Technology

Phone call from Johnny around 9 pm last night.  'You have messed up my computer, I can't shut it down, the mouse won't work - how do I shut it down?'
'Johnny, I haven't messed up your computer!'
'You have - it was working and now it's not - you've done something to it!'
'Johnny, I haven't done anything - I just showed you the blog - what's wrong?'
'The mouse - it's not working!'
'Right, just check to see ...'
'Look, don't ask me to do anything - I don't know how any of this works - it was working until you touched it!'
'Johnny, listen - I think the dongle thingy for the mouse might be unplugged - just have a look...'
'No!  I just want to shut my computer down!'
Deep breath.  'Alright - does the touch pad work?'
'I don't  - ah!  I've got the arrow!'
'O.K - now close all your windows down - go to the red cross.'
'Ah - it's doing it! I don't like this touch pad thing - I'm a mouse man - you've done something to my mouse!'
'Johnny - I haven't!  Just have a look at the..'
'I'm not looking at anything - I don't  understand these things - that's it - I've shut the windows!  The computer's shut down!'
'Johnny!  Just check the mouse thingy - that it is properly plugged in - it might have got knocked.'
'Don't you ask me to do anything - I'm happy that it's shut down - you did something to my computer - I'll have to get someone to come and sort it out!'
'Johnny! There's probably nothing wrong - check the -'
'I'm not checking anything - I don't know how to do it!'

Tonight.
'Toby came and sorted out my computer today,' said Johnny, 'after you broke it!'
'I didn't break it!'
'He fixed it quickly - he's good is Toby.  Do you know, all that was wrong was the mouse? It's wireless - the connector was not properly plugged in!'

ARGHHH!!!

Ten green bottles

Exhibition is going to be London, May 2014 and Johnny is very happy with the timing.  'I've got a good year to work and I want twelve new paintings for London - the icing on the cake!  Hopefully, these twelve will give people an understanding of what I was doing thirty years ago.'

Ten Green bottles  hanging on a wall

We retired to the Brasserie to meet up with Clive.  'It's good to be back,' said Johnny, 'I love London but it's full-on!  And I've heard from Tony Pony - I've not been in touch yet - but I will be. I want him to photograph Ten Green Bottles and others - I'm even prepared to take paintings out of their frames!'
'You didn't photograph it before it was framed?' enquired Clive.
'Well naturally not,' said Johnny.
'But I thought you were going to photograph everything before it was framed?'
'Yes - but I didn't have a camera.'

1993: Beja Portugal

Portugal 9c

Describing his creative development, John 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.’

Portugal 2

In early 1993, John 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.

Home for a year

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, using farming methods little changed from medieval times.

Portugal - Wheel

When working in the field, it's direct observation time and Johnny records the realities around him in studies and watercolour.

Portugal 3

It is on his return that his observations and experiences inform the abstracts that will eventually emerge.  'Even though I'm something of a nomad,’ he reflects, ‘I always return to Yorkshire - it’s only when I'm here that I can reflect on my experiences there.'

Johnny's return

As I write, Johnny is on his way back from London.  'I've had a fantastic time,' he reported at six o'clock tonight.  I wait with baited breath to see what encounters and arrangements have been made.

Don 2

A verse from: 'The Artist' by Sir Walter Raleigh and a favourite of Johnny's.  He thinks it an apt summary.

The Artist is an awful man, 

He does not do the things he can; 

He does the things he cannot do, 

And we attend the private view. 

African Queen

Consummation

Sunday afternoon often sees me round at best of friends Susan's house and this Sunday, I was a woman on a mission.  Why? Because I wanted a photograph of my favourite painting of 'African Queen'.  She's special to me because I watched her come into being over many months.

First she was shades on paper, then an outline and gradually her head began to emerge, smooth like old alabaster asking to be stroked.  For a while, she had neat, heart-shaped lips, which made her look a bit prissy and stand-offish to me. Then Johnny smudged her lips and she became the tantalising temptress, whom I nicknamed 'Hot Lips'.  She eventually became 'Consummation'.

Consummation

It's a funny thing, but as time goes by, I find that Johnny's abstract paintings start 'talking'; asking questions.  I start to wonder about them and before I know it, they have become my companions. They start out as his, but they become mine too.

The same has happened to Susan.  She found herself wondering about Consummation.
Who is she?  Is it a she, or are they a 'they'? It reminded her of her favourite poem:

From 'The love song of J Alfred Prufrock' by T S Eliot

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

Who is 'you and I'?  A lover, friend, alter-ego?  Intrigued, by the two images of the Queen, Susan asked Johnny.  He said that it's a she; one woman.  That still leaves plenty of questions to ask!

'Have you any idea how difficult it is?' Johnny asked me, while he was working on Consummation, 'to draw two perfectly identical heads?'  

I think my last attempts at perfect copying were maximum/minumum curves in calculus, decades ago and I remember well the disappointing eraser smudges around my wonky curves.


Johnny reveres Egon Schiele's drawing and recently had the opportunity to view an original.  'I looked at the line and examined in detail each tiny section,' he recounted. 'It brought tears to my eyes, it was so exquisite.'

Paint

Pink bird, inspired by Edward Lear (top left);
work in progress 'Envelope'  (centre, floor)

'I am a painter: I study paint. Early on 
in my career, I was told to develop a style. I do not have a style, I have a theme, which covers thousands of years and is all to do with the way things have been painted - from the cave paintings of Lascau to Picasso, I study the paint and how it is applied, how it is used. I am not influenced by Picasso's 'style' but by his paint.


In abstracts, people look for a picture. Abstract paintings are not about pictures - paint can hold emotion. When looking at a good abstract, you should be feeling it and your mind freed so that your subconscious can make
contact, not your reason.'

There are images and influences that recur in Johnny's work. Envelopes have a long history and significance, and so does Edward Lear, who Johnny admires both as an artist and for his humour and wit.

The train to London will leave in November

'The train to London will leave in November,' said Clive in June.

At our regular TGIF early doors meeting tonight, thoughts turned to our intrepid artist, now in London and at the mercy of linear schedules.  The last linear schedule was high-jacked by pain and the dentist.

Much has been planned by Sarah, organiser extraordinaire and Clive, patron extraordinaire.  This excursion to the bright lights is the third or fourth to decide on a venue for the exhibition, when dates and place will be fixed: another linear happening that will require synchronising!

Work in progress: Square on the Hypotenuse

Johnny's studio is bursting with works in progress and much finished work is in store and safely behind glass.  'Once a painting is behind glass, I am forced to leave it alone,' he says.

What began as a retrospective concept, is now embracing new works.  'I've bought a lot of coloured paints Gill,' Johnny informed me last week, 'I'm thinking about bright colours!  Phil (brother) is good with bright colours - but I'll probably end up going black!' he laughs.

Pythagoras has been a hot topic this week.

Angst night

Wednesday night is Angst night at the Blues Bar in Harrogate, where Johnny's brother Paul plays with his Angst Band. 

Angst on my wall

Since 1967, singer-songwriter Paul has been entertaining his adopted home town of Harrogate and the wider world. Delivering his own lyrics in a gravelly, bourbon-soaked voice that wells from his Yorkshire soul, he sings of trials and tribulations in love, life and death.

His music is irreverent, uncompromising and expressed in an explosion of sound and passion, which at times teeters on the fringes of mania, as his hands coerce the frenzied voice from his slide steel guitar. Pied Piper like, he leads his Angst band and audience to the edge of the cliff as guitars soar, drums throb and xylophones pulse in a heady fusion of rock and blues, laced with Yorkshire grit and humour.

A close family, Johnny is a keen supporter, both as audience and artist, having done the art work for numerous posters and CD covers over the years.

I have come to learn that from the moment Johnny begins a project, he gives it his complete focus.  A CD cover or poster must present an image that reflects the CD and be one that he is completely satisfied with.  His own fiercest critic; he pursues 'satisfaction' with single minded intent.

So, for the latest CD cover, Johnny began his reflections on Paul's performance.  The background became white and the red heart changed to pink.  Time moved on and so did Johnny; he was absorbed and pleased with the way the elements of the cover were coming together and the deadline seemed well within reach.  After all, I thought, all J has to do  is paint in the word 'Angst' and job's done with a week left to do it in.

68 Angsts later

'Well how's it going?' I enquire on the phone, a couple of days later.
'Not well,' replies J gloomily, 'I'm up to 30 'Angst's' - one or two are close, but not quite.'
'What do you mean? It's just a word.'
'No it's not - in China, calligraphy students have to learn to portray not just the meaning of the character, but the essence of it too.  They practice the characters in sand pits with huge brushes until they capture the essence through their brush strokes and attitude - only then are they allowed anywhere near paper. 'Angst' has to be angst as well as mean it.   My 'angst's do not have the essence - getting close but not there yet.'

Latest CD

I left him to it.  Johnny is a perfectionist.  A day later, the studio was carpeted with 'Angsts'.  It took 73 to achieve the essence and meaning to Johnny's satisfaction and synchronicity between worlds was stretched almost beyond its elastic limit.

Synchronicity

Great excitement - email via Yorkshire Post re last Saturday's feature on Johnny - Ann, gallery owner from York has been in touch.

Hi Gillian

I read your piece about John Middleton & then happened to be staying with a friend in London who used to live in Harrogate.   Apropos of nothing, he suddenly started talking about “the Middleton brothers”, all of whom he knew.     I told him about the article & he would love to know where John’s exhibitions are taking place ?

Synchronicity or what?

Then Tony Pony (photographic wizard) rang -  he'd read the blog and remembered about some photos he was going to take.  He and Johnny have an elastic sense of time: their pauses in conversation last for years.  Today, they sychronised - Bingo!

Synchronising worlds

This is a world that is not ruled by schedules - it's more about cycles of focus - it works very well until the two worlds have to align.






On Thursday Johnny has to synchronise with a train to London.  Preparations are already afoot.

This time last year ...

70th Birthday party.  Johnny and beloved granddaughter Chloe

Surprised and delighted to have reached seventy in 2010,   Johnny declared,  'I am now officially old,' and began to contemplate a retrospective exhibition.



By December 2011, those thoughts had become a commitment, but 2012 did not get off to a good start.  Full of enthusiasm, J was dogged by feeling unwell ...

The gassing of Johnny

I am a Yorkshire artist, from near Rotherham in fact.

I live to paint; it’s all I do – I can be quite abstract.

I have a lot of paintings stacked up in my studio,

Which is down to my reluctance in permitting them to go.

My friends don’t understand me: they think I’m daft and rash,

When I pass up opportunities to flog a few for cash.

But my reason for reluctance to disperse this vast collection

Is to keep it all together, for my future exhibition.

Last year I sensed the time for this event was drawing near:

I felt that paintings yet to paint would take just one more year.

The omens boded well, you see, for peak creative state

Since Neptune, now in Pisces, for Pisceans should be great.

The planets thus were perfect for my fishy disposition;

So too, the signs were positive from old Chinese tradition. 

This New Year’s Eve, the Orient would welcome in the Dragon,

The year of which, for Smaugs like me, should be a fucking good ‘un.

Instead

I was gassed!

I damn nearly died!

Because the air that I was breathing in was carbon monoxide.

I couldn’t figure out you see, where all my oomph had gone;

My head felt thick; my stomach sick; the weariness dragged on.

I blamed it all on alcohol and allergies to food

And no amount of sleep or rest could lift my dismal mood.

The problem

Was gas!

That’s why nothing I tried

Could counteract the dire effects of carbon monoxide.

‘There’s gas!’ said Emilie one day, determined on detection

And through intensive sniffing, found the source of fume infection.

The boiler was the culprit: a cantankerous contraption;

And so the odd job man was called, to put it out of action.

So

I was being gassed!

My mind had not lied!

My off-colour state a consequence of carbon monoxide.

What joy to know my poorly plight was not psychosomatic!

There was a reason after all for symptoms problematic.

Once more I dreamed of working bliss, aloft in studio

And letting fly with paint and brush and passionate gusto.

But!

I was still being gassed!

The cowboy denied,

But the boiler yet was seeping lethal carbon monoxide.

At last an engineer arrived to sort my situation.

He found the source of leakage; gave a thorough explanation.

He informed me I was lucky; I could very well have died

Because the wonky boiler was not proper certified.

So, I opened all my windows to assist with ventilation

And tanked up quick on oxygen through rapid inhalation.

At last I’m free from poison and the source of inhibition;

And back, with oomph, to studio to sort my exhibition!

Gillian Tarn

Feb 2012

I am pleased to report that 2013 is off to a cracking start, with much gusto and oomph in studio - and it is still the year of the Dragon, if only just.

Just to introduce myself - Johnny is a dear friend of mine and I'm his secretary of sorts, a role that's come about in view of Johnny's plans to hold an exhibition later this year.


I've been lucky enough to have had two wonderful teachers in Johnny and his brother Phil, who have held my hand as I've walked into their world of art.  I've watched them work and listened to their stories of their journeys into painting.  For me, they have opened up a magical door into another world: a very different one to the one I have lived in for most of my life.

So in my turn, I'm writing this to give you a glimpse of Johnny through my eyes and maybe open some magic doors! As Hector, the teacher in Alan Bennett's 'History Boys' said, 'Pass it on! Pass it on!'

The goal this year is Exhibition 2013 and this blog is a record of our journey there.  I hope you enjoy.  Oh, and a note about the photographs - I am no photographer - my photographs do not do justice to the paintings, but I hope they give a flavour - sorry Johnny, but if I wait for your perfect images, I'll wait for ever - and many are behind glass in any case!

Diary

I left phoning J until midday – there’s no point calling otherwise.  ‘I am not 'at home' until two o’clock,’ he will tell you.   Amazingly, not only was I spared Helga (the Teutonic answerphone) but was doubly thrown when J answered with an efficient, ‘Good morning, John Middleton speaking.’

‘Is this a new you?’ I query, ‘are you getting business-like in view of pending exhibition?’

‘No – I’ve not woken up yet!’

‘Ah,’ I respond, ‘why aren’t you in the studio hard at it?’

‘I am – I’m in a creative frenzy – I’m working really hard - there’s a lot of black being splashed about,’ he adds morosely.
'What are you working on?' I enquire.

‘The African Queen – it’s very black.’

‘She does keep on popping up, doesn’t  she?’

Johnny's favourite Queen

I should explain.  There are several  African Queens in existence: she’s an elegant, elongated head, reminiscent of Modigliani.  This Queen, like a chameleon appears in different guises and moods.  Sometimes she’s remote, often black and occasionally white.  My favourite is the provocative temptress, with messy red lips that suggest  what she was up to earlier in the afternoon.

Black Queen - you can see her white heart-shaped lips, white border and  reflection of J in Studio

African Queen in progress

To say that J likes black is an understatement.  He’s passionate about black: it transmits emotion and depth, hinting of times past and mysteries.  If I ever get round to writing J’s biography, I’m going to call it Seventy-Two shades of Black.

‘I’ll maybe see you later then?’ I finish.

‘It’s possible,’ he replies enigmatically.