Welcome back to all Pan's readers from me and a very grateful goat-foot god Himself, who's only just emerged, belatedly, from hibernation. The arts combo here touches upon both painting and - as ever and always - books. While this blog has long been an admittedly self-centered indulgence, (as is His wont), we are always open to new ideas; these, with regard to what aspects of the arts you'd like to see that have yet to be covered. What will be a constant will be the preference for short tale collections over novels, though, as with author HELEN GRANT, those known for both would never be ignored. First up is New Zealand artist VIKY GARDEN, whose uncanny depictions of the self through the years has, I'm pleased to say, quite some way to go. The sole collection from a future BBC scripter in children's fantasy ends this entry. Enjoy...
Saturday, 3 March 2018
art.
You've
written on your site that you're 'still painting that very first
self-referencing painting – and I can’t or won’t finish doing
so until I feel I’ve got it - which will probably never happen.'
Reflecting on this, what do you feel might be the obstacles to
achieving finality?
Viky
Garden: I think it’s my way of saying
I never want to finish – or that I’m aware there really is no end
until the big sleep. All of these paintings are a continuing
conversation I’m having with myself and deep down in my marrow it’s
not something I want to stop. Each time I start a new work I’m
giving myself total freedom but at the same time I’m literally
looking to myself for answers as to how this latest relationship –
mere pigment scraped on canvas, will resolve – what question will
it ask?
Do you vary the
ways you work – and / or the materials used - when you begin your
latest self-portrait, or is there always a set routine?
VG:
Until a month ago, my studio used to be a room in the house – so it
was very easy for me to nip in and out at any time and within
seconds, be working. Now I’ve got a separate studio out in the yard
and it requires dedicated time. I make a point of getting all the
admin/chores sorted in the morning and that gives me the afternoons
to spend in the studio.
For the first 25
years I painted with oils because I had this insane bias against
acrylic paint. Something along the lines of ‘good artists use oils’
– an embarrassing prejudice based solely on the idea that one
learned technique has more value than another. But I found that I was
using smaller and smaller brushes and working with my nose to the
canvas – I was slowly suffocating. I felt the need to challenge my
approach but wasn't sure how to go about it. So I stopped painting.
This is a
financially suicidal thing to do and I don’t recommend it. But for
two months at the end of 2015, that’s exactly what I did. With
time, I slowly began to give myself permission to think in broader
terms until I got to a point where nothing was standing in my way (it
never had been of course, I was the sole obstacle). In those two
months over summer, I played a lot of backgammon. I’m certain it
helped in a contemplative way because in
February 2016 I went back into the studio, put away the oils and
paintbrushes and began painting with liquid acrylic and using bits of
cardboard. I didn’t want anything to remind me of the practice of
oil painting – no paint in tubes and no brushes. It was an enormous
risk because I had no idea how to paint with acrylics or even what it
was I was hoping to achieve.
If there’s a set
routine, it’s a loose one with a much more random approach to
what’s going to appear on the canvas and why. Working with
abstraction has given me much more opportunity to discover ‘happy
accidents’, those wonderful moments of time where a splash or smear
of paint can determine or reveal an aspect of light or form that
conscious thought and practice often stifles.
Have there been
occasions when your art and the music of your husband Steve, of
Rattle Records, have come together in multimedia projects?
VG: We tend
to stay in our own paddock with our work. The only time there’s
been any overlapping is when my photography has been used for Rattle
cover artwork and my choosing Rattle music for two of my Youtube
clips. We both work from home so we’re together all the time and
often Steve’s work can be intense (he not only runs Rattle but he
engineers and produces most of the music). To be honest, I’ve never
thought about the possibility of doing any kind of project together
because there never seems to be enough time in the day. That’s not
to say that if something presented itself we wouldn’t consider it.
From your
website, I see you have also sculpted variations of the female torso.
Are you also the model for these and do they represent, as much as
the paintings, this same ongoing search?
VG: In the
summer of 2013 I produced about a dozen small sculptures. At the time
it was as much about giving myself a break from painting as it was
the desire to learn a new process. The great thing about the torsos
was that for the most part, I was able to think less and simply
produce. There’s something to be said for the physical process of
producing work in this manner – making moulds and casting pieces
(each torso is in a limited edition of 5) and finally, sanding for
hours on end. I was curious and keen to teach myself how to make
sculpture. Apart from a couple of works, they are mostly female
torsos – it wasn’t a conscious decision to base these on me, but
the tendency for me is always to do what I know. These are like
talisman pieces, they each fit in the palm of my hand and are
beautiful forms to hold. I’ve since had one of the pieces printed
larger (using 3D technology) so that in the future I can made an
edition of it.
So far, what have
your self-portraits helped you learn about yourself since the age of
fifteen?
VG:
It’s so tempting to say ‘everything and nothing’. Everything
in the sense that they are a visual record of my life for the past 30
years. While I haven’t been too obvious with my narratives, I
clearly recall what was happening at the time when I look back at the
majority of my work. If I was to say nothing,
it’s because ‘needing to know’ keeps me standing in front of
that easel. In all this time, nothing about ‘our’ language –
the language that exists between me and
her – has changed. I’ve learned
that what feels personal, even intimate, is really universal –
aspects of love and loss, the transitory nature of everything, change
and impermanence. Collectors aren’t buying ‘a portrait of Viky
Garden’, they’re seeing something that resonates their own life
experience.
Do you think
you'd still have wanted to be a painter if consistently using
yourself as the subject hadn't originally occurred?
VG: Life is
serendipitous; opportunities arise and if we have the talent, time,
and understanding, we make of it what we will. I didn’t get the
chance to go to art school, however at eighteen I met Steve and for
as long as we’ve been able to, we’ve given ourselves the freedom
to make our own path and trust our own vision. In a parallel life I
could very well have gone to art school, applied myself and perhaps
found influence in a different discipline or practice. I’ve often
wondered, if I wasn’t painting at all and could choose a different
interest, it would probably be based around some sort of archaeology.
I can think of nothing more meditative than carefully revealing and
discovering aspects of our past, what makes us who we are now. In
many ways, I find its very much the same purpose painting serves.
A big thank you to
Viky for her time and contribution.
You
can find Viky's official website here: https://www.vikygarden.com/
On
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vikygardenartist/
books.
I first heard about HELEN GRANT from her 2013 Swan River Press collection, The Sea Change & Other Stories. Known mainly as a popular novelist for the Young Adult range, her latest - Ghost (Fledgling Press) - cleverly defies reader expectation, with its young protagonist of the title and the resonant echoes of a historical past.
What
inspired the plot and choice of setting for Ghost?
Helen
Grant: I've always found real life locations a great source of
inspiration; all my novels and most of my short stories are set in
real places that I have visited. I think an atmospheric location is
not only a rich backdrop to a story, it can also suggest elements of
the plot. For me, an interesting setting is like an empty stage set,
waiting for the characters to appear, and the details of the stage
scenery suggest to me what kind of action might take place.
Ghost
is set in Perthshire, Scotland, where we have lived since 2011. One
aspect of living here that I've always found fascinating is being
able to see the traces of the past in the landscape. I'm fascinated
by the vanished country houses of Scotland – many of them built in
the 1800s and then abandoned in the mid twentieth century when they
became impractical to maintain. Langlands House, the setting for the
book, is not a real place, but it is inspired by some of the derelict
houses I've visited. Most of them are ruinous because when they were
abandoned they were unroofed, and the weather has got in. I thought:
supposing there was a house like this, but someone had just locked
the door and walked away, leaving all the contents inside? Who would
be living in a place like that, and why? And that is where the story
of Ghost
came from.
Innerpeffray
Library, an antiquarian library near Crieff, was also a source of
inspiration for the fictional library at Langlands House. I liked the
idea of a library that has so many interesting and beautiful books on
such a wide range of topics, but all of them outdated. My heroine
does her best to interpret the world around her with nothing to rely
on but that.
Without
wishing to give away any plot elements, did you decide at the outset
of Ghost's
writing that the old adage of what-goes-around-comes-around would be
a key part of the climax?
HG:
I knew from the outset what the ending of the book would be. The
final scenes were very clear in my mind even before I started
writing. But I don't really see the ending as being all about
what-goes-around-comes-around. I think it's more about the difficulty
of escaping who we are, and the history that has shaped us. It's very
hard to say any more about this topic without offering any massive
spoilers!
A
real strength of the novel's first half are the tropes of
supernatural fiction being at first suggested, then changed. Was this
always your intention, during the drafting, or did you change your
mind and decide to defy the reader's expectations?
HG:
This was one hundred per cent intentional. I wanted the reader to ask
themselves what was really happening, and perhaps to make some
assumptions before more of the truth of the situation was revealed.
Ghost
was a very difficult book to write, and I did more rewriting and
editing on it than I have done on any of my other novels. But the
rewriting was largely about the characterisation and some plot
details. I was very clear about the supernatural tropes and their
role in the novel throughout the writing process.
The
feel
of
the novel reminded me of Nina Bawden's Carrie's
War.
The house, the lone girl protagonist, the family feud and consequence
for which she feels profound guilt, etc. Were such novels for older
children, and / or their TV adaptations, a major influence on your
writing?
HG:
No. I recall Carrie's
War
being on television when I was a child but I have never read it, and
I can't think of any other novel for older children which was an
influence here. I would say that a big influence was Gothic
literature, which also favours tropes such as the isolated heroine
and the intriguingly dilapidated ruin, and often has a supernatural
element. I've always loved classic Gothic fiction, ever since I was a
teenager myself, devouring The
Mysteries of Udolpho
and Dracula.
Combining
my Gothic tastes with my environment of rural Scotland was what
produced Ghost.
While
the novel form has long been considered – by agents and publishers
- as more commercial than collections of short tales, still might we
hope for a follow-up to The
Sea Change (Swan
River Press (2013)) in the future?
HG:
Yes, definitely. I have now written more than enough new stories to
create a new collection, and I really hope to see one come out in
future. However, a few readers did comment after reading The
Sea Change,
that they would like to have seen some completely new fiction in it.
It would be ideal if a future collection included some totally unseen
work - and I haven't had time to sit down and write anything!
I
agree that collections of short stories are seen as a harder sell
than a novel. All the same, ghost stories remain perennially popular.
Personally, I love writing them. A novel of 120,000 words is a big
undertaking, whereas a story of 5,000 words gives a sense of
satisfaction and completion but takes a comparatively short amount of
time to write. I think also that as a novelist there is always this
pressure to produce something similar to the thing you wrote last
time, probably because it's confusing for the readership if you write
a crime thriller and then follow it up with a Gothic romance. But
there isn't the same pressure with short stories. You can experiment
a bit more. I sometimes write ghost stories with quite traditional
settings but just recently I've been experimenting with more
existential stuff and I really enjoy doing that.
For
me, the traditional ghost-in-a-haunted-house type tale is way past
its use-by date. What is your own view of the ghost in modern
literature?
HG:
This is an interesting question. My daughter, who loves classic ghost
stories, admits that some of the traditional tropes are now clichés
but says that to a certain extent she reads the stories for those
clichés. And I think that the traditional setting of the decaying
old house or dank mossy churchyard is used for a reason: those places
genuinely are creepy. I should know – I spend my spare time
exploring places like that! In the hands of a really good writer, I
think they can still come to full and creepy life. An excellent
example in my mind is Neil Gaiman's short story October
in the Chair,
which features both haunted house and graveyard. It's a story which
fills me with tension and dread – and also sadness - every single
time I read it.
I
think though that when we say "traditional ghost…" we are
thinking of a very specific type of ghost: the lingering spirit of
the recently dead. For me, a ghost can be very different from that.
In a recent interview, I was asked (as I often am) whether I believe
in ghosts myself, to which I answered: Yes. I don't believe in things
in white sheets and chains hanging around a graveyard going
"Wooooo….!" But I think it's possible to be haunted. I've
occasionally seen someone in a crowd and thought that it was someone
I know to be dead, and I've dreamed very vividly about people who
have died. Now, I know that I am not really seeing a ghost when I
"see" people in this way, but I think these experiences are
a kind of haunting, because they show that the lost person is still
very present in my mind. I think Ghost
is a book in which the past very much haunts the present, and the
dead reach out of their graves to exert their influence on the
living. Isn't that the definition of a ghost story?
Huge
thanks to Helen for her contribution.
Helen's official
website is at: http://www.helengrantbooks.com/
The Other Passenger by John Keir Cross, Valancourt Books
The
arrival of John Keir Cross (1914-67) spearheaded the post-war second
wave of BBC script writers for radio and TV. He was mainly known for
his children's fiction under the pen-name, Stephen Macfarlane. The
Other Passenger (1944) was his only collection for adults; issued
under his own.
Of the
Portraits, 'The Glass Eye,' 'Clair de Lune' and 'Miss Thing and the
Surrealist' are the best. Of the Mysteries, 'Liebestraum' and
'Cyclamen Brown.' These avoid the usual overwrought reactionism, in
most contemporary horror, where the reader is supposed to respond,
with robotic obedience, to the author's most lurid descriptions,
leaving little room for imagination. These five – though featuring
horrific elements – are as much reliant upon strangeness and, yes,
the uncanny.
In 'The
Glass Eye,' the black humour is beautifully judged, triggered from a
lovely fable of Eastern philosophy, worthy of M.P. Shiel or Vernon
Lee. A woman in her late thirties, unlucky in love, falls for one she
perceives as a handsome ventriloquist at a local theatre. She
initiates an amorous correspondence. When – too late - she learns
the secret behind the act's success, her bitter vengeance reflects
the impotence at her heart – as well as his. This tale may have not
only inspired the memorable 'Ventriloquist's Dummy' entry of the film
Dead Of Night the following year; it might also have gained
Keir Cross entry into screenwriting itself.
'Clair
de Lune' opens on an invitation by a platonic girlfriend to stay at a
country retreat amongst a group of bohmeian highbrows, initiating a
dark attachment eternally awaiting the spirit of a fearful young girl
who appears in the garden for the protagonist alone. The title
alludes to the beckoning tune played by ghostly hands upon a
stationary lute in the house. A tale that succeeds, mainly, for its
manifestation of the girl and the period descriptions of the guests.
Intriguing, but not quite followed through, is the raison d'etre
of the shadowy enemy that comes between them both.
Of the
sad-older-man-obsessed-with-pretty-young-girl entries, 'Liebestraum'
possesses a subtlety and heart, harbouring a sympathy for both main
characters, right up to the end. A sanitary inspector loses his wife.
Neither husband nor wife loved each other – each knew it - and when
the wife dies while having an affair, he, understandably, feels the
need to break out and find a very different replacement of his own.
Things go well enough, platonically, but something else is going on
within him.
'Miss
Thing and the Surrealist' features an artist (of guess which former
movement) and the disparate, disguised identity of his greatest work
that somehow maintains a psychological hold on its creator and
followers; a refreshingly odd diversion from the genre and its
sub-genres depicted elsewhere. 'Cyclamen Brown' is the first-person
narrative about a meeting with a commercial writer of popular song,
who ducks and dives amid the 'racketeers, sharks and toughs' of
Forties London. The character Eddie Wheeler is convincingly drawn.
(Convincing in that he reminded me of someone I know); fast-talking,
no-nonsense, with a depracating wit to his speech. The title alludes
to his mysterious, torch-singing muse who wears a permanent mask on
and off-stage. This is, in truth, her story.
Subsequently, Keir Cross's most resonant contribution to the genre
were, first, with the BBC, as radio script-adapter for anthology
series The Man In Black (1949), (introduced by the
sepulchral-voiced actor, Valentine Dyall), then, in the 50s' and
60s', a return to children's fantasy with entries for Children's
Hour. He ended his career with a
one-off production of The Box Of Delights
for Saturday Night Theatre
(1966).
To J.F.
Norris's credit – whose new introduction gives precious background
on the career – he leaves the reader hungry to proceed. The
remaining tales, however, don't truly deliver. The title tale, a
doppelganger re-run, displays much stylish form for little real
substance.
Keir
Cross's approach is hardly ahead of its time, being very much of it.
Like his contemporaries, he has a particular disdain for the
metropolitan lower middle-class. Men are henpecked, wig-wearing,
denture-wearing impotents eager to cave-in their spouse's heads as a
delusional shortcut to dominance. His women are ideal targets for
that era's casual misogyny, depicted as 'little,' 'loathsome' or
excessively fat; sex-jaded burdens on their long-suffering husbands.
Next to Valancourt's exemplary reissues by Forrest Reid, Claude
Houghton, Lord Dunsany and many others, The Other Passenger proves
we'd been spoiled; but, the best of Keir Cross shows what
might have been had he remained longer on the page.
Pan Review Of The Arts No.7 will appear in May.
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