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Part Two: Think Like An Artist

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

On the act of creating:

Gompertz reflects on the ability of creatives to think about both the big picture, and the fine detail.

”It requires your mind to constantly go back and forth, one moment concerned with the minutiae, the next stepping away and seeing the broader context… One tiny dab of colour can radically change the appearance of the largest of paintings. Each stroke of the brush is a note struck in a visual concerto; any mistake is as obvious to the viewer as hearing an orchestra member hit a wrong note.”

It’s true that the tiniest detail can make a painting: the small detail of the red sun makes this work by Monet.

Sunrise, 1872, Monet (Wikipedia 7 Jan 2025)

Gompertz describes a visit he made to the studio of Belgian artist, Luc Tuymans.

He is intrigued by Tuymans’ work and its ability to make him want to look closer. Tuymans explains that every painting has a point of entry: a small detail that catches your eye and draws you in. He is influenced by other artists who use this trick: Hopper, Van Eyck and Vermeer. In the case of the latter, Gompertz explains that the point of entry for ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ might be assumed to be the highlight on the earring but, in fact, conservators uncovered an alternative point of entry: a small dot of pale pink paint in the corner of her mouth, which serves to change the overall reading of the painting.

Detail ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring, 1665, Vermeer

As an aside, to my mind, the point of entry in Monet’s ‘Sunrise’ above is the red sun, going down through the buildings on the right, the reflection on the water, back up to the boat in the foreground, to the boats behind, up to the buildings in the distance, into the sky and following the directional brushstrokes up to the top righthand corner.

Tuymans completes his paintings within the course of a day; he uses the edge of the canvas as his palette which allows him to work quickly, as does his preconceived detailed plan, which can sometimes have begun many months, if not years, before. In fact, Tuymans goes so far as to plan an entire exhibition upfront before he has even started work, from the relationship between each painting, its size, location, the colour of the wall on which it will hang, and so on. His rationale for treating his work as a unit in this way is that to make sense of it, all of the paintings will need to be seen together, and so he increases the chances of there being a major retrospective of his work once he is dead. Now, that’s seeing the bigger picture!

I’m not really sure what I think about this. Planning work in such an extensive and detailed way seems very restrictive to me. Having said that, I would assume that his planning process includes a prolonged period of experimentation before committing to the final piece, which is why he can complete it in a day. He also uses existing images as a basis for his work, which is likely to reduce the number of questions he has to ask himself.

As for the focus on his legacy, I really can’t make up my mind. I suppose it depends on why artists, and in particular, Tuymans, make art. Is it to make the world a better place? Is it to fulfil the need to express themselves? Is it to leave a lasting mark on the world? Is it to make money? Is it because they simply have to? It’s probably a combination of all of these things, with some being of greater significance than others. I just get the feeling in Tuymans’ case that it’s rather contrived, and predominantly about his legacy. I actually wish that I hadn’t read this about him: for me it is a distraction from his work, which is primarily concerned with people, and their relationships with the past.

John Playfair, 2014, Luc Tuymans & John Playfair, 1824, Henry Raeburn (momus.ca 7/1/25)

I’m reminded of Sean Scully. My mother couldn’t stand Sean Scully. In fact, she didn’t rate Picasso either. I remember a conversation I had with her when she phoned me up one morning: she hadn’t been able to get to sleep the night before, so she had got up, made herself a cup of tea and put the TV on. She ended up watching a documentary on Sean Scully. She hadn’t been able to get to sleep after it either, as she had been so incensed by it. Did I know that his paintings, basically just coloured stripes, sold for millions of pounds? I suspect the problem had arisen because the programme makers had juxtaposed some footage of Scully applying some paint to a canvas in a rather sloppy slapdash fashion with footage of one of his paintings being sold at auction. I think it was one of those ‘I could have done that’ moments, but I resisted the urge to give the obvious answer ‘But you haven’t, have you?’, and instead commented that it’s because he is actually a very astute businessman. From what I understand, Scully controls the supply of his art into the art market, retaining a significant number of works himself, thus reducing supply, increasing demand and driving up prices, whilst at the same time ensuring that there is plenty of his work readily available for retrospectives. Basic economics, really.

Song (1985), Sean Scully approx value 2022 £1.6M (sothebys.com 7/1/25)

It all comes down to the uncomfortable relationship between the creation of art and profit, which Gompertz deals with early on in his book, and which I wasn’t planning on covering, but as I seem to have found myself here anyway…

On money:

At it’s very simplest, if you are a professional artist then you need to earn an income from your work to survive. But the relationship between art and money raises so many questions. Is the problem the amount you earn and what you do with it? Which is more worthwhile – the work of a penniless artist slaving away in a garret, or an artist who plays the game and exploits the brand conscious wealthy consumers? Does the need to earn an income compromise or limit an artist’s ability to express themselves authentically? Sophie, in her post reflecting on the first term, refers to the new sense of creative freedom she has experienced, away from the conveyor belt of producing work which would appeal to past and future buyers of her paintings. It is a subject we’ve touched on briefly in our weekly sessions, and it seems a very delicate balance to get right. I think Gompertz probably sums it up best:

“The intellectual and emotional motivation isn’t profit, but it is an essential component. Profit buys freedom. Freedom provides time. And time, for an artist, is the most valuable of commodities.”

In his book, Gompertz explores the issue of artistic entrepreneurism by starting with the artist who didn’t shy away from the subject of money and materialism by making his art all about them: Andy Warhol.

“Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” Andy Warhol

He then covers the likes of Reubens, an expert salesman, who went off ringing the doorbells of the aristocracy and royalty of Europe whilst his minions worked endlessly in his workshops; Van Gogh and his money man, Theo; and American artist, Theaster Gates, who uses the proceeds of his art to buy and refurbish buildings for use by the community in the South Side of Chicago, where he grew up, thereby regenerating the area and effecting positive social change.

‘Chorus’, 2016, Theaster Gates

I had hoped to have covered much more of the book in this post – it may end up having as many parts as The Godfather! The fact that I have had so much to take note of and comment on, is proof that I am finding it incredibly insightful. I am aware that, at the moment, I’m using this blog for note-making. I have to, otherwise I’ll forget it all. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve read a fact and thought, oh that’s interesting, I must remember that, only for it to disappear again. It infuriates me that I can’t recall facts and statistics at the drop of a hat when having a discussion about something, whilst the other person seems to be able to pluck them out of thin air in support of what they are saying. Or maybe that’s exactly what they are doing – they do say that if you say something with enough confidence people will believe you…

Reflection

Kate McCalmont-Woods 2 Comments

I’ve decided to take a leaf out of Sophie’s book and formalise the thoughts I’ve had since we finished our first term.

I don’t think that I have felt more like myself (whoever that might be) than I have over the course of the last 3 months. I can’t pinpoint why exactly; I’ve just felt like ‘me’.

It has been overwhelming (I suspect that I use this word an awful lot) in the sense that I have been totally free to create and, more importantly, to think about creating. I feel as if I am at the start of an important journey – I don’t want to rush into it; I want to take my time and be prepared. I don’t even know where I’m going – there are no limitations – but I know that I will discover something by the end of it.

I think that I have mostly engaged in the preparation side of things rather than the physical manifestation of work, but that’s been the best bit. I’ve been collecting ideas, inspiration, and information. I think about it most of the time. I’ll have a thought and think, yes, I could use that, and then it’s gone. I need to find a workable way of recording my thoughts – I can’t really open a notebook or Notes on my phone whilst driving – maybe I’ll have to call someone (hands free, of course) and get them to record it for me. Funnily enough, I used to do that: if, whilst at home, I thought of something I needed to do at work the next day, I would call my work phone and leave a voicemail. Just writing that has made me think about what voicemails I might leave younger versions of myself at various points in my life. And that is how it’s been, going off on tangents, suddenly striking up a conversation with whoever I’m with, on the thought I’ve just had.

It has also made me feel anxious – I don’t want to miss anything. I have amassed a large pile of books which I ‘need’ to read. I haven’t really tackled the online library resources with any conviction just yet – the thought of it makes my heart race – all that information out there – how can I take it all in?

The preparation of my study statement has come at just the right time. I need to marshall my thoughts and commit them to words, but in the knowledge that it is a living document which can change over time. I’m actually really looking forward to it as it will bring a sense of calm and order. I hope. Who knows, I might be feeling differently come the beginning of February.

Thinking back on the work I have done over the last few months, I think I have become much freer – I’ve been leaving things as being what I would term as ‘unfinished’ and managing not to go back to them. Making them public by putting them on this blog has helped tremendously. I’m now enjoying the process of making much more than I have previously – it was often an ordeal.

I think I have identified areas which I would like to explore in more depth: I have invested in a book on Procreate (it’s not going to beat me) which I’m working my way through, and I have some ideas in my head as to a series of three digital collages on the subject of motherhood which I may or may not develop further. I like the number three: I am one of three; there are three in my immediate family; there are three trees which together form one tree on my favourite walk near my home; and three is the smallest number by which you can seek the input of others and still avoid a deadlock. Having said that, it’s probably not so great for a friendship group.

I would also like to experiment with printing techniques, photography and a previous obsession, cyanotypes. This term I’m determined to book some sessions and get into CSM on a regular basis.

I’m now able to look back at the three monotypes that I made of my mother. I feel that it was the right thing to do. It was something that I always knew I would have to address and it was something that I had to tackle early doors. I think it has helped. I went back to my mother’s house not so long ago and I didn’t feel the usual sinking feeling of dread as I walked through the front door. I was actually able to sit down by myself in silence and remember some of the good times when we all lived there as a family, even when it became dark outside. A small positive step in the right direction.

As finished pieces of work, they are what they are, vehicles by which I transferred debilitating thoughts into another space. Could I have done them differently or executed them better? Yes, obviously, but I don’t look at them that way; it is what they signify and make me feel that matters: despair, confusion, sadness, resentment, helplessness, isolation and fear. I chose monotype because it is, as soon as it is, and there is no way back. It was all about the process, not the result. If I had to make a change I would change their order – I made them in the order of the conversations – they would work better as a series if their order was reversed, with each one making more sense of the one before.

I took my daughter back to uni at the weekend, and she phoned me up earlier, chasing me for some information I was supposed to give her. My husband chipped in that it wasn’t any wonder that I hadn’t got round to it as I seem to spend all my time blogging – well, if I don’t have anything else to show for the next year and a half, at least I’ll have this blog!

Parents

Kate McCalmont-Woods 2 Comments

I’ve just been catching up with what my fellow students have been up to by doing my regular blog read. My husband read me this poem last night – it seems particularly relevant in the light of the several references to trauma and Louise Bourgeois.

Part One: Think Like An Artist

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

… and Lead a More Creative, Productive Life by Will Gompertz isn’t taking me long to read at all. Gompertz, artistic director at the Barbican, makes some very interesting and thought-provoking observations on what it is to be creative. As I’m galloping through it at such a speed, I thought it best to highlight some parts, as I go along, which I think will either help me in finding my artistic voice, or which reinforce ideas and concepts which we have touched on in the course so far.

On failure:

”When it comes to creativity, failure is as inevitable as it is unavoidable. It is part of the very fabric of making. All artists, regardless of their discipline, aim for perfection…But they know perfection is unobtainable. And therefore they have to accept that everything they produce is doomed to be a failure to some extent…Thomas Edison knew all about the notion of sticking at it…But at no point did he countenance failure: ‘I have not failed 10,000 times,’ he said. ‘I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find a way that will work‘…There is plenty of time for wrong turns, for getting lost; for feeling generally hopeless. The crucial thing is to keep going. Artists appear glamorous and blessedly detached, but in reality they are tenacious grafters: they are the proverbial dogs with bones… And while they are out there, worrying away, they often discover a hidden truth about the creative process… Their success is very often down to a Plan B. That is, the thing they originally set out to do has morphed along the way into something different.”

He references several artists who started out in one direction only to find their success through a Plan B, such as Mondrian, Lictenstein and Bridget Riley. In the case of the latter, in the early part of her career Riley was interested in colour theory and the work of the Impressionists, the Pointillism of Seurat, and the composition of Cézanne. It wasn’t working for her; she was directionless and lacked originality, and she was getting older. The ending of a relationship caused her to paint a canvas black, and she took all that she had learnt from her studies of Seurat et al and applied her knowledge in abstract terms. She painted a white horizontal line the lower edge straight, the upper edge forming a curve – it became a painting expressing the dynamism and inequality of relationships, human and spatial.

’Kiss’, 1961, Bridget Riley (Wikiart 4 Jan 2025)

”Bridget Riley had to abandon the one thing she thought most important and appealing about painting – colour – in order to make any real progress. It didn’t mean colour could never feature in her work again, only that at that precise moment in time it was the roadblock… Only when [she] went back to the most basic of basics – a canvas covered in black paint – did she find the necessary clarity to progress. Only then did she discover the most precious and liberating of things: her artistic voice… As long as you stick at what you are doing, constantly going through the cycle of experimentation, assessment and correction, the chances are you will reach the moment when everything falls into place.”

The cycle of experimentation, assessment and correction is at the very essence of this course: Practice-based research.

Gompertz also states that if you call yourself an artist and make art, then you are an artist regardless of where you are in the process, or what skills you still need to learn and develop. I think I find this the hardest to embrace – I still can’t quite think of myself that way. I’ve only just got my head around being a student – in retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea to try it out first on the border official at Marrakech airport who looked at me with incredulity and repeated “Student?”. Admittedly, it’s been a lot easier since I discovered all the discounts available!

On ideas:

Gompertz asserts that originality in a completely pure form does not exist; that all ideas are additional links in an existing chain, each link adding to the one before. It is a form of disruption: something to react against and respond to, to build upon. He suggests that Picasso, in the quote attributed to him – good artists copy, great artists steal – is actually describing a process that an artist needs to go through: we learn through copying and imitating, and it is only once we have done this and developed the basic techniques that we can identify opportunities to add our own link to the chain, and to find our own artistic voice. This reminds me of my discussion with Jonathan about Frida Kahlo’s ‘The Two Fridas’, when I questioned whether any work I make which is inspired by it will be original enough: he advised me that Kahlo painted it in the late 1930s and I would be doing my version almost 90 years later expressing my own feelings – following Gompertz’s reasoning, I would, in effect, be adding my own link to her existing link in the chain.

In fact there are numerous creatives who have been quoted as admitting to building on the ideas of others.

” If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Isaac Newton

“ Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources” Einstein

”We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas”. Steve Jobs

The young Picasso produced work which imitated the likes of Goya, Velázquez and El Greco, and later the Impressionists and Post Impressionists. It was only when his friend, Casagemas, died that he found his own artistic voice in his Blue Period; the blocks of colour, bold lines and expressive manner, which he had learnt from all those artists he had imitated, still influenced him, he just put his own twist on it. He took their ideas and filtered them through his own personality and experience, and used his instincts to simplify and reduce them into his original thought, into new and unique connections. Being creative isn’t always about adding to something; it can be at its most original when taking something away. This is demonstrated perfectly by Picasso’s bull lithographs, which took him a month to complete.

‘Le Taureau‘, 1945/46 (Wikipedia, 5 January 2025)

”There is no such thing as a wholly original idea. But there is such a thing as unique combinations.” Gompertz

Vienna Calling

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

I have just returned from an amazing 4 nights in magically festive Vienna, having had my fill of glühwein, Sachertorte and boiled beef broth (it loses something in translation!).

I’ve never been before, but will definitely be going back. Beautiful architecture, and so much to do, not least the seemingly endless supply of museums and galleries.

The Leopold and Belvedere were on my hit list as housing the greatest number of works by Klimt and Schiele. I had a nagging fear that the episode might end the same way as Michael Craig-Martin but, instead, I came away with a greater appreciation of all the details that can’t be gleaned from a photograph: the brushstrokes, the surprising thickness and coverage of the paint, sometimes leaving areas of the canvas exposed and the purity of colour. It was a revelation to get up really close and just look.

Death and Life 1910/15 , Klimt

Detail

I had always thought that Klimt applied paint quite uniformly and flat, so I was surprised to see the thickness of the paint and multi-directional brushstrokes. I like the way Klimt paints skin in all its imperfections and blotchiness, ranging from the pale and cold whiteness to the warmer, darker tones of the male figure.

Seeing ‘The Kiss’ was an interesting experience; it reminded me of when I saw the ‘Mona Lisa’ in the Louvre. Being one of Klimt’s most famous works, along with the ‘Mona Lisa’ and Van Gogh’s ‘Starry, Starry Night’, it is one of the most mass reproduced images of all time. I was underwhelmed, and I found it quite sad, as I was expecting to be bowled over by it. It was the most crowded room at the Belvedere, but what I found particularly interesting was that the crowd of people in front of it, holding up their phones and cameras, seemed totally uninterested in looking at it in any great detail – in fact they had left a sizeable gap in front of it so that they could get it in shot. This was handy as it allowed me to perform a flanking manoeuvre to get in front of it, to try and appreciate it as a work of art, as opposed to just a selfie opportunity with a celebrity. There was no point taking a photo – it was so strongly lit, and the lights reflected in the glass covering it. I grappled with my feeling of ‘numbness’ for the rest of the day, and as I was mulling it over in my mind, holding yet another mug of mulled wine in my hand, the answer came to me when I remembered John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ in which he considers the effect of reproduction:

”When the camera reproduces a painting, it destroys the uniqueness of its image. As a result its meaning changes. Or, more exactly, its meaning multiplies and fragments into many meanings … Alternatively one can forget about the quality of the reproduction and simply be reminded, when one sees the original, that it is a famous painting of which somewhere one has already seen a reproduction. But in either case the uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction. It is no longer what its image shows that strikes one as unique; its first meaning is no longer to be found in what it says, but in what it is.”

By contrast, in the next room was one of my favourites, ‘Judith and the Head of Holofernes’, a depiction of a strong femme fatale, the polar opposite to ‘The Kiss’.

Judith and the Head of Holofernes, Klimt, 1901

What can I say? I love gold leaf: I’m a magpie. Despite the abundance of gold in the painting, the eye is still drawn to the figure of Judith which is thrown forward by the decorative background. She is holding the head of Holofernes, somewhat gently, which is shown half in and half out of the frame, relegating him to a secondary role in the drama which has unfolded. There are intriguingly two decapitated heads in the painting; the treatment of the choker has effectively severed Judith’s head from her body. It is an image full of female power, sexual and otherwise.

It’s easy to forget that Klimt was a master draughtsman.

His drawings are exquisite. The simple monochrome of pencil or black chalk, a quiet antidote to the noise of gold and vibrant colour.

Self-Portrait with Raised bare Shoulder, Egon Schiele, 1912

I love this self-portrait; it is so expressive, and the fluidity of the brushstrokes creates a sense of movement and vitality. It is reminiscent of the Lucian Freud self-portrait in my earlier post, “I’m Sorry, Michael…”. It is quite small but he manages to pack a lot into such a confined space, including his shoulder, which by extension includes his body. The difference in treatment between the figure itself, which is quite thinly painted, and the more heavy impasto in the background is extremely effective. It is painted on wood, which might explain the wonderful textures on the face which would have been caused by the hog bristles in the brushes, although I have read, in a book on artists’ palettes, that Schiele would often use a brush to remove paint from a canvas in order to create texture. I particularly like the simple use of sgrafitto particularly above his left eye, and to delineate the edge of the chin against the neck.

The description next to this piece was interesting in that it described Schiele’s connection with his own body as both a fusion and a dissociation, in the context of the main theme of Viennese Modernism ie the individual becomes a dividual – something that can be divided.

The Embrace, 1917, Egon Schiele

This painting is so impactful. It’s approximately 1.5m by 1m. It shows Schiele with his wife, Edith Harms, in a loving and tender embrace. Unlike a lot of his work, this does not, to me at least, have any sexual or erotic overtones. There is a sense of completeness, in that Schiele depicts himself physically emaciated as he envelops and buries his head in the hair of his wife, almost blending into one, in an act of nourishing love. It’s even more poignant to think that this is one of his last works, as they both died within days of each other a few years later in the flu epidemic of 1918-20. He was only 28.

Both Schiele and Klimt were ahead of their time; they were disruptors. Schiele was akin to Sid Vicious and the punk movement, and Klimt founded the Viennese Secession, breaking away from the constraints of the Künstlerhaus. In today’s art world there is no prescribed way of doing things, no longer any art movements or – isms against which to rebel; artists have never been freer to express themselves in whatever way they wish, so I wonder how it is possible for an artist to stand out; how to make a difference in a world of differences.

Poets And Lovers, And A Side Of Bacon

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

Well, I made it through without a tear. It might have been the sheer number of people which meant that it was impossible to stand and contemplate too deeply, or the audio commentary going on in my ear which distracted me. The ‘Poets and Lovers’ exhibition at the National Gallery was a cornucopia of Van Gogh brilliance, although I was left wondering why it didn’t include some of the Van Goghs I had seen in other galleries, such as the self-portrait with bandaged ear at the Courtauld, but then I don’t have the faintest idea about curation. That said, it didn’t detract from the luscious visual delights on offer, many of which I hadn’t come across before.

What struck me more than anything was the direct correlation between how he drew and how he painted. The range and quality of mark-making was phenomenal. Whilst up close, the brushstrokes and colour palette made me virtually tachycardial, it was standing in the centre of each of the rooms which gave the most rewarding experience.

The only moment when I almost cracked, was when I found myself in front of the Sunflowers from the National Gallery and the Philadelphia Museum of Art: he painted his Sunflower series to decorate his guest room in anticipation of Gaugin’s visit to Arles, in an effort to impress Gaugin, who he greatly admired, almost to the point of obsession. Van Gogh’s sensitivity and vulnerability weren’t a good match for Gaugin who, by some accounts, was aggressive and egocentric, which served only to reinforce Van Gogh’s insecurities. It all made me blink a bit quicker. I have to declare my bias – I’m not a fan of Gaugin for various reasons, not least because he abandoned his wife and five children to go off and indulge his predilection for young girls.

The day was rounded off by a trip to the Colony Room Green, a replica, as near as dammit, of the bohemian Soho legend that was the Colony Room Club which closed down in 2008 after 60 years, and which was the creation of the queen of Soho, Muriel Belcher – apparently, you knew you were in if she called you the ‘C’ word. It was the favourite haunt of creatives such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, John Craxton, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Dylan Thomas, John Deakin, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews, Giacometti, and the list goes on. My husband was particularly keen to visit as he’s reading Darren Coffield’s ‘Tales from the Colony Room’.

‘ Francis Bacon was very fashion-conscious and always immaculately dressed. One afternoon Francis walked in, annoyed and pulling his collar. – “What’s wrong, Francis?” – “Harrods, I’m never going back there again.” He’d attended a special night for select clients and bought lots of clothes, but when he’d got back home he’d decided he didn’t like any of them. “I bought so many suits and shirts and threw the lot in the dustbin.” You’d never seen the club empty so quickly. The next day everyone was up the club parading around in their new suits and shirts from Francis’ dustbin.’

Colony Room I, Michael Andrews, 1962

It’s very small and down some stairs underneath Ziggy Green, 4 Heddon Street, a side street off Regent Street. It’s reminiscent of a dive bar/ speakeasy.

It was great meeting Liam, the house jazz pianist and chatting to Tim, the barman who explained that it’s not trying to be a re-creation of the original, but somewhere to come and meet an eclectic mix of people. Despite what he said, I couldn’t help but feel that I had stepped back in time, waiting for the door to open and for one of my artistic heroes or heroines to walk through it. They often have events which are free to attend, such as talks and book launches. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hang around for the Portrait of Muriel Belcher evening.

There’s something very inspiring about the idea of a group of creative people coming together regularly to discuss work, ideas and concepts. I’ll definitely pop back in next time I’m in town, in the hope that something might rub off.

Sniper’s Alley

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

Well, it’s official – I’m now closer to 60 than I am to 50. Ugh!

I seem to have swapped the paraphernalia of parenthood for a bag of drugs, which I routinely plonk in the tray at airport security, hoping that no-one’s looking too closely – two asthma inhalers (a preventer and a reliever), omeprazole for my acid reflux, progesterone tablets, oestrogen gel, and 4 eipipen adrenaline auto-injectors for my tree nut allergy (yep, sorry – I’m that annoying person who prevents you from eating your nuts with your overpriced inflight drinks).

I’m well and truly in the thick of that period of life known as Sniper’s Alley, when one is constantly dodging the bullets of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer and much more. My mother and her brother both died of oesophageal cancer, their brother basically suffocated to death from ‘pigeon fancier’s lung’, their mother nodded off whilst sitting on her sofa and died of a heart attack, and my father and his mother both died after having strokes. Well, it’s a rather limited menu, but if I really have to choose, I think I’ll go for the sofa option, please!

Having said that, life itself is Sniper’s Alley. I was driving my husband to the train station the other morning; he was late and not a little stressed. The traffic lights changed – shall I be an ambler gambler? I don’t think so. There was a deep sigh and a hand raised to the head on my left as stress levels increased. Luckily the lights changed to green quite quickly. As we rounded the bend, a truck had shed its load of scaffolding poles into our lane, only shortly before. “We could have been under that, had I not stopped at the lights”, I observed.

It was a ‘Sliding Doors’ moment. The idea of an alternative life based on the decisions I have made really intrigues me. To a certain extent, I think that I was meant to make the choices I did, when I did, in a nod to fate, but, nevertheless, imagining my own ‘Midnight Library’ has its attractions.

I recently read a book called ‘The Gentleman from Peru’ by André Aciman. I saw it in Waterstones and bought it just because I liked the cover. A group of American college friends are on a sailing trip in the Mediterranean when there is a problem with their yacht, and they have to stay at a hotel on the Amalfi Coast whilst it is being repaired. They meet an elderly gentleman, and the book centres on their relationship with this mysterious character. During one of their conversations he says:

“We may no longer be the person we once were, but what if this person did not necessarily die but continued his life in the shadowland of our own, so that you could say that our life is filled with shadow-selves who continue to tag along and to beckon us in all directions even as we live our own lives – all these selves clamouring to have their say, their time, their life, if only we listened and gave into them…

…The old self, the new self, the shadow-self, self number seven or eleven, the self we always knew we were but never became, the self we left behind and never recovered, the might-have-been self that couldn’t be but might still be, though we both fear yet hope it might come along one day and rescue us from the person we’ve had to be all our years.

But as I said, it’s not just the past that haunts us. What haunts us with equal magnitude is what has not happened yet, for there are shadow-selves and shadow-lives waiting in the wings all the time. We are constantly reworking or reinventing both the past and the future. Sometimes we’re in the street or in a crowded bus, and we just know: that one day this person whose glance we caught or whose path we just crossed is another version of someone we know we’ve loved before and have yet to love again. But that person could just as easily be us in another body. And the beauty of it is that they feel it just as much as we do. Is this other person us or is it someone destined for us whom we keep missing each lifetime? Us in others, isn’t this the definition of love?”.

How happy am I that my ‘might-have-been’ 18 year old shadow-self has finally caught up, and rescued me? Better late, than never.

Perception Of The Whole

Kate McCalmont-Woods 1 Comment

I attended another of Chris Koning’s online drawing workshops this lunchtime. She referenced Kimon Nicolaides’ 1941 book, ‘The Natural Way to Draw’. He says that you need to draw what the object is doing, not what it looks like – gesture drawing.

We did a couple of very quick exercises – a quick 30 sec gestural drawing of a kettle starting from the middle rather than the edge, and a dancer using gesture, negative spaces and shading etc.

For some reason I didn’t do one drawing but got sidetracked on looking at shapes and shading. I’m quite pleased with the end result bearing in mind I only had an HB pencil to hand. It was quick and instinctive. I ran out of space as usual. I’m going to concentrate on doing some more drawing. I like the idea of moving continuously without taking the pencil off the paper, looking and editing as I go.

ARTificial Intelligence

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

In our session this week we looked at AI image generation, in particular, how the tools are trained by using a huge number of datasets created by scraping data from the internet; the impact of this form of training including bias and breach of IP rights; its ethical and environmental impact; and the effect on us, as artists, in terms of our own relevance, the potential use of our work as training input, and our ability to use AI to create output in our artistic practice.

It is astonishing how quickly this area is developing. However, until it reaches a stage whereby AI can create an image in which there is human emotion and imperfection, we probably won’t become obsolete just yet.

Being from a legal background, I was particularly interested in the issues that generative AI tools have thrown up in terms of intellectual property rights. The main issues seem to be the potential breach of copyright in both the collection of data for training, and the output created, as well as the question as to who owns the output and whether it should itself be protected by copyright.

The problem with data scraping is that whilst the data is widely available in the public domain, this doesn’t mean that it can be copied and used without limitation (in the UK the only current exception to copyright protection in respect of text and data mining is for non-commercial research). This could mean that any images of artwork which I have produced, and which are publicly available on the internet, could be used to train generative AI and, consequently, could possibly form part of an output image generated by a third party, despite the copyright in the original image belonging to me. It’s a contentious issue, and there is lots of litigation going on at the moment across numerous jurisdictions including the UK and the US. In the UK, Getty Images has taken action against Stability AI for using millions of Getty Images to train its Stable Diffusion tool. Claims have similarly been made in the US against Meta, Midjourney and Anthropic, amongst others.

Another related issue, is that generative AI platforms will generally reserve the right to use any input or prompts from users to improve the performance of the tool, which could have implications in terms of privacy and confidential information.

Whilst it is unlikely that generative AI will create images which are exact reproductions of copyrighted images which have been used for training or as input, should there be sufficient similarity, there may be a potential breach of IP, but this will depend on an assessment being made in each case. It will also depend on being able to pinpoint where the content has come from, bearing in mind the huge number of resources across many jurisdictions. As part of their case with Getty Images, Stability AI are relying on the defence of fair dealing, as well as that of parody, caricature and pastiche i.e. that the image generated is not a replacement for the original image but a pastiche, and so it does not affect the market for the original image or its value. It probably didn’t help that in this case that some of the output images contained parts of the Getty Images watermark. This case is destined to be a trailblazer, but we won’t know the outcome until the middle of next year.

It is theoretically possible that an image created by prompts and inputs from a user of generative AI is capable of being owned by the user. However, the user cannot assume that they own the content or that they are able to use it as they wish. Firstly, who is the owner of the created image varies from country to country. Secondly, the terms and conditions of the platform may determine ownership and rights e.g. Midjourney’s terms and conditions, whilst providing that the user owns the created image, state that by using the service, the user grants Midjourney and all its affiliates etc. extensive rights in relation to the output image to reproduce and sub-license it etc. at no charge, and royalty free.

In the UK, the author of original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work owns the copyright in that work, unless it was created in the course of employment or by way of commission. There is no need for registration in order for the work to be protected, unlike in the US where it has to be registered with the Copyright Office. In fact, the UK is one of the few countries which recognise copyright protection for computer generated works. However, for the work to be original it must be the author’s intellectual creation and reflect their personality. It is not clear how this might be applied in the context of work created by AI. Furthermore, the ‘author’ is the person by whom the necessary arrangements for the creation of the work are undertaken. So, who is that? The user who specifies the prompts, or the person who created the AI tool? This issue is likely to be decided on the facts of each case, including the T&Cs of the platform.

It’s all very much up in the air, and destined to become even more complicated, the more sophisticated generative AI becomes. For the time being, as artists it would be a good idea to take the precaution of reading the small print of the platform being used, keeping detailed records of the process being used including all the prompts in response to which the image was generated.

Whilst writing this post, I noticed the WordPress AI Assistant. It created the image at the top of this post after generating the following prompt based on the contents.

I’ll finish with Alan Turing’s warning which he gave in a lecture in 1951:

” Once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. At some stage, therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.”

A Wobble

Kate McCalmont-Woods 2 Comments

I’ve often suffered from buyer’s remorse; the last time it happened was when I bought my new rug in Marrakech. Did I just buy it in the fervour of the moment? Would it actually fit in at home? How was I going to get it back home on the plane? Would it fit in my suitcase? Did I pay too much? I did haggle for it, but did I haggle enough? Had someone else bought something similar and paid a lot less? If they had, how would that make me feel? Whilst I appreciate that the worth of something is what someone is prepared to pay for it, everything is so much simpler and fairer when there is a fixed price.

I experienced a new feeling recently – blogger’s remorse. Should I have posted ‘Three Conversations With My Mother’? In the moment it felt right, but as is always the case with me, the doubt started to creep in. The phrase ‘act in haste, repent at leisure’ could have been coined for me.

I’ve already mentioned that I seem to be a person of extremes – I’m either very guarded or a total oversharer, particularly after a couple, after which I’m plagued by cringe inducing thoughts. I had one such cringe whilst having a shower the other morning. I suddenly thought, everyone who sees my blog (I’m not kidding myself – it’s not that many!) now knows the most personal information about my relationship with my mother in her last days. Also, how would I feel if I saw my images elsewhere in the public domain? In all honesty, I felt a bit panicky and decided just not to think about it.

But not thinking about things and hoping they will just go away is not an answer. So, later that day I decided that I would process this sudden feeling of regret. I’ve always known, in the back of my mind, that I have to deal with that period of my life in order to move forward. Memories of it have taken my head hostage and I needed to offer a swap – somewhere else for them to inhabit, to free up my mind so that I have the space to remember all that was good. In essence, I have emotionally vomitted the negative and harmful feelings onto the page, and I can now look at them and still feel the way I did, but when I put them away, hopefully, they will stay away.

This course is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, and I need to wring everything I possibly can out of it. I’m trying to find out who I am, and in so doing I need to be fully committed to the process. To avoid sharing parts of my life because they are too personal would be to cheat myself, and so, I’m all in.