Part 5

Returning to Harrogate, Johnny met Beverley, who became his second wife.  Over the next ten years, her unstinting support and encouragement provided Johnny with an environment that enabled him to work and travel.

Gradually a pattern of working began to form.  ‘When I’m working in the field, it is reality,’ Johnny emphasises, ‘and I am a topographical artist – I observe and record what is in front of me – it is the same for figurative work.  I probably spend about twenty per cent of my time doing this kind of work – and it is absolutely essential.’

Portugal 9c

In early 1993, Johnny was commissioned, by Harrogate’s Gallery Emeritus, to make a tour of Spain and Portugal and record the journey in drawings and watercolours, for an exhibition on his return.  John’s wanderings lead him to the remote, mountainous Beja region of southern Portugal.  His mounting fascination led him to accept an offer to rent a stone and mud house in this unmapped, sparsely populated region, known locally as the Pampa.  For a year, he experienced and painted life from another age, where the inhabitants lived in harmony with the environment, using farming methods little changed from medieval times.

Mayan Temple Wall

Further afield, he has visited the Mayan temples of Mexico and lately, the Buddhist temples of Thailand.  ‘Even though I’m something of a nomad,’ John reflects, ‘I always return to Yorkshire - it’s only when I’m here that I can reflect on my experiences there.’

Mayan Sun-and-Moon

Describing his creative development, Johnny explains, ‘I value the discipline and craft of landscape and portrait work - that’s how I began – through direct observation and painting, but it is through my abstracts that I find my expressive soul.

Cave

To John, this is a mysterious and spiritual realm, which he experiences profoundly and where he feels a close connection with primitive painters: the cave painters of our past; the tribal artists of today.  He goes on, ‘Our ancestors ventured deep into caves to make marks and express something - something spiritual, I believe.  Why go to all that trouble to draw down a black underground hole, where no one will venture without a struggle?  I feel a connection with those mark makers.  It doesn’t make any sense, but it is what I do, what I am.  Both my grandfathers were underground - miners.  Maybe that’s why I’m underground too!’ he laughs.

African Queen

The abstracts develop intuitively and many glimmer with subtle luminosity, reflecting his experiences: as a traveller; of humanity past and present; of something intangible.  They line the walls and my eyes drift over them during pauses in conversation.  Some are geometric and block-like.  ‘Those were inspired by my trip to the Yucatan Peninsular,’ John elaborates.  ‘I am intrigued by pyramids and early artists.  I use many of their techniques in my paintings – this here,’ and he points to a zigzag border, ‘is the way the ancient Egyptians expressed water,’ transforming the image into a golden barge floating down the River Nile.

‘I have been told that I do not see things the ‘right way’, that I am deluded,’ John continues. ‘Maybe I do see things differently but that is not to say wrongly - one man’s reality is another’s delusion perhaps.  My Studio is a tardis and I can go anywhere.’

I can’t help but think that the Studio is the inside of the Envelope; or at least it is the place where Johnny’s subconscious and imagination are free to roam.

Way to the Temple

Each painting is an expression, which is unique to the circumstance of the artist. A painting is not simply the final image: it becomes a companion intimately associated in its own birth; a vessel which holds the story of the bond between creator and created.  Without the story, the painting is empty.

Johnny Middleton

London update

Influence of Clive: pink suede

Influence of Lear: the pink artist 

'Well how was it?'  I asked Johnny, taking in the radiantly ruddy visage.
'Fucking hot!  Thirty degrees!  This,' he pointed to glowing complexion, 'is not a result of sunbathing - this was popping out for a cigarette!  I went to London in my fur lined boots and reefer jacket!  Clive had to lend me some lighter shoes and a jacket.'

'How are the shingles?'
'Painful!'
'And what about Exhibition arrangements?'
'Fine - the gallery is great - whatever I want, I've just got to ask Cherry.'

I was waiting for more ... I felt like Mum trying to extract information about the day at school. 'So everything's on schedule?'
'Oh yes,  I've done my bit now...

'I went to see the Matisse Exhibition - I knew every one of his cut outs - every one!  It was absolutely fucking stunning!

'I walked right down the centre of the gallery.  Clive asked me if I was alright. I don't sweat. "Feel the palms of my hands,' I said to him - they were wet through!  "I've got to get out of here," I said.  "I've been working for two years towards this exhibition - if I stay, it will all be lost!"

Influence of Elvis: free spirit

'I've got nine days left where I can work as a free spirit.  I've got paintings coming in from all directions - they've all got to be bubble wrapped.  We get the keys to the gallery at 9 pm on Saturday night.'

Part 4

Plans to reach Kashmir were high-jacked by the attractions of Amsterdam and their meagre budget was rapidly consumed by city living.  Perry returned home, but Johnny decided to stay on and try to earn a living through painting: by the winter of 1983 he was sharing an attic with mice.

Johnny recalls, 'The houses were very narrow but very tall - built on sand.  Terraced buildings are more stable and everyone has an attic.  It was quite romantic - like going back a hundred years - the area was the 'Montmartre' of Amsterdam.  The landlord lived in a flat about three floors below.

'The mice were my house guests.  Late at night, I'd buy a kebab or something, get into my sleeping bag and eat my meal by candle light.  The light caught their eyes and there would be a twinkling ring of them around my sleeping bag.  I'd give them the left overs away from my bed and I could hear them tucking in.

Amstel

After six months, Johnny moved into a converted barge, ‘El Dorado’ moored on the Amstel and here, he concentrated on painting water, inspired by the reflections.  He survived by painting posters, signs and occasionally selling a painting.  He walked the city, revelling in its extraordinary light and used every opportunity to study the extensive exhibition of Dutch landscapes in the National Gallery.

Amsterdam had given him space to think and learn, along with a confidence in his ability to eke out an existence on his art alone.  He had stayed true to his vision of independence without compromise to his creativity and shown commitment to his dream.  The experience had not been comfortable.  ‘It sounds romantic,’ says Johnny, ‘but far from it – often hungry – hard floors – no hot water, freezing cold – no close friends!’

Amstel

Johnny’s somewhat unorthodox tenancy on the house boat was attracting attention and in any case, a year was up and he had decided it was time to leave.  Returning to Harrogate with his collection of abstract waterscapes and studies, Johnny was determined to maintain his independence and never ‘sign on’.  Friend Jerry Clipelle provided Johnny with free exhibition space at the Wedgewood Shop on Parliament Street and its success put some cash in the coffers.

Still feeling adrift, Johnny decided to join Paul and Perry on a grape-picking trip to France.  At  the hillside village of Cessenon Sur L’Orb in the south, Johnny became the artist of his childhood dreams, following in the footsteps of Edward Lear, whose exquisite topographical drawings and studies had been inspiration and companions through those grim Rotherham years.  For two months, he was in figurative and water colour heaven: despite the ants.

Part 5 to follow

Thought for the day: Hypothesis and heaven

'There is no doubt in my mind that my 'strokes' were down to an over-indulgence in alcohol,'  Johnny pronounced last week, staring at me over the rims of his spectacles.

He continued, 'I was talking to Ron on Sunday.  He told me that his last stroke was down to over-indulgence.  " 'Do you know John?' Ron said to me, 'the doctors told me I was clinically dead for two minutes?'
'Did you see any angels?' I enquired.
'No, not a bloody thing.'
'Pity, it would be nice to have a preview.'"

Part 3

Johnny is in London doing Exhibition stuff.  He's back tomorrow.

Part 3

If The Envelope was a watershed, then the next few years that followed were the mill race as Johnny battled with the grief and guilt surrounding the break-up of his marriage and family. Having broken the mould, he was still adrift and floundering in a world of possibilities, with as yet, no clear path.  He discovered beer and liked it a lot.  It provided companionship, diversion and frequently, a welcome oblivion.

Clockwise: Johnny, Paul, Gill, Phil

However, life does not stand still and although Johnny’s immediate world had collapsed, there were unexpected compensations and comfort, which arrived in the shape of his brothers, Paul and Phil and his sister Gill.  Having left home at sixteen, Johnny had not had the chance to forge relationships with his younger siblings: Phil the youngest was four and Paul was eight. Ten years later, it was Paul, the lynch pin, who found first Johnny and then later rescued an unhappy Phil from London, bringing him back to Leeds.  In spite of everything, the brothers discovered that the bonds were definitely still there and set about making up for lost time.

Through Paul and Phil, Johnny was drawn into their world of music and, in the spirit of the times, passionate protest.  His instrument?  Naturally, it was the drums, with a Don Quixote kit: a carry-on-the-chest bass drum, with a cradle specifically created by J, plus a snare and a range of bells, pans, tea-cups and dangling things to tinkle on.

And what bands did Johnny belong to?  Well, there were the Alarming Clocks, the Impossible Men and Johnny's favourite, the End, with brothers and son Perry. 'We never knew when we got on stage,' Johnny reminisces, smiling beatifically, 'what we were going to do.  I played drums and just battered away - we played Phil's songs.

'I wrote a piece of music you know,’ he remembers, with a faraway look in his eyes. 'It was called 'Industrial Revolution’, inspired by the time when I was painting and decorating in a steel works in a cacophony of noise.  I said to the band, "I've written a fantastic song - it'll go on for half an hour!"

‘We set up for 'Industrial Revolution' at the Cock and Castle pub in town.  We had a washing machine, hair drier, vacuum cleaner - and something that didn't work properly, but I can't remember what it was.  We charged 2/6 entrance.  Then we just turned everything on and stood at the bar.  Unfortunately, everyone demanded their money back.  Unfortunately, we'd drunk it.  "What do you mean, you want your money back?" we said. "This is avant garde!"

'The thing is,' continues Johnny dreamily, 'when they (instruments) all get going, if you're prepared to get into it, you will find a rhythm ...  While we were at the bar the Drug Squad - about seven of them, came in.  They came whenever we played because Phil had written a song called 'Pigs in Plain Clothes' - they loved it because it was about them.'

(I'm not so sure Johnny's reasoning here is correct.)

He came across Frank Zappa and resonated with Zappa’s attitude and artistic aspirations; with his uncompromising view and criticism of the values of American society; his irreverence and musical expression that both commented and pushed boundaries: politically; socially; creatively. Zappa sits alongside Matisse, Klee, Lear and Schiele (and Elvis) as a mentor. It’s Frank that encourages Johnny in his independent and at times provocative stances – to everyone, including his doctor.

Finally, in 1983 his divorce was finalised and taking his son Perry with him, Johnny was bound for Kashmir …

Part 4 to follow

Part 2

Johnny spent Monday taking paintings to the framers, removing paintings from frames and collecting and delivering.  'Coral's been fantastic - without her, I don't know how I would have managed,' he reported.  So whilst not a day spent in creative fervour, much has been achieved on a practical front.  Johnny's still suffering with shingles, but is a little better  - another drink outside at the Brasserie too, so progress! 

Part 2

By 1969, Johnny was settled in Harrogate and continued to learn and consolidate his experiences thanks to the patronage of Dennis McConnell and Gerry Fox, who provided Johnny with a studio at the rear of their Harrogate warehouse for him to use, when he was not providing advice and expertise on colour schemes for their interior design clients.

Further support and opportunities were provided by Hugh Murray, who encouraged Johnny’s forays into sculpting and employed Johnny’s extensive knowledge of English water colours to build his private collection.  Regular trips to Sotheby’s in London enabled Johnny to soak up the art on offer in the capital.

Work in progress, influence of Matisse

He began his love affairs with Matisse and Klee, who have remained his life-long mentors: the threads of their inspiration run through many of his paintings.  Matisse’s unwavering commitment to his art, despite the frailty of his old age is a powerful model and example to which Johnny aspires.  ‘Life would not be worth living if I couldn’t work,’ he states.

Work in progress, influence of Klee

By now, Johnny was earning a reputation as a working artist in Harrogate and as a result, he was invited to become a lecturer at Harrogate College of Art.  He was selling his work through the Nicholas Treadwell Gallery in London and receiving commissions for sculptures.  It seemed, outwardly at least, that he was finally on his way to a successful career in Art.  But inwardly, it didn’t feel like that at all.

He felt increasingly at odds with London galleries, who advised him to, ‘Come back in two or three years with a style – we can sell that.’   Johnny recalls, ‘I thought, I’ve got to get a style together, but,’ he pauses, ‘I am not a commercial artist, I don’t paint to sell – I paint to express – I didn’t want to be channelled into a particular style, I wanted to explore.’  Neither was life at the Art College running smoothly, where Johnny’s attitude was at times challenging to the administration and he was under pressure to adopt a more conventional approach.  Increasingly he was the square peg in the round hole as he tried to become the artist that the galleries would sell, the teacher who obeyed the rules and the responsible husband and father.

By 1971, Johnny had reached the Elastic Limit.  He was painting things he didn’t want to paint, was unwilling to compromise at college as teaching moved away from the disciplines of painting and drawing and of which Johnny took a dim view; it was a sacrilege to lower their status.  His home life was increasingly turbulent.

The Envelope

‘I was troubled,’ recalls Johnny.  ‘I could not sort my head out and something was telling me that the remedy was in Art.  I sat up all night painting and the Envelope painting came out of that situation.  It seemed to be the answer – the inside being the soul or spirit and the exterior is reality.

‘After the Envelope all I wanted to do was develop the inside,' he explains.  'The style is the outside of the Envelope, which everyone understands - it is the picture.  But the inside is abstract – that’s where the story and imagination are – it has nothing to do with style.  That’s why I don’t paint pictures.

'The Envelopes brought things to a head.  I thought fuck it!  I got all my paintings back from Nicholas Treadwell - gave up my job as a lecturer at Harrogate College of Art.  My marriage ended …’  It was an angst-ridden period.

Johnny's last public exhibition was held at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds in December 1972.  The theatre manager was unenthusiastic about the Envelope paintings hanging on one arm of the staircase. 'My five year old could do better than that,' he remarked.

On the opposite staircase were drawings of what America was up to in Vietnam.  ‘Napalm bombs!’ Johnny remembers, ‘I mean to drop it on a village with women and children - for the Americans - of all people - to do that!

‘With my Vietnam drawings, I was trying to sort out the depth of the Envelope.  I cut the drawings in half - I likened it to the rape of a country.  America was represented as an owl - attacking in the night - silently.  Vietnam was a woman.  The theatre manager deemed these drawings pornographic.  "I've got a lot of women and children coming here!" he said and campaigned for the exhibition to be removed.  Anyway, after much ado, the exhibition stayed.

'It was the Envelopes, combined with circumstance that turned me into a proper artist.  If I'm going to be an artist, I thought, I'm going to do it for all the right reasons.  For my sort of an artist, earning a living is secondary to the statement - I was reassured and encouraged by people like Mohammed Ali refusing the Draft, Kurt Vonnegut and Frank Zappa.  I wanted to be part of that - not the Establishment - it was the Protest!  And it was the time when I understood that if you're going to follow your dream, you have to be one hundred per cent honest.  If what you are doing feels right, then it will be, because you have told the truth.

‘Since then,' he continues, 'I've only exhibited in pubs, furniture shops and restaurants, where friends have given me space.  The whole point is my underground-ness.  The story of my life is my paintings.'

Part 3 to follow …

Bulletin

Johnny is still suffering with shingles, however the broken rib is now, 'just sore.'

I popped round to see the Old Bean today to find him in improving spirits, 'I've been in the Studio all day - I still daren't touch anything - but I've been doing a lot of good thinking.'

'The Sock' is now behind glass (photo coming soon, when I can download photos, which now always seem to come out upside down).

The catalogue has gone to print!

The Exhibition is five weeks away.

We sat outside at the Brasserie, in meagre and delightful sunshine and enjoyed a drink  - only the second time Johnny's been out in the last week.  Fingers crossed he is on the mend.

Part 1

I'm sorry I've been away - I hadn't expected to be so stunned by moving.  For three weeks I thought of nothing but packing, shredding, binning, tipping and cleaning.  Result?  Aching hands, painful shoulder, sore back and three and a half containers of stuff gone into store - does that mark a successful or unsuccessful life - would more - or less be better?

At present, I am a nomad and that has made internet access both turbulent and traumatic - and in any case, I was too knackered to think.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy Part 1.  Part 2 won't be far behind, now that I'm settled, for the time being, in a delightful oasis.

Part 1

Johnny’s evolution into the painter he is today has been neither conventional, nor paved, nor privileged.  Neither is he one to bemoan his struggle, often against the odds to realise his passion to paint and he will be first to say, ‘It’s circumstance that shapes events,’ and the circumstances of his life have shaped the artist he has become.

The first seven years of his life spent in the village of Wortley, on the outskirts of Sheffield, laid the foundation for his enduring love of nature.  It was idyllic: a time of security; when he was the centre of the universe in a matriarchal family, who robbed of their menfolk by the Second World War, took delight in cosseting this precious boy.  His best friends were the vicar’s son and the young Earl of Wharncliffe, from whom he had his first introduction to portraits, gilded and huge, hanging in the dark corridors of Wortley Hall.

At the end of the war, his father returned home and the idyll was shattered.  John was displaced as his father re-occupied centre stage.  Riding a donkey to school, playing in the water lift at Wortley Hall and listening to fairy tales, were replaced by a prefab in Rotherham, parents who were distracted by their own concerns and the relentless need to survive the hostilities inflicted on him as a sissy outsider at a slum school in Dalton.  It was here that John’s independent and self-reliant nature was fostered.

From now on John’s home life was turbulent and as his parents’ marriage collapsed, he ricocheted between Rotherham and Bridlington, finding his own ways to cope.  There were extended periods of truancy.  In Bridlington he spent wagging time walking the cliffs and shore, absorbing the colours and texture of the coast.  And after school, when he did attend, he would escape to his room with a book from his father’s library. It was here that he met Edward Lear and as he copied Lear’s illustrations and drawings, so the corner stones were being laid for Johnny’s enduring love of topographical drawing and painting, his sense of fun and the ridiculous.

Through books, the misfit boy had found his means escape and solace. He began to study and learn about early English water colours and to experiment himself.  It was the start of his lifetime love affair with painting and watercolour, in particular.  His imagination was fired by the lives of Impressionist painters.  He loved the romance of struggling artists and passionate lives; of misfits and the misunderstood and he longed to be part of it.

Despite his fragmented education, John’s talent for Art was recognised in school and finally encouraged, but it was too late.  By now, the fifteen year old young man had endured enough and refused to study for his O levels in preparation for Art School, preferring instead to secure his independence by getting a job as a farm labourer.  Unfortunately, despite Johnny’s enthusiasm and efforts, after accidentally releasing hundreds of chickens and being unnecessarily creative in ploughing furrow patterns, the farmer felt that it wasn't the job for him and gave him the sack.

Showing a rare interest in his son, John’s father organised an apprenticeship with a firm of high class painters and decorators in Bridlington.  Here John learned about paints, preparation and the skills and techniques that have underpinned his eventual career as a fine artist.  However, John’s fierce independence asserted itself and at eighteen, now legally an adult, he left his apprenticeship to become a beach photographer for the summer season in Bridlington.  Between seasons and unemployed, he continued to paint.

By twenty-three, married with his first son and working as a painter and decorator, John was increasingly certain that his future was as an artist and in 1963, took the decision to move to Leeds.  There, he felt, was everything he needed to learn: art galleries, exhibitions, the university and a cosmopolitan community: not available in the Bridlington of the time.

He took advantage of it all, working hard as an ‘on the lump’ painter and decorator for Wimpey’s to keep his family, now of four and to pay the mortgage.  In his precious free time he developed his craft and skills.  It was a period of experimentation, with forays into sculpture and through which, he had his first break.