WHAT MAKES TOM TICK?

 

Tottie Nadin reporting once again from Studio 17 New Tolsta.

I was delighted with my fish, not the easiest thing to wrap and I suppose Tom could have simply handed it to me, but he’d done this thing with scrap pieces of bubble wrap which must have been used God know how many times. Still, it did the job and thankfully he only used a small bit of parcel tape to hold it together. I went around my flat trying to find just the right spot for it. I wouldn’t have thought those little fish would be so hard to place and they really don’t go with my décor. I’m sure Tom could have put them down anywhere and they would have looked good. In the end I found a spot on an eyelevel shelf in the bathroom just above the loo – perfect. I’m not sure I’ll be telling Tom that, but at least I’ll see them every day. Since that last visit I’ve been looking at everything that I throw away in my waste bin and wondering what he might create with it. He showed me some handmade cloths pegs that he’d made from an old bake bean tin and some split larch, plus a splendid dust pan that was worth of display unlike those nasty little plastic things that we hide in our cupboards, or the blue plastic scoop in the Lews Castle Museum that everyone wonders what it’s doing there. The pile of wood he showed me in his workshop was destined to be a chair, but I couldn’t see anything that could remotely resemble a chair. He showed me one he’d made a few years ago and that looked magnificent. I know the man is clever but not a miracle worker.

I’ve had a lecture from my boss, and he’s told me to cut out the tittle tattle with you and him, people will think you’re besotted. Get an in-depth article and move on. That £5 change is still bothering me and I’m not sure how Tom will react to an in-depth report. Some people see them as flattering but then Tom isn’t some people. I’ll take a little gift, bake something.

Isn’t it always the way when you’re trying to make something special, it never turns out the same as if you made no effort at all. I think I overdid the sugar and wondered if buying something might have been safer, but then I could see Tom frowning at all that unnecessary packaging, or would he make something out of that too. Like a one year old at their birthday party, more interested in the wrapping paper than the gift.

 

Tom.

That Totties been around again. Is she stalking me? Should I be flattered or worried? Well she did at least phone first. She wanted to see the Hebridean chair, how I’d gotten on and was it finished. She brought a bag of wee cakes as a thank you for the fish. I bet she’s stuck them in pride of place on her mantelpiece so all her friends can pass comment, when they really needed to be in a bathroom. The woman can’t bake that’s for sure, but I felt obliged to offer her a cup of tea and we sat crunching our way through the tasteless sugary things she’d made. It put an entirely new perspective on how we suffer for our art. They put me in mind of my Breton neighbour Madame Salan and the time she made me a Far cake, a recipe she’d used during World War II. When the dish full arrived she explained the missing portion had gone to my other neighbour Marie L’hours. Thankfully I left the tasting till later in the day, yuk. I took the remainder around to Marie, but she said the woman can’t cook and she’d thrown it straight in the bin. I followed suit but still had to return the dish. I thanked Madame Salan, but she still wanted to know what I thought of her cooking. The words had slipped from my mouth before I had time to think of anything polite to say. “I now understood just how they suffer during the war years.” Ooops!

If Tottie thinks the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach then she’d do well to enroll in a cooking course.

She was totally ecstatic when I showed her the chair and wanted to know how much it would be. I fobbed her off with something about getting an exhibition together, but as I heard myself saying that I thought perhaps that’s exactly what I should be doing. I certainly can’t sell it now that Totties put her dibs on it, even spoke of changing the colour in her kitchen to match. Oh God she’ll surely want me to deliver it and there’ll be more of those ghastly cakes.

We then retreated to the studio and she came out with it. Her editor had told her to get an in-depth report on me, and did I have time to answer a few questions. Well I had a few of my own, like what did you put in those cakes, but found myself agreeing to be quizzed.

 

Tottie’s in depth on what makes Tom tick.

BEST & WORST of TIMES?

Tom Hickman, 70, is now an internationally renowned outsider artist, untrained and untamed. He began taking himself seriously as an artist back in the late eighties when living in Frome, then having moved to Brittany, continuing his exploration into all manner of media over a period of thirty years. The un-severed Caledonian umbilical cord of his youth saw him move back to Scotland to take up residence on the Isle of Lewis in New Tolsta, where he puts into practice the myriad of skills he has acquired during his extra ordinary creative lifetime.

 

 

BEST CHILDHOOD MEMORY?

Wow there’s a lot of those. Climbing trees, when we were living outside Campbeltown on the Kildalloig Estate. I loved getting a different perspective on my world from on high, and I mean the higher the better. There was one Western Hemlock, must have been a hundred years old or more, and it was way higher than the house. The layered branches meant not only an easy climb but a view out over the top of the house out to sea and across to Arran. I fell once when nearly at the top and an owl flew out. I only dropped a few feet before hitting another branch and it certainly did nothing to diminish my enthusiasm for climbing. I could traverse an entire section of the woodland behind the house without touching the ground, swinging like a monkey on bending branches until I could reach the neighbouring tree. That’s the magic of youth, having no fear and a body that works.

BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE SO FAR?

Who thinks up these questions, and why is it that the worst day springs to mind so easily? I suppose most people say the birth of a child, but I’ve never wanted children, although I’ve had a lot to do them, playing in the park or birthday parties, and being squashed at the bottom of a great heap excited kids, but to pick out one day, impossible. I’ve experienced so much, and I don’t mean simply visited places, I mean real experience and encounters with people and nature. If I had to pick out any one particular encounter I think that might well be with nature. Snorkelling in Western Australia with brilliantly coloured fish who were equally curious about me. Coming face to face with a fox that had doubled back to lose the hounds pursuing him, and both of us just staring at each other. The robin that one winter in Brittany would feed from my hand and feeling those most delicate of feet, along with the trust and lack of fear. He got quite cheeky and if I left a cake out on the table he’d be in for a nibble.

BEST THING ABOUT BEING AN ARTIST?

Well that begs the question, what is an artist? I’m constantly hearing that we are all artist, and I find it difficult at times to see myself as an artist when I see what other far more successful artist produce. I think it would be the creative process, using that part of my brain that other people don’t get to access that often is a privilege that requires a certain freedom as well as time. I know I don’t need a special space to be creative in, but now that I have my own studio it is a delight to spend time here. It was when in my thirties that I thought I must change course and get on with my creative career if I am ever to produce all that presented itself as possible. I hadn’t realise back then that there is no end to it, one thing leads to another and the more you create the more there is to create. Time unfortunately has become a limiting factor, which puts an edge on things and that I’m having to come to terms with, but there is no question of slowing that creative process as yet. 

BEST DECISION YOU EVER MADE?

To take myself seriously as an artist. It’s easy enough to say, but it took me a long time as someone who has no qualifications or education in art. It was only when I decided to attend a class run by an artist friend Neil Davies, and he said straight away he would not be teaching me. He was simply giving me the opportunity to play, and not long after that he asked me if I would take on teaching. I later gave him his first one man show in my gallery in Frome. We both came off well from those experiences; he now lives in Cornwall selling everything he can paint for serious money, while I, well I’m at the opposite end of the country doing what I love.

BEST THING YOU EVER BOUGHT?

I feel I should say my easel as I’ve spent so many hours sitting at it. It’s a mid 19^th century walnut one, bought by my farther down in Cornwall and probably belonging to one of the Newlyn school artists. That is however totally to do with my work and none of this would have taken place if I had not bought my first home in Frome. It was more than I could afford at the time and having been used as a squat was in a shocking state, but it was totally right for me at the time, and the experience of living in Frome transformed me in so many different ways to the person I am now. It was in Frome that I first fell in love, found my wings, and flew away.

WORST DAY OF YOUR LIFE TO DATE?

I’d rather not answer that, because even now it is something I share with few people. I could say it was the day I was told that the prostate cancer I’d been diagnosed with had now spread to my spine, but that’s the sort of news that is difficult to take on board in a day, and it took me a lot longer for that to sink in. Thankfully for now good days still outweigh the bad.

WORST THING ABOUT BEING AN ARTIST?

I suppose I would have to say it’s the isolation. I have enjoyed many group creative experiences, but my own art tends to be a solitary process, and that combined with living alone is a double edged sword. Artist are often perceived as special or odd, and in either case that leads to them being to some extent unapproachable. You don’t seem to have that problem Tottie, but then it’s a requirement of your profession. If you’re special you’re put on a pedestal way too high for ordinary folk to converse with you. I’ve heard it at exhibitions when whispered voices point out the artist but none have the courage to approach. At the other end of the spectrum if you’re seen as odd, weird or even dangerous then similarly you’re seen as someone to steer clear of. Artist are tolerated in our society, but they often speak a language amongst themselves which is difficult to comprehend. 

 

WORST EXHIBITION EXPERIENCE?

I think exhibitions are something as an artist it is important to become immune to. In France they use the word exposition, and I have to say there are times when I have felt exposed. I think the worst time would have to be during a show of my ceramic sculptures at the Merlin Theatre in Frome. There was one particular piece which showed two naked men sitting facing each other and each had a hand on the other cheek. It was titled “consolation II”, but when my then somewhat deaf father saw it he said, “Looks like a couple homos to me”. I was embarrassed for him and could only hope not too many people overheard the comment.

WORST PAINTING YOU EVER PAINTED?

I have in the past often set myself a theme in order to produce a body of work worthy of exhibiting on mass. It is a process that I see as the opposite to making pancakes. When making pancakes you throw the first one away, or at least it never reaches the table, while with painting it is the last one that must be chucked. After say thirty of forty paintings relating to a theme I normally find I’ve said all I have to say. The first one is full of enthusiasm and the others all seem to have something relevant to say, but sooner or later there will be a dud, and it’s at this point that I say stop. I did once frame and include one of these duds in an exhibition. One friend spotted it and told me I didn’t need that one, but as it was the cheapest it was the first to go. Maybe one should always include a dud. During my brief period of interior decorating I was asked to paint a bedroom for Bono’s first baby’s bedroom. I’d designed a delightful abandoned garden with wild flowers at low level that could easily be added to over the years. When I arrived they had other ideas that included a cartoon duck and cow. I tried to persuade them out of it but that’s what the customer wanted, and rest assured there is no truth to the idea that the customer is always right.

WORST THING YOU’VE BEEN ASKED TO PAINT?

I don’t do commission, never have, but that doesn’t stop people asking. They would usually want a portrait of their delightful child, but I would have been more interested in their grandparents. It was shortly after the Godfather films came out and I’d had a very successful exhibition of cows that a westcountry gentleman asked me if I could paint him “an orses edd”. I could only see a bed covered in blood.