Rejected Artists & Transparent Trousers

Ever since I first visited Paris, at the age of sixteen, I've had the ambition to be a Rejected Artist. I wanted to live in a garret in Paris or Soho, paint works of genius like Vincent Van Gogh, then come back from Heaven to see what nice things people said about my stuff long after I'd gone.

Well, here's a rejected artist; Percy Wyndham-Lewis, standing outside the Royal Academy in London, in 1938.

Note:
- the cigar
- the well-made suit (but the awful faux-pas of leaving all three buttons done up)
- the silk scarf
- the patent leather shoes
- and worst of all, the spats on those shoes

And here's the reason for his rejection (only from the RA Summer Exhibition) - his portrait of T S Eliot, one of the most boring and inconsequential poets of all time.

The painting is good:
- the top half plagiarises a few clues from Gauguin (or some Vorticists)
- the middle part is a good portrait, in spite of a useless lot of effort to be Cubist.

But the bottom part? Well, it takes a lot of artistry to paint a famous poet with transparent trousers.

Is this an iconographic signal? Were Wyndham-Lewis and Eliot a little bit more than male friends?

Yes.

Now here is what Wyndham-Lewis was trying to emulate: something like this Juan Gris cubist portrait of Pablo Picasso, painted 30 years before.

Take a very close look at this. Cubism was supposed to be a new way of looking at things; putting three dimensions, and the different facets of them, into two.

And here's why; my own 'cubist' portrait of Percy Wyndham-Lewis (complete with arrogant cigar) executed in about 10 minutes, using the Paint.Net program.

You won't recognise Wyndham-Lewis, but then you won't recognise the young Pablo Picasso in John Grey's portrait, either.

That's not the point. This is Art.

King of the Gossip

A few weeks ago, I received a strange e-mail:
------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 04:50:35 -0800 (PST)
From: "roy" (bernhard@yahoo.com) Add to Address Book
To: richardparker01@yahoo.com
Subject: Notes From a Small Island : GL's Public Park Killed
roy has sent you a link to a blog:

Richard Parker the king of the gossip in siargao island

Blog: Notes From a Small Island
Post: GL's Public Park Killed
-------------------------------------------------
Which I thought was a compliment.

If, after all, I'm gossiping about island life, what's better than to be King of it?

Well, bernhard@yahoo.com doesn't exist as an email address. "Roy" is a Belgian resident of the town, who feels much as I do about a certain Andreas.
So, it was a bit of clever computer hackery, used very stupidly.
Then, this week, I was out swimming in the sea just opposite my back garden (which I have to reach by a 200 yard detour because Andreas has closed off my right of way to the sea) and I heard and saw his young son, the eponymous Patrick, standing on the high tide mark, shouting:
"Richard - Hari nan Chismis" - "Richard - The King of Gossip!"
I ignored him completely, and that certainly riled his mother, who used to be such a nice young lady.

So now I know where my mysterious emails come from.

Tree Chopper

My wonderful neighbour, Andreas Mikolewicz, a German-Polish-American fellow who is trying his damnedest to "Car-ibb-e-anise" this lovely island, has started to chop down what is left of the local forest.

(Well, it's not really a local forest, it's a couple of bits of feral coconut plantation to the left and right of the road that leads out of GL towards Cloud 9, the 'famous' surfing spot).
It used to be a sort of green forest gateway; an archway of coconut palms leading out of the town.

But then, Andreas 'bought' the land to the left, a couple of years ago.
The local people, through their barangay council, complained bitterly that he left it to waste. The dropped coconut fronds were never cleared up, and other plants couldn't grow through them, so, for about 100 metres on the left hand side of GL's gateway to Cloud 9, there was a vermin-ridden wasteland (rats like coconut-frond-sheltered homesteads).

The inhabitants of Mabua (Purok Alingit) on the right hand side, who have built their huts amongst the coconut trees, without destroying any of them, became a bit concerned. (They have a right to be so; Andreas has cut off their access to their local swimming hole, set dogs on their children, and put up a concentration-camp-style barbed wire fence to keep them off his his 'property').

Now he's chopped all those coconut trees down (I think he really doesn't want to pay anything for 'his own' timber, and probably has plans for a highway strip mall leading out from GL).

If you think I'm exaggerating about the hypocrisy of this fellow, then read his website:

Quote:

"HAVE YOU EVER BEEN HUNGRY? I mean really hungry – if not picture this!
Mentally place your home in an area without running water and electricity. Now remove EVERYTHING in your house that uses either electricity or running water. Remove all carpeting and stuffed furniture, including the bed. Replace this with a straw mat or cardboard. No floors, no slab, just bare earth and a leaky roof made of leftover tin and damaged plywood. Take out all the screens in your house. While you’re at it remove the windows and the doors. No grass around the house. Got a good picture? Good. Now picture yourself with no car, or bike, or shoes for that matter.
No job, No unemployment or No welfare checks. You have No money, No bank accounts, No credit cards, No refrigerator, No ice and No food. You are hungry, and to make matters worse, your children are hungry. On top of that they are sick, full of worms and usually naked. This is the AVERAGE home in Haiti, Philippines, Africa and India.
These are people just like you and me except born with little or no hope and no opportunities.
We invite you to meet some of these wonderful & special people:
Yes, here are several opportunities that you truly can make a difference! Especially now with all the dreadful world events we have an opportunity to show the world especially those who don’t like us that we really care. With a little help by everyone we not only can save the lives of millions of starving children but we will also plant the seed of “To Love – To Care – To Share” to guarantee a better future for those we don’t know as well as our children.
1. Opportunity #1 – Receive “A Gift For Your Donation”
2. Opportunity #2 ”Become a MESSENGER OF JOY” Fundraiser Partner Our Partners are rewarded with Financial Benefits, Reduced and Free Vacations & Lots of great Savings.
3. Visit our Beach Resort & Orphanage Sanctuary in the Siargao Island in the Philippines.
4. Purchase our products Dried Fruits and Wood Carvings

Address:
Messenger Of Joy Foundation
14721 S. Biscayne River Drive
Miami, FL 33168
Tel (305) 687-4107
Fax (305) 769-9924
andreas@mojf.org