A Brief Explanation About My New Obsession With Colour.

[TO VIEW IN ENTIRTY SCROLLING DOWN IS NECESSITY]

Written on 3rd July 1996

As I approach the end of my fourth decade on this planet, I find that I’m becoming rather nostalgic about certain things that were important to me in my early childhood (that’s why I’ve re-discovered my childhood passion for monster magazines). I long to reclaim certain objects and feelings from that period of my life. Artistically, I was fascinated by colours as a child, but as I grew up this colour fixation was replaced with subject matter and eventually my own psychological symbolism.

The beginning of my lust for colour was a series of events, one of which I remember quite clearly, it concerned a book. I was at school, Whingate Primary School in Leeds; I must have been about seven years old. It was winter, grey and dull. Everything seemed dull and grey. I wore grey shorts and grey socks, pulled up to my knees. Sometimes though I wore a bright orange V-necked jumper, which my Mam had knitted for me, but other than that everything was grey; even the television at home was black and white and GREY!

In the dining hall at Whingate, running the length of the two longest walls were glass faced book cabinets; their height was lower than an adult. The bookcases were locked but I could see the old books inside, some looked ancient behind the glass doors. Every time we all went into the dining room for lunch I would gaze at the book cabinets. We had aluminium jugs in metallic green, red and blue colours and scratched glasses filled with water by the water monitors, (children especially picked by the headmaster Mr. Taylor for the job of dispensing the water).

One day for some reason I wondered into the dining hall alone. I was standing by the bookcases when Mr. Taylor walked in, “What are you doing?” He asked, “I was wondering what all those old books are Sir?” Mr. Taylor liked me, I could tell and he went to his office to get the keys and then he opened all the cabinets, he said he would tell my teacher that I would be busy for a few hours in the dining hall!

I think Mr. Taylor had always been impressed by the day I was sent to his office by my teacher for never smiling or something. He asked me my favourite joke. “Why is your dog wearing brown boots?” “Because his black ones need polishing!” Ha Ha, I didn’t think it was a very good joke but I didn’t know many others.

Then I pointed at the only picture that he had on his wall and said, “That’s a self portrait of Vincent Van Gogh when he cut his own ear off.” I’d read this information in a magazine for children, so I wasn’t that clever, but Mr. Taylor was very impressed. He asked for my Mother to come up to the school, she had to take the afternoon off work to sit in his office and be told; “Val is different” she was a bit annoyed.

Back to the cabinets, the old books were boring, no pictures, they must have been there since the school was built in the nineteenth century. Then I noticed one with a lovely blue cover and gold writing on the front, “Heraldry Of The British Isles.” When I flicked through this book I was dumfounded by page upon page of illustrations of shields, banners, red lions, yellow stars, gold armour, green grass, endless page after page in colours so vivid that I can never forget them. The thing that truly amazed me was the flat method of printing, there were no dots or half tone modern printing methods involved, just five or six bright colours which were: a French Ultramarine, Golden Yellow, Vermillion or Pillar Box Red, Chrome Green, Black and real Gold ink!

The effect of the blue juxtaposed with the red and the gamboge type golden yellow astounded me; and this combination fascinates me still.

Not long after this experience I remember painting a large mural with the help of and artistic lieutenant in the narrow corridor outside Mr. Taylor’s office. It was of St. George and the Dragon, painted with just four colours, blue, red, yellow, green outlined in black.

The other thing I remember clearly from school took place a long time after. I think that I was ten or eleven, but I got some books from a jumble sale and one of them had wonderful illustrations in of cruise liners up to the 1930s or thereabouts. I had no interest whatsoever in ships but I had to get the book just for the illustrations, not of the ships, but of the skies! The Skies! Those skies were unbelievable, dark violet blue at the top gradating in the space of five inches into a fantastic pale cobalt blue at the bottom with maybe a hint of yellow.

I’ve always loved the gradating effect in the sky, when it’s very clear of clouds and the sun has gone down below the horizon for half an hour or so and night is almost upon us. Two of the most beautiful words in the English language belong to this time, twilight and dusk.

When the stars start show against the cobalt blue fading sky or especially Venus, The Evening Star appears, it’s a sight I know has had a profound influence on me. These skies are much more prominent in Yorkshire* because there is less pollution from exhaust fumes and street lights and the horizon is so much lower and wider than in built up London.

The book of ships was for me a book of abstracts that dealt with colours and shapes; sometimes I would look at the illustrations upside down or from the side. I would also do this with “The Beano” and “Dandy” comics.

Well that’s just two occurrences that I can recall both to do with old books, I still love books, but then so did my Dad. Now I’ve found that old excitement in colour again and more or less the same colours! The bright ultramarine French blue colour is there again and the golden yellow and bright red are all there and I think maybe some of the shapes I use now possibly derive from coats of arms? The flowing feminine devices? The sharp manly red spikes of stars? Who knows? But one thing is for certain the colours I use are the same as the colours in that old book hiding in the cabinet at school.

* I lived in Yorkshire for the first 21 years of my life. When these notes were made I had been living in London for 16 years, and would do so for another 5 before returning to Yorkshire where I live currently.