My Handicaps

 Early in my life I was severely handicapped with a squint or ‘lazy eye’ as it was called then. From the age of four when my mother was obliged to face the fact that I actually had a squint I spent three years in going to the Moorfields Eye Hospital by bus at least once a week to try to remedy the situation. When I was six I was operated on to shorten the outside muscle of the eye to pull it straight. This made me look like everybody else for a change but it did not cure the main result of the problem, the lack of binocular vision. The experts were pleased to note that I did not have double vision.

Of course the result was quite extreme, it left me with a wide field of vision but little ability to judge depth. It meant that I could never catch a ball or hit anything in the air and coming towards me.

I was always the last to be picked for team games, it was obvious that I was no good if it involved any kind of depth perception.

Sport had no attraction for me so much social life was closed to me in our competitive society. It’s not surprising therefore that I became a bit of an introvert.

I was a great reader however and thanks to a very good Carnegie library in Fulham I read many books. Adults members were given four fiction tickets and four non-fiction tickets. My mother read only fiction so I was able to use her four non-fiction tickets as well as my two children’s library ones.

My reading was extensive, liberal and unusually available to one of my tender years, I read anything that took my interest and the library had a huge non-fiction section.

Even though I wore glasses for many years I did not suffer any bullying because as a consequence of all this reading other children regarded me as a sort of useful asset, I was called The Professor.

The difficulty in drawing of making the conversion between three dimensions and two was not one that I ever had, I drew consistently through my whole childhood. When visiting relatives and sitting with all the adult family conversations going on around me it was generally known that supplying me with pencil and paper would keep me happily occupied and out of trouble.

For many years I believed that I was disadvantaged and there is no doubt on looking back that my whole career was eventually shaped by this condition. I was not surprised to find when studying on my Art Teachers’ Training course that 60% of the intake were suffering from a eye problem of one sort or another, usually short-sightedness. I later learned that could be paralleled in the sports/athletics field where a large number of leading athletes had suffered one kind or another of physical illnesses or physically limiting conditions in earlier life.

As a teacher, having a wide monocular field of sharp vision had real advantage for a teacher. It was easy to spot movement at the extreme periphery of vision and earned me the pupil reputation of ‘having eyes in the back of of my head.’

 Without this particular start in life it is difficult to think of any different outcome than as an Art teacher and eventually an Art Lecturer.

 The Reason for Art Galleries

I was well aware of the quality of Van Gogh's painting through seeing many reproductions of his work. Colour printing in those days was not a patch on today's excellent standards. Even with those drawbacks I was able to see the devotion and the vision he was able to bring to everything he painted.
In the summer of 1979 my wife and I visited the The Kröller-Müller Museum at Otterlo in Holland. At first I was surprised to find that each of the works was on a smaller scale than I had assumed before. That is difficult to take on board even though the dimensions are usually given.  I was completely overcome with emotion when looking close to each painting I was able to fully appreciate the wonderful skill behind the bold impasto and the feeling which had made it possible. This is why we have picture galleries. 

Seeing works in the original is very different from seeing them in reproduction.
I remember having the same sense of shock I experienced in the National gallery when I saw the original painting of "Health of the Bride" by Stanhope Forbes. Its size first took my breath away 8ft. x 6 1/2 ft. On closer inspection showed it the command of shape and form and composition which is common in the best of Victorian art.

Nothing can beat seeing the original.
I remember when at a Toulouse Lautrec exhibition I was explaining a painting to my wife. I had attracted one or two other visitors who were listening to me. A lady wearing the guided tour commentary headphones complained loudly. I was holding up the queue of people who were following the audio guide by spending too long in front of one painting. She told me forcibly that I should move on. I didn't reply, nor did I move on. She seemed unaware that the audio headphones had been given out freely to move everyone efficiently through the show to make room for more paying customers.

 Back here after a long time away. It's been a hard year for all of us I'm sure with havingto live under a parliament ruled by a  cabinet of Pontius Pilates.

Here's my last painting for you:

The Inside of Outwood Common post mill. 

TV & the Art World

 

Television and the Art World

One thing that seems to loom large nowadays is the overweening emphasis on competition in many TV programmes. Nothing escapes the competitive treatment, It's "Challenge this" and "Challenge that" no matter what the subject there have to be losers every week and the  only one remaining deemed to be "The Best," with all the rest, that is all the losers being brave about it and putting on a brave face in front of the camera.

Many presenters, they are often art historians, who attempt to give programmes about artists, mostly outline their interesting and chaotic private lives very often to the exclusion of any sort of interesting explanation of the quality, innovation, handling, composition or relevance of their work to the contemporary competence.

The popular Victorians like Waterhouse, Watts, Stanhope Forbes, Lytton hardly get a mention although the re-Raphaelites have series devoted to them. Never shown, or heard of at all on TV are the masters of the 20th century watercolour Russell Flint and the Scottish colourists.

Additionally why do we never hear about the excellent commercial art practitioners who were so successful and influential in their time? The masters of poster design, Tamara de Lempicka, Ludwig Holwein, Tom Purvis and  latterly Rowland Hilder never are mentioned, the academic snobbery attached to the fact that they were commercial artists is still alive and well.

Very occasionally there is a bright spot with the appearance of Grayson Perry who seems to be the only person who understands what creation is all about.

I remember the old interval black and white video clip showing a potter raising a pot with consummate skill and dexterity. The same clip every time but wonderful to watch.

Wouldn't it be great to have TY programmes more like some of the best demonstration videos available for sale and on YouTube in which we can see actual art teachers and practitioners of some merit practically demonstrating how to do it. I could suggest John Yardley, Frank Webb, Tony Couch, Sterling Edwards, Andrew Pitt, Tim Wilmot, Thomas Schaller, Andy Eversen for a start,  all of them really inspiring to watch.

 

 Here are three more of my watercolour paintings. I'm trying to get to grips with texture without the deliberately careless style normally associated with watercolours. This I have found quite a delicate and difficult process having previously concentrated on a hard edge style.

Any way here are a few examples of my most recent work.

                                                                York Road Earls Colne

St Monans Fife

                                                                        

Back of The Drum

 Here are some recent paintings during Lockdown.

I hope you like them.

My Website

I have just spent a great deal of time adding a site search to the Home page of my website, I don't know yet what the purpose of it is yet. However it seemed to justify the spending of a great deal of time in playing with my copy of Webplus X8. This is an old program now abandoned by Serif, possibly because it does not run on Apple machines. It is a very competent program however and it currently enables me to produce and maintain two websites.
If you want to see the results of my efforts go to: www.millriind.co.uk