STYLE

 

I do love a good rant, so when Banjo Beale’s evening presentation of his book “Wild Island Style” was cancelled due to bad weather it left a gap of disappointment in my evening’s entertainment, a gap that needed filling. I don’t like empty shelves. 

What is style, and where does it come from? I hear it all the time and there is even a colour supplement in one of the papers dedicated to it. It burns as well as any other fire lighting material, but this time I took time to browse through it. Full of fashion trends set by the super-rich and famous, or rather the person employed to tell them. Shag pile carpeting was back along with enormous lurid fluffy coats. Sultry looking android models put even Barbie to shame with the length of their legs. Bodies so slim the plastic clothes seemed more like crumpled plastic bin liners. They looked like they needed that big fluffy coat to keep warm, but would it crush their spindly fragile form. I scrunched it up and lit the fire, but was still left with my questions unanswered. Let’s try a few ideas out, and bear with my ramblings.

As an artist I see myself as a leader and not a follower, so I have never pressed the button at a traffic light controlled zebra crossing. I cross the road where I want to and while I still have good eyesight and am able to judge distances I will refrain from following the masses to the designated crossing fifty yards up the road from where I want to go. As a leader I do what I want to do as long as it harms no others, but what perhaps makes me different is that I require no followers. While some count the number of followers they have on social media, or how many likes they’ve had for the last inane comment, I take no part in on line discussion. I am what I am, it is what it is, take it or leave it, and perhaps that’s what style boils down to. The courage to make a statement in whatever way you choose and not to care what others think. Many people don’t have the courage and so end up being the dedicated followers of fashion. Others simply don’t know what statement they can make, or even how they can make it, once again they also join the herd of followers. We are animals and it is hardly surprising that we choose to stick with the herd, much safer and less chance of being picked out by a hungry predator.

My ears have always stuck out, and I learnt at an early age how to handle being picked on.

I love what makes me different, so when two men walked past me in the street, and one said to the other “look at the jugs on that” I turned around to see who the statement was aimed at. They were looking straight at me and I burst into laughter. They didn’t know what to make of it and smiling nervously they moved on. Then there’s the other side, when I was visiting artist friends for lunch in their London flat I sat with my back to the window, the mid-day sun streamed in warming my back. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this” Brandon said looked at me intently, “but your ears look just like rose buds”. “How sweet of you to notice” I replied “and the nicest thing anyone has ever said about them”, but then Brandon’s an artist and notices these things. So one man’s big jug handle ears is another man’s rose buds, so what. Precisely, does it matter a jot what we look like as long as we are happy in our skin? Does it matter in what way we choose the live, or decorate our houses as long as we are happy with it. What then happens if what we find ourselves looking at no longer ticks our boxes? Do we settle for a good dose of depression, or go looking for inspiration? Hopefully the latter. Much of what I see that my eye is attracted to I simply cannot afford, not because it’s encrusted with diamonds (how vulgar), but simply because it’s overpriced. I go shopping for ideas, and ideas thankfully are free. Out here on Lewis everything has become increasingly geared towards the tourists and if it doesn’t move then sooner or later someone will cover it in Harris Tweed. It’s a style but I’m not always convinced that it’s stylish, or for that matter practical, but as long as it has the Harris Tweed label you can sell anything, great marketing. During the season a few make it as far as my studio, tucked away as it is, but thankfully 99% of passers-by don’t even see the sign as they head off across the cattle grid to tick off Traigh Mhor beach and the Bridge to Nowhere from there list of must see things. 

When I was young antiques were highly valued, and I managed to make a good living from buying and selling them. People would have the contents of their house insured itemising certain specific pieces of valuable furniture. Today these pieces are practically worthless, which means we can now all have fine pieces of 18^th century furniture in our homes and no insurance needed. IKEA in their latest brochure may be tempting you to buy that flat pack bureau that will prove a nightmare to assemble with a special offer reduction of £800, but its 18^th century equivalent in vastly superior wood is only £200 at the local auction rooms. There has never been a better time to furnish a period home. Today inheritance is a dirty word unless it refers to money, anything older than living memory is simply too old. People will buy with nostalgia for the past, but that only takes us back to the 50’s and there is little attempt made to see the beauty in the ancient. Real antiques are unfortunately too old. However one man’s misfortune is another’s fortune and I love the idea of cheap treasures. Let those followers of fashion flit through the latest catalogues and colour supplement magazines of style and leave us the quality.

 Then there are the things I still can’t afford, like this wonderful Dutch master botanical painting of flowering bulbs, and next to it my own version. You can have it if you really want it, was that the title of a pop song or something Margaret Thatcher said?  So, take a good look and see how it’s made. Not always that difficult to reproduce something along the same lines or to readapt a wreck. This is another skill I learnt from my antique dealing days. Scrappers didn’t mean you threw it away, no, far from it, you put it to one side, maybe even took it apart for spares in the restoration of other items. Or, you use your imagination and create something new. I bought two cupboard pedestal ends of a sideboard. The central portion had gone, perhaps already recycled by someone else, but the veneer and timber of the remaining parts were superb and a bargain at £40 if you knew what you wanted to do with them. I took them to a young restorer with scale drawing for two extremely large plate stands. When I say large I mean massive, impressive and a must have.  My instruction were to leave no cut surfaces visible, to give them plenty of leaded weight inside the bases and to cover those bases with the old moth eaten green felt I’d provided. They looked magnificent and were obviously made for a seriously large pair of seriously expensive plates. He had done a beautiful job, costing me £120. The next London fair I went to I sold them immediately for £520. That was in the days before recycling was even heard of. Last winter I rescued some old timber from the entrance to a bungalow that had been sold. The owner had said help yourself and so I did. Out of this scrap came a wonderful array of decorative objects now on sale from my studio.

  

But I digress. If in doubt consult a dictionary. OK my 1971 Collins New England Dictionary is somewhat dated, but nowhere near as old as I am. Style; The manner of expressing thought in writing speaking acting etc. in music literature art architecture music etc. a mode of expression or performance peculiar to an individual, group or period. Mode of dress, fashion conduct or behaviour. So, style just about covers the lot and there’s no getting away from it. When I style of music I’m reminded these days that I prefer silence, and I’m not sure what that says about me. Maybe the same that can be said about minimalism in decorating term, blank white walls. I’m also reminded of that line in the Blues Brothers film, when asked what sort of music they like played at the remote bar the owner replies, “we have both sorts, country and western”, and I often think the same applies to style in most remote areas, where survival has been possible only by keeping a close eye on the rational. Something the designers of our city skylines could perhaps pay more attention to rather than turning it into a giant amusement park of shards, pineapples and Ferris wheels. Nice rant!

 But getting back to the subject in hand, how does one go about creating style? Well that side seems remarkably easy. Just like art is art if I call it art, so style must be style. And what, or who designates it as being any good? Now that I think is where money rears its ugly head. I remember discussing with a friend many moons ago about opening a shop called bad taste, and getting quite excited until we realised that in order for it to work and stuff to sell it would immediately been seen as good taste. End of day blown glass fish could be picked up at car boot sales for a pound or less, but after seeing another friend had covered her entire bathroom wall with them I knew it wouldn’t be long before they became collectable and hence command far higher prices. So, a rather grotesque single fish becomes, when displayed well an extra ordinary shoal of colourful fish. Mass hanging, or display of a collection can be very stylish as was seen by the reaction of the SHOTY judges when they entered my home. I learnt this from Polly Devlin, an avid collector and expert at simply throwing it together in a relaxed way that works visually. It’s not clutter when it’s done well. When Princess Margret started to collect mid-19^th century sailors shell valentines, it wasn’t long before they reach four figure prices. I liked them for their intricacy and textures, but I wasn’t about to pay those prices, so I set about collecting tiny shells while on holiday in Western Australia and making my own valentines. One thing always leads to another, and soon all manner of objects took form, it’s the way influence works, and certainly nothing to do with those who would call themselves influencers. Get a life!

 I can hear them now, saying “Yes but we don’t all have your skills Tom”. Well I’ve got news for you, if you wanted to do it you could, but you don’t want to do it so you can’t. I adore seeing in friends’ homes things they have made themselves. For sure there may be a few of the children’s drawing, which always leave me filled with envy, but often they’ve simply had a go themselves and come up with something totally unique. As an untrained artist I don’t know how to create anything, but the fun part is finding out and that often involves playing around a bit. Remember that, play, a thing you used to do before and between lessons at school. I now refer to my studio as my playroom, but playing spreads to practically every room in my home and certainly out in the adjoining barn, or in the garden, across the croft, out on the moor or down on the beach. Go on, build a sand castle next time you’re on the beach, see what happens, you might just produce something unexpected and stylish.