Category: Art & Architecture

Lazy Art

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The Master’s Studio by Cesar Santos

Lazy Art

The Impressionists, they started it –
The deliberate eschewing of the details of the waterlilies,
Slapping on the sunflowers, slacking and half-arsing it,
The barmaid blurred by beer-goggles, shorn of intimates and frillies.
The Modernists just loved the concept,
Loved the new permissiveness to never bother with the hard parts,
Far too busy writing manifestos, or just overslept,
To ever stoop to spend the years to learn the graft behind the arts.
Ah, I guess they have their fans, these Abstract-ists of vapour –
And not just money-launderers or the Commie-fighting CIA –
Some might look alright in advertising, or as wallpaper,
When tossed-off in an afternoon of dribbles, nudes, and squelching clay.
But then, the public never get to choose who shall be fruitful,
Because we must take whichever trends the critics shall annoint.
It’s just…I want my art as something rare and something beautiful,
And not a random find, or shocking ugly, just to make a point.

An Estate of Builder-Birds

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House Martin Nests by Mike Prince

An Estate of Builder-Birds

Late-on in the Spring,
We’ll see the house-martins come again –
In stylish black-and-white,
And darting back-and-forth about the lane.
They’re patching up their daub-and-wattle nests,
The ones they left behind –
The Winter muck is jettisoned,
The inside cleaned and freshly lined.
Are these the very birds we saw last year,
The self-same mums and dads ?
Or are these now the chicks they hatched at home,
Inheriting their pads ?
Though ev’ry year, I swear,
They build another house beneath the eaves,
And often touching in a terrace,
Neighbours watching out for thieves –
And those would be the sparrows,
Feckless squatters in these high-rise flats –
A better prospect than the hedges,
Safe from cuckoos, frost, and cats.
Hoping to be laid-and-fledged
By hanging-out in hanging-domes,
Before the grockles fly in for the season
To their second homes.

Who is the Martin whose house these swallowets build ?  The OED postulates that it is a contraction of Martinet, but that that in turn is a diminutive of Martin.  Or it may be from a Latin term for a kingfisher.  Or a bit of both – never underestimate the power of conflation.

One Small Step

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Alas, I have been unable to find out anything about who the artist is.

One Small Step

Stella Starbuck steps out from her capsule
Onto the surface of the dry, cold Moon,
Or even Europa, or Mercury, perhaps,
But definitely on a Sunday afternoon.
If she can only focus on her giant leap,
She might ignore the droning of the cars –
If she can make a rocketship out of her tepee,
She knows she can bravely conquer Mars.
It’s not, she notes, as red as she expected,
But rather a barren desert lawn of green.
With her life-support given one last check,
It’s time to boldly go where no man has been.
But what’s that ?  Over there !  An alien !
Quickly !  Should she hide, or should she hail ?
Too late !  She’d under attack, yet agen,
As lasers shoot from its wagging Martian tail.
Luckily, her pure-wool spacesuit is armoured.
She picks up a ball from the regolith
And throws it up – so high, so far ! –
But then, her gravity is only one-fifth.
All alone now, that’s when the voice comes
Over the comms-link, into her thoughts –
“Looks like you made it – isn’t that something ?
The onward footprints of astronauts.
But then that’s humans – always climbing,
Striding and striving, proving your steel.
You know, this doesn’t have to end at tea-time –
One day, you could be standing here for real…”
After a moment, another voice calls her –
Ground Control, to come home for tea.
But just before she must blasts-off, she stalls
To admire the view of what she might be.

The Only Lefty in Poundbury

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Cottages in Poundbury by Chris Ison

The Only Lefty in Poundbury

She sits on her first floor balcony,
Overlooking the square,
She sits and sips her Earl Grey tea
In the light West Country air –
Here in her true-blue toytown
Like a tolerated pet,
Her flat dressed-up and she dressed-down,
As she joins the Georgian set.
Dorchester is hard on Hardy –
Thomas, yes, but never Keir,
And the local Labour party
Is about to disappear.
But the class-struggle can still advance
With the taste of the elites –
Should not all workers get the chance
To live in pleasant streets ?
And yes, she’s aware of their breezeblock hearts,
And the lack of ceiling-height,
And the constant cars that plague these parts –
But still, it does alright.
Developers on best behaviour,
Showing that they can play nice –
But oh, the cost for a little flavour !
Beauty’s bogus price.

Of course, whenever HRH comes by,
She must lay low
As locals swoon and neighbours sigh
At the whole boot-licking show –
And even when it’s safe to leave
And stroll about the place,
The very streets still live and breathe
With his family’s air and grace.
She sees it in the names of roads,
In the plaques above the shops,
She hears it in the toady toads
Whose croaking never stops.
But the sad fact is, it’s thanks to him
That there ever was this town –
It may be prim, but never grim,
As sparkly as a crown.
So yes, she knows, for all her gripes,
It’s thanks to him, her joy –
For were it left to lefty types
Then tower blocks ahoy !
She sits on her balcony under the sun
Over the flagstone square –
And curses the Tories, but knows they’ve won –
For she’d rather be here than there.

Ghost Town

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Coventry architecture before and after images taken from Coventry Now & Then

Ghost Town

Coventry once was the jewell of the Midlands,
And Dreseden the Diamond of Saxony.
The War did for them, of course, levelled them both,
Cursed for their beauty and factories.
But these days, one is a beauty again,
And the other became a byword for blight –
The perfect place for filming dystopian dramas,
With not a tourist in sight.
And half of its wounds are self-inflicted,
As if the subconscious penance we pay
For the vengeful bombing to tear down beauty –
Is that why the concrete has to stay ?
But the truth is, the Luftwaffe finished the job
That the Council themselves had already begun.
It streaks so grimy whenever it rains,
Yet is equally harsh and grey in the sun.
It’s called ‘brutalist’ for a reason –
Because it’s so raw, like a wound across the eyes.
And meanwhile Dresden has put on her ballgown,
No longer cowering under the skies.
Coventry once was the jewell of the Midlands,
But now reduced to a national joke.
It’s a place for slums and traffic jams,
But it’s no place for Coventry folk.

Coventry was UK City of Culture 2021.

Less Bohemian, More Czech

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Less Bohemian, More Czech

All great Artists have a vice,
But I’m a tepid type –
I try to keep my manners nice
And give no cause for hype.
I’ll never be a rabble-rousing rebel,
Nor a cad,
Just knocking back the trebles
On my way to going mad,
With my pockets full of pebbles
And a need for worship bad…
I’m much more pipe-and-slippers (less the pipe).
I guess I am a Larkin or an Eliot at heart
Than a Dylan or a Kingsley with a passion full of art –
I mean, I have a mongrel and a mortgage for a start !
And I always found Romantics over-ripe.
I guess I’m not an Artist-capital-A,
But that’s okay.
(And it really ain’t my mode, that way.)
I’m hardly a conspiracist, eccentric and uncouth,
I’m not a Goth or horny toad, or tender, tortured youth,
Or rainbow-dressed consumptive who is dying for some Truth –
That’s just a load of self-obsessing tripe !

Kosher Slaughter

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In Anticipation of the Guests by The Dots

Kosher Slaughter

Why are there so many zombies on our screens these days ?
I’d say that they are testament to our improving ways.
We’ve beaten violence, beggared hunger, massacred disease,
And quarantined our lust for gore into our PG fantasies –
Safely evil, nicely ugly, non-stain blood in quick-rip veins,
Just round ’em up and mow ’em down in corporate campaigns.
Mumbling, lurching, fodder-johnnies,
Out-of-towners, dirty commies –
Revel in some mindless fun before they eat our brains.

Queasy over blaming Mongols for their famous hordes ?
Then let’s recast with green-skinned orks to quench our thirsty swords.
Coldly-logic androids cause no controversial mess
When we crush their next uprising – show no mercy for the merciless !
Shoot a Nazi, gas a pedo – harmless japes for kids to play,
Just regulation bogeymen without the shades of grey.
Exterminating creepy-crawlies,
Squashing greater-goods with trolleys –
Killing humans sure is fun when there’s no guilt to pay !

Biblio Tech

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Vintage Bookshelf Wallpaper by Young & Battaglia

Biblio Tech

Every gentleman fills up his library:
Every manor and palace and hall
Has a room full of shelving that’s crammed full of bindings,
All equally mannered and equally tall.
And nowhere is half a row empty,
And nowhere are bookstacks for want of a board.
Do gentlemen skim for as long as they’ve shelving,
Then quit once their volumes are suitably stored ?

Unsigned

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Detail from a carved panel by Grinling Gibbons, originally in St Pauls, Covent Garden.  Legend has it that he would sneak a peapod into every commision as a sort of signature, and would only carve it opened if he had been paid for the work.  (Or is it that he would show a pea missing from inside if he’d received payment ?  Probably neither.)

Unsigned

She never signed her painting –
It always seemed a little vain
To have her name just floating there
Unnoticed by her sitter.
She’s didn’t want such tainting
To blemish with a boasting stain,
To clutter up her canvas square
With copperplated litter.

She always hoped her styling
Would clearly show who held the brush –
And if that didn’t tip the wink
Then hey ho, mum’s the word.
But she could not help smiling,
And sneaking-in (but keep it hush)
In ev’ry artwork, paint or ink,
A trademark ladybird.

It could be on a daffodil,
It could be woven on a dress,
Or scratched into a windowsill –
It’s anybody’s guess.
It could be jewelled into a brooch,
Or iced upon a currant bun –
Or yet emblazoned on a coach,
But definitely fun.

So whether pest or saintling,
Her beetles were her secret claim –
Some were bigger, others smaller,
Some were rather blurred.
She never signed her painting,
And history forgot her name –
So galleries must call her
The Lady Ladybird.

Portals

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Some example wares of the London Door Company.

Portals

I’ve seen too many doors,
And they’re nothing much, just doors –
Just as expected.
I open them, I close them,
Or I pass them by unnoticed,
Disconnected.
I’ve turned too many knobs
And I’ve knocked too many knockers
In the gloom,
Yet never thought about them
Till I find I need a way
To leave the room.

I’ve seen too many doors,
Be they oaken, deal, or plywood,
Or cold steel.
I push them and I pull them,
Or I sometimes have to slide them
With a squeal.
I’ve crossed so many thresholds
And I’ve stepped on many stoops,
Both front and aft,
Yet never thought about them
Till I find I need a way
To stop the draught.