Tuesday 22 April 2014

Client 101 - painting for Worthing Churches Homeless Project


Acrylic on paper
Apr 2014


It's that time of year again - time to contribute something to the extremely worthwhile and deserving Worthing Churches Homeless Projects Art Event, in which artists are recruited to make and donate a piece of art along a theme; it's displayed along with the others and auctioned in aid of the charity. I did it last year, when we were assigned the 'profile' of a homeless person and asked to produce a portrait of them based on the few lines they had written about their situation. This year was slightly different, but no less poignant - the 'Hopes and Dreams' project:
"What did you want to be when you were growing up? Is it the same now or have things in your life changed the things that you want, the things you dream about? A ten year old boy might not dream of owning his own home and raising a happy family but twenty years down the line that might be his greatest ambition. Worthing Churches Homeless Projects are running a project on Hopes and Dreams which will culminate in an exhibition as part of the Worthing ArtsTrail June 2014. The project calls for 100 members of the public and 100 people who have used the services of Worthing Churches Homeless Projects to write down their hopes and dreams. These will then be depicted by local artists."
It is of course one of my defining characteristics that I am grossly short of time, espcially lately, and so I couldn't do an oil painting like last time - there wasn't long enough to let one dry in time for posting (since I now live in a different landmass to this time last year), and so I sat down on a Sunday morning with an A3 sheet of good paper stiffened with gesso and a set of acrylic paints a friend bought me, and determined I would get the piece finished that day.

It's sad to relate but based on this and one other recent project (a handmade book I illustrated for my friend's daughter), I'm ready to admit that acrylic is seriously NOT my medium. I look at these pictures and feel quite frustrated actually - the way I paint, building over layers of things, just doesn't work in acrylic like it does in oil and I'm annoyed I wasn't able to do a better job. But at least I know now that it's best to keep the acrylics for flat colours and next time, just start earlier with my oils. I suppose that's progress in self-taught land.

Anyway, the 'Hopes and Dreams' profile sent to me was preceded by this statement from the very lovely project co-ordinator, Rachel: "This is one people keep sending back to me as it is so tricky so I totally understand if you don’t want it either and I will send you another one but thought it worth a try!" It's this one:

Client 101 - Marc, 55
I did not have any aspirations as a child as I did not go to school until I was 16.
I still don’t have any now.
I had a few initial, pathetic ideas involving some photos I took of my friend posing dejectedly in a stairwell, but they were far too trite for what this man was telling us about his life. I wanted to be able to see his face. Initially his eyes were light blue, and they looked up, but that felt trite too. They're still not right - I see so many things in this painting that I want to fix even now that it has been framed, posted and received in Worthing - but at least the proper mood of the piece is there. It's always tricky with this - you want to create a piece that will attract people and make them want to own it so they'll bid on the piece and get more money for the charity, but you also want to represent the experience that created the profile in the first place. Those experiences are sad ones, and deserve to be contemplated by those of us who often forget how lucky we are.

In short - not a painting I am particularly pleased with technically, but an experience I am glad to have had again and a piece that I hope will help raise some money for the project, even if it isn't much.

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