Agnes/Dylan/Gwen
by Basil King
I was so excited when we got to Stonehenge I over reacted and did ridiculous things I opened the windows, turned on the car lights, started the windshield wipers.
Pause
Architecture is power. Cultural phenomena such as Stonehenge and huge cities like New York City are made by man and are functional and aesthetic. Niagara Falls was created by nature. We live with nature we did not create it. We created perspective, religion and war. In Art space records afterthought that we don’t want to forget. And if we paint from memory, do we create Architecture from memory and if we do what memories did the makers of Stonehenge have? It took many generations over 1500 years to complete it. What was the memory that sustained them?
Pause
I can imagine driving past the standing stones centered in a round about in Swansea and every day having a new wish and saying a short prayer. That was an after thought after I’d seen Stonehenge. But Swansea was different. My cousin Malcolm and I arrived in Swansea in time for lunch. I said let’s go to a pub. Malcolm wanted more of a meal. We found an Italian restaurant it was a large restaurant. The second floor was set up to host large parties such as weddings. We ordered drinks and food.
In the middle of our meal a well-groomed man in his forties introduced himself as the proprietor. “Are you visiting Swansea? I haven’t seen you in here before” “We are here to visit the museum.” I asked him “What brought you here.” He gave a half smile “We’ve been here for three generations. My grandparents and a number of Italian families bought transport to America. The boat docked and they were told they had arrived in America they saw large buildings and they disembarked.” He asked us what we were drinking and told the waiter to give us one on the house. We shook hands and thanked him.
Pause
The museum had wooden planks of carved Green Men and many ancient Welsh artifacts but there was a surprise.
I walked into a large gallery and looked around. There was a portrait that mesmerized me. Gwen John, Self Portrait 1902. I’d never heard of the Welsh artist.
Gwen John’s mother died when Gwen was eight years old and the over powering personality of her younger brother Augustus tempered her to question everything she wanted to find perfection if not in love, art, then in religion.
She was an innocent she didn’t see diversities. What she did see she wanted to possess. Who she loved what she drew and painted meant more to her than any righteous explanation can give. This was her sorrow and her genius. She was uncompromised not knowing what she was giving.
Pause
During the war there was a shortage of socks and at the boarding school I was attending they taught all the boys and girls how to darn a hole in our sock.
Put the sock over a small glass, a wooden egg is preferable. Thread a large needle and sew a square just out side of the hole. Then cross the square with one thread as many times as is needed. Then with an adequate amount of thread reverse the process and weave in and out of the threads in the opposite direction.
Pause
There’s a tight weave like stitching that is disguised in the way John applies her paint. Layer upon layer of paint is then varnished over with the glossy thought of an old master. And yet, she must have worked fast she believed paintings shouldn’t be worked on more than two days.
Pause
Counting, counting, multiple the line, draw the line, straight lines, a black line, a white line, a brown line, centered inside a 6X6 foot square. The spirits weave it together? Agnes Martin and Gwen John are not like each other but there is a similarity. They are discrete. Their lack of noise is a welcome tone not of silence not of whispers but quiet talk. Gwen John never knew what she was giving. Whereas the Canadian born Agnes Martin who came to America and became an artist was sophisticated she understood distance and drew the line that draws things together.
Pause
We walked we always walked San Francisco, Rome, Venice, Florence, Vienna, Prague, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and Cornwall and from Penzance to Penzance.
1985. The B&B in Penzance was clean and comfortable but the owner was stingy with breakfast. We had been told in London the ice cream in Cornwall was fabulous. It tasted fatty and we didn’t like it.
We weren’t looking for anything we wanted to take a walk. The landlady gave us a map and telephone numbers for a taxicab in case we got tired. It was a beautiful day and we came to the village of Newlyn a fishing village where they smoked fish and we were told they were unable to ship fish to us in Brooklyn, New York. On to Mousehhole on a path that was close to the cliffs with a wonderful view of the harbor.
Pause
In Mousehole we found a small hotel The Lobster Pot with a view of the harbor. We ordered a drink and decided to have lunch. A plaque on the wall said Dylan Thomas and Caitlin Macnamara had stayed here on their honeymoon. Dylan thought the village of Mousehole was the most beautiful village in England and the owner of The Lobster Pot, Wyn Henderson befriended Dylan she paid the fee at the Penzance registry office for the marriage in 1937 and hosted the couple before and after their wedding.
Pause
Dylan was a poet and he suffered the artist’s dilemma. “It’s not there where is it, where is it? Where is it? facts are not faceless. Facts have voices, faces produce images, personalities proceed and the language is found. It’s in painting, poetry, prose and music. The ambiguity of history is herded and driven to the market where the artist rides a horse and the critic bids for approval.
Pause
Its 1953 I’m eighteen. I’d taken a break from Black Mountain and was visiting New York. A woman in the Cedar bar told me Dylan Thomas is drinking every night in the WHITEHORSE TAVERN. This took place 32 years before Martha and I found the Lobster Pot in Mousehole and discovered that Dylan Thomas had spent his honeymoon with Caitlin at the hotel. I went to the Whitehorse. I was curious Dylan was a famous poet and I’d heard stories about his drinking and his alcoholic antics. That was my only reason for going.
Pause
I bought a pint and found a seat where I could see the bar. It was two months before Dylan died; he is surrounded. Men and women from the uptown literary crowd are buying him drinks. He is pie-eyed he says something they laugh and he falls off his stool they pick him up and buy him another drink. This sadistic shame gets repeated again and again. I finished my beer and walked back to the Cedar stopping in Washington Square. I sat on a bench feeling sick and ashamed I’d witnessed a tragedy the truth being I have never forgotten.
Pause
Architecture is power. Cultural phenomena such as Stonehenge and huge cities like New York City are made by man and are functional and aesthetic. Niagara Falls was created by nature. We live with nature we did not create it. We created perspective, religion and war. In Art space records afterthought that we don’t want to forget. And if we paint from memory, do we create Architecture from memory and if we do what memories did the makers of Stonehenge have? It took many generations over 1500 years to complete it. What was the memory that sustained them?
Pause
I can imagine driving past the standing stones centered in a round about in Swansea and every day having a new wish and saying a short prayer. That was an after thought after I’d seen Stonehenge. But Swansea was different. My cousin Malcolm and I arrived in Swansea in time for lunch. I said let’s go to a pub. Malcolm wanted more of a meal. We found an Italian restaurant it was a large restaurant. The second floor was set up to host large parties such as weddings. We ordered drinks and food.
In the middle of our meal a well-groomed man in his forties introduced himself as the proprietor. “Are you visiting Swansea? I haven’t seen you in here before” “We are here to visit the museum.” I asked him “What brought you here.” He gave a half smile “We’ve been here for three generations. My grandparents and a number of Italian families bought transport to America. The boat docked and they were told they had arrived in America they saw large buildings and they disembarked.” He asked us what we were drinking and told the waiter to give us one on the house. We shook hands and thanked him.
Pause
The museum had wooden planks of carved Green Men and many ancient Welsh artifacts but there was a surprise.
I walked into a large gallery and looked around. There was a portrait that mesmerized me. Gwen John, Self Portrait 1902. I’d never heard of the Welsh artist.
Gwen John’s mother died when Gwen was eight years old and the over powering personality of her younger brother Augustus tempered her to question everything she wanted to find perfection if not in love, art, then in religion.
She was an innocent she didn’t see diversities. What she did see she wanted to possess. Who she loved what she drew and painted meant more to her than any righteous explanation can give. This was her sorrow and her genius. She was uncompromised not knowing what she was giving.
Pause
During the war there was a shortage of socks and at the boarding school I was attending they taught all the boys and girls how to darn a hole in our sock.
Put the sock over a small glass, a wooden egg is preferable. Thread a large needle and sew a square just out side of the hole. Then cross the square with one thread as many times as is needed. Then with an adequate amount of thread reverse the process and weave in and out of the threads in the opposite direction.
Pause
There’s a tight weave like stitching that is disguised in the way John applies her paint. Layer upon layer of paint is then varnished over with the glossy thought of an old master. And yet, she must have worked fast she believed paintings shouldn’t be worked on more than two days.
Pause
Counting, counting, multiple the line, draw the line, straight lines, a black line, a white line, a brown line, centered inside a 6X6 foot square. The spirits weave it together? Agnes Martin and Gwen John are not like each other but there is a similarity. They are discrete. Their lack of noise is a welcome tone not of silence not of whispers but quiet talk. Gwen John never knew what she was giving. Whereas the Canadian born Agnes Martin who came to America and became an artist was sophisticated she understood distance and drew the line that draws things together.
Pause
We walked we always walked San Francisco, Rome, Venice, Florence, Vienna, Prague, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and Cornwall and from Penzance to Penzance.
1985. The B&B in Penzance was clean and comfortable but the owner was stingy with breakfast. We had been told in London the ice cream in Cornwall was fabulous. It tasted fatty and we didn’t like it.
We weren’t looking for anything we wanted to take a walk. The landlady gave us a map and telephone numbers for a taxicab in case we got tired. It was a beautiful day and we came to the village of Newlyn a fishing village where they smoked fish and we were told they were unable to ship fish to us in Brooklyn, New York. On to Mousehhole on a path that was close to the cliffs with a wonderful view of the harbor.
Pause
In Mousehole we found a small hotel The Lobster Pot with a view of the harbor. We ordered a drink and decided to have lunch. A plaque on the wall said Dylan Thomas and Caitlin Macnamara had stayed here on their honeymoon. Dylan thought the village of Mousehole was the most beautiful village in England and the owner of The Lobster Pot, Wyn Henderson befriended Dylan she paid the fee at the Penzance registry office for the marriage in 1937 and hosted the couple before and after their wedding.
Pause
Dylan was a poet and he suffered the artist’s dilemma. “It’s not there where is it, where is it? Where is it? facts are not faceless. Facts have voices, faces produce images, personalities proceed and the language is found. It’s in painting, poetry, prose and music. The ambiguity of history is herded and driven to the market where the artist rides a horse and the critic bids for approval.
Pause
Its 1953 I’m eighteen. I’d taken a break from Black Mountain and was visiting New York. A woman in the Cedar bar told me Dylan Thomas is drinking every night in the WHITEHORSE TAVERN. This took place 32 years before Martha and I found the Lobster Pot in Mousehole and discovered that Dylan Thomas had spent his honeymoon with Caitlin at the hotel. I went to the Whitehorse. I was curious Dylan was a famous poet and I’d heard stories about his drinking and his alcoholic antics. That was my only reason for going.
Pause
I bought a pint and found a seat where I could see the bar. It was two months before Dylan died; he is surrounded. Men and women from the uptown literary crowd are buying him drinks. He is pie-eyed he says something they laugh and he falls off his stool they pick him up and buy him another drink. This sadistic shame gets repeated again and again. I finished my beer and walked back to the Cedar stopping in Washington Square. I sat on a bench feeling sick and ashamed I’d witnessed a tragedy the truth being I have never forgotten.