they won’t catch me. I take a gulp of air and my legs judder forwards. My bones are made of metal, surrounded by jelly. I look down at my legs, my feet feel like sledgehammer heads.

 

To my right Belly and Ste join me with smiles. I smile too. The comradely feeling lasts the few seconds it takes for them to slide off in front of me. I stare furiously at their backs willing them to slow down, to show some compassion for me. The gap grows.

 

Surrender brings relief and my eyes flit around small details; Belly’s double crown, the fluorescent patch on the back of Ste’s trainers and further down the field a crow hopping around on the cricket square. I reach Belly, Ste and the PE teacher, ‘What happened, you were miles ahead?’ I don’t answer him and he chucks the remains of his coffee onto the grass. Bent double with hands on knees I stare at the floor and close my eyes.

 

--------------

 

I turn the key in the ignition and pull away, gliding over to the right hand side of the road as I exit the car park. Embracing the ridiculousness of being here, I pull off the highway at a ‘Denny’s’[xii] and the waitress gives me a sympathetic look as I hover by the till unsure of whether to sit down or wait to be seated. She directs me to a empty booth and comments on my accent. I order a coffee with a ‘Western’ burger.

 

I bring up the ubiquitous social networking site on my phone and cross the Atlantic Ocean. Belly and Ste are still living a few miles from the school. Both have kids and I’m shocked at how big both of them are compared to my memory. I don’t remember who won the race and I never came as close to winning ‘Class K’s Cross Country’ and before I left the school aged 18, an open cast mine ate away at the hill until it disappeared, to be replaced by a nature reserve.

 

The phone vibrates and I stare at it in momentary terror. Jabbing the green symbol I feel heat flush my cheeks knowing that there could be a lead fist in the stomach on the other end of the line.

 

The waitress returns with the coffee and I give a broad, eye wrinkling smile.

---

[i] http://www.dollar.com/

[ii]

[iii] http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=bruegel's+children's+games&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=p0NRTcWwKZKbhQfBjOWvCQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=7&ved=0CDkQsAQwBg

[iv] http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandst yle/wordofmouth/2010/sep/14/consider-nutmeg

[v] http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/teachingandlearning/subjects/pe/

[vi] http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/puppy-fat

[vii] http://www.greatrun.org/Events/Event.aspx?id=1

[viii] http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/jan/23/haggis-recipe-burns-night

[ix] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloe_gin

[x]

[xi]

[xii] http://www.dennys.com/en/default.aspx

 

I have no use for the truth, (by Michael Lawton)

A text written to accompany ’I have no use for the truth’; an exhibition of six new paintings by six artists; Mark Crofton Bell, Anna Choi, Trevor Kiernander, Michael Lawton, Michelle McKeown and Ellen Stanford. The show opens this Thursday (10^th February 2011) at 38b Peckham Rye. http://www.artlicks.com/events/1580/i-have-no-use-for-the-truth?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Art+Licks+this+week+-+07022011&utm_content=Art+Licks+this+week+-+07022011+CID_6fb50e3cd5b490252867ab7d6a15c8ca&utm_source=Campaign+Monitor&utm_term=Read+More

When I look at paintings it is only the unexpected or beautiful, (and maybe sexy, because I think that’s probably different from beautiful,) that stay with me after I’ve left them. The only ones that I want to return to; that inspire me to make work myself.

When I look at paintings I have no use for verisimilitude; I am not interested in seeing something painted in a focal clarity that even a camera struggles to give us. I am not really interested in psychological truth; not at the expense of surface.

Paintings can tell stories, reveal psychosis, capture sensation, evoke an atmosphere, but all of these endeavours should be abandoned if the painting demands it: If the painting could be taken somewhere more interesting.

Everything else is just a way in and therefore all subjects are equally valid; are just a platform upon which to tackle a question.

Perhaps these questions have always existed; (and that’s why we return to old paintings.) And when we are painting we are not looking for solutions, just hypotheses, and I want beautiful or interesting hypotheses.

When I am writing I am after the truth because I am referring to something else. When I make a painting I am making something new: A referent.

Good paintings are liars, are shifty, they are inscrutable, they hide things, but we don’t care, we want to be deceived.

A painting should be as accurate as a good story.

Sometimes a painting just ‘feels right’ but that isn’t the truth, just a very plausible lie.