Glorious Mud

Crikey, it's been a while.

Art has been taking a back seat to work and politics. New design work can be seen at www.fivetonine.co.uk. The politics has been about challenging Lewisham Council on their hike in service charges for leaseholders on my housing estate – very time consuming.

A couple of months ago I thought about dismantling my China Blues piece at Creekside Centre. But we decided to cover it in mud instead and see what grew from the fertile sludge. Here's Kate Coss, manager of the centre, having just splattered the world (and herself)...



Since then, a few wild flowers (weeds to you) have popped up, but the mud has dried out quite a lot.

Meanwhile, have just completed proposals for this year's Deptford X which is coming round again in September 2009. Whether I get to be part of the programme or not, it is time to make some stuff.


Also, there is now a Deptford Art Map:
http://www.deptfordartmap.com/
A few locations on Creekside are missing, but no doubt this will be rectified in due course...

Creekside Open

I finally got round to making my own version of the Willow Pattern. It's been fermenting for a while, but delayed in execution. I was trying to get hold of some round ready-made canvases but Cornelisson's who usually sell them were out of stock. I was also thinking of hanging out at Ceramic Biscuit Cafe in Greenwich and drawing a plate there and have them fire it...

With the deadline for submissions to the Creekside Open (www.creeksideopen.org/) approaching fast (last weekend), I found myself, three days before the deadline, helping friends with their submissions (getting images onto CD) but was undecided over what I would submit if anything. The artist Mark Wallinger is one of the judges. Wallinger won the Turner Prize in 2007 (www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/wallinger/).

The thought that Wallinger, of all people, might actually get what I've been doing made me get off my arse and begin my Creekside Willow. I nipped off down the high street and bought some white plates (paper, plastic and ceramic) in all the pound shops. The last pound shop I tried sold the perfect plate - big enough for an image and beautifully plain. At the newsagents I bought some blue permanent markers. These worked fine on the plastic surface and I transferred a drawing I'd been working on (with the help of collaging images on the computer) to the plate.

It turned out a bit wonky, but then the original Willow isn't exact either. It's an idealised version too - some buildings are still under construction and there should be more of them. Plus the two churches (St Paul's in Deptford and St Alfege's in Greenwich) ought to be in there...and there are no people on the bridge...


Creekside Willow With Vultures 30cmx30cm Plastic plate with felt tip

The plate was finished the night before the deadline day, but I still hadn't invented a border for the plate, so I got in touch with Nick Bertram at Creekside Centre and obtained some Creek mud...I was remembering seeing plates half buried in the mud in the Creek.





The mud links into the subject of the Creek, mud as clay, and the potteries that used to be here. I donned waders and dipped the plate in...




Creekside Willow With Vultures and Creek Mud

I took a bucket of mud back to the studio with me to set up a different presentation. If presented in a gallery, the mud would dry out, so I didn't really get it how I wanted it here - it's still wet and there wasn't enough of it.



I also tried presenting the plate on a Chinoiserie-style wallpaper sample that I'd picked up recently from B&Q. This gave me the idea of redrawing the wallpaper to show the pale pastoral scenes as more contemporary, but there wasn't time to do this.



The deadline was at 5pm on the Saturday and I made it with minutes to spare. Submissions were to be handed in at the APT Gallery where there was a show on of three female artists. One of these artists, Toni McGreachan, remarked on how many people had been into the gallery that day - she had counted over 70 - and most of them were delivering Creekside Open submissions.

The chances of being picked are next to zero, but I am glad that having the opportunity to enter gave me the impetus to start working on this idea...there's still some way to go: explore the contemporary Chinoiserie-style wallpaper idea, and work on a border (or ribbon) for the plate...perhaps made up of financial motifs like the Royal Bank of Scotland logo. RBS are one of the partners in the Creekside Village development. But the development is still going ahead; they seem to have completed the underground car park and are beginning the ground floor structure. You don't have three cranes on site if you're not doing anything.
www.thecreeksidevillage.com/index.html
I should really make more of those glass shards on my plate.

Joanne Kerr at A Cup of Tea Solves Everything

I nearly forgot...one of the exhibits I like at the Cup of Tea show is funny little project by Joanne Kerr called TEA TALES, or Urban Wildlife: Tea Tales Picture Cards.

Joanne has printed up some little cards like the ones we used to get in packets of tea, plus a little booklet to stick them in. Rather than the pictures of birds and other animals that people used to collect (which had information about the species on the back), she has photographed the humble polystyrene cup in a variety of guises (decorated or with props) to resemble people in the urban environment. For instance, there are characters like The Therapist (the cup has two large handles attached which resemble huge ears), or The Builder (the cup is hodcarrying sugar lumps with a plastic spoon), The Gardener, The Hairdresser, and my favourite, The Gangster. The Gangster (gangsteramus) is black with a handle attached in the shape of knuckle dusters.

The Gardener (hortis planetarium) cup is decorated with a dark green pattern and its description reads: "a true native of England but it has been introduced into several other countries where, as it is a virile and adaptive species, it has thrived. It is regarded as a pest by the common slug for it is tenacious in its quest for food and does not take well to competition. It is most often seen in spring and summer. At first it stands erect but later droops."

Most of the work in the show is light hearted. I seem to be the only one weighed down by the history of tea.

Trouble Brewing

My mother sent me a clipping from her newspaper of an article printed the same day as the A Cup of Tea Solves Everything show opened (20 Feb). Peter Jenkinson was writing about the price of tea...In typical Daily Express scare fashion we are told "The price could rise by 50%".

"The main factors influencing the price of tea are...a weakening of the pound coupled with severe political unrest in Kenya, a major supplier of the commodity" (which is traded in dollars).

This is really an update on a similar story which was reported at the same time last year (Feb 08) when post election troubles started in Kenya and thousands of tea plantation workers were forced to flee the land as violence erupted, and wholesale prices rose by up to 30%.

Jenkinson says the industry has been reluctant to pass on cost increases to consumers. I'd say, though, that they've just been selling us CRAP tea. The PG Tips teabags I have been buying are rubbish.

But what I didn't know was this: "The reason for our close tea trading partnership with (Kenya) is all down to the method of production most widely used there called CTC...More than 99% of African tea is harvested using the Cut, Tear and Curl method. This results in the end product being a very fine particle of tea which suits teabag manufacture perfectly..."

Also: "As tea drinkers we have a tendency in Britain to decide that a brew is ready for us to drink when a certain redness in colour is achieved. African tea suits the quick-fix culture in which most of us live now. It reaches the ideal hue much more speedily because of the soil conditions present during the growing process..."

Apparently the market in connoisseur teas from China and India will hold up, since "some of us are willing to pay extra and try a little harder to find a flavour we would truly value...but most of us are sticking to builders tea and doing ourselves a disservice by the way we make it...The optimum amount of time to release the full flavour and all the beneficial qualities from a bag of tea is 90 seconds. Yet we Brits, on average, leave our teabags in water for just 38 seconds."

Co-incidentally, at the time I received my mother's clipping, I had just started a print design job for a local Caribbean dance company and was getting into African batik prints, and had bought a great selection of remnants for a tenner in the local African textile shop in the high street. I was surprised to find that most of the fabric sold there was made in Holland. The shop-keeper told me that her customers preferred the Dutch cloth to the African because it was better quality and lasted longer and kept its colours after several washes.

Here is a snap of one of those prints, which has a little of the Willow about it (although the design is probably based on the palm tree):

Some paintings

Royal Doulton Up The Spout 1
(Acrylic, oil, tea & transfers on canvas) 25.5cm x 25.5cm



Royal Doulton Up The Spout 2
(Acrylic, oil, tea & transfers on canvas) 25.5cm x 25.5cm



Royal Doulton Up The Spout 4
(Acrylic, oil, tea & transfers on canvas) 41cm x 51cm



Royal Doulton Up The Creek
(Ink, oil, tea & transfers on canvas) 19cm x 56cm



Blue Flow Birds
(Oil and tea leaves on canvas) 27.5cm x 22cm

Jamini Patel

Another interesting artist...Jamini Patel, who had a show at the V&A Museum of Childhood in 2007. Can't find out much about her, but this article by Niti Acharya from the 24 Hour Museum (www.24hourmuseum.org.uk) gives a flavour - and there are some photos of the work:

http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/architecture/art52439

"Sculptor Jamini Patel explores the relationship between colonial trade and architecture and the way it has shaped our cityscapes in a new exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood.

"Her early sculptures of buildings remaining from 18th century colonial Britain are highly detailed and thought-provoking. Built using the commodities which financed their construction and were the bedrock of colonial trade, the sculptures provoke a realisation of the riches empire trading brought and the servitude exploited in far-flung colonies.

"The scramble for sugar, cocoa, tea, coffee, spices and tobacco during the sugar and spice era has led Jamini to recreate the Glaswegian Gallery of Modern Art, Sezincote House in Gloucestershire and John Pinney’s Georgian House in Bristol.

"Though small in scale, this exhibition asks questions about the social and economic cost of commodities trading and how the landscape is still dominated by those who have know how to play the financial game to their benefit."

Other Criteria

My artist friend Maria Clemen sent me this link to Damien Hirst's art merchandising website Other Criteria, who sell limited editions and multiples, clothing, jewellery, photographs, posters, prints and books by Hirst and a number of established and emerging artists...

Specifically, she sent me this page featuring work by Latin American artist Eduardo Sarabia:

https://www.othercriteria.com/browse/all/

Global trade

Here are a few selective, slightly abridged or paraphrased excerpts from Tom Standage's book A History of the World in Six Glasses (mentioned in previous post), that I found illuminating (my school history education was very poor) and which sent me down the Tea and Burberry route:

"The (East India) Company's first tea imports from the East Indies arrived in 1669...It was initially a minor commodity as the company concentrated first on importing pepper, and then cheap textiles, from Asia. But opposition from Britain's domestic textile producers encouraged the company to place more emphasis on tea; there was no problem with offending domestic producers, since there were none."

A new approach to manufacturing, pioneered by Richard Arkwright in the 1770s "turned Britain into the world’s first industrialised nation". Skilled labourers and craftsmen were replaced by machines situated together in one place around a source of power such as a waterwheel or steam engine. Employees were housed nearby and use of shifts ensured maximum utilisation of expensive machinery. "Each labourer in Arkwright’s mill could do the work of fifty hand spinners, and as other aspects of textile production were automated...production soared. So cheap and abundant were British-made textiles by the end of the C18th that Britain began exporting textiles to India, devastating that country's traditional weaving trade in the process."

The workers were given tea breaks. "Tea kept workers alert on long and tedious shifts and improved their concentration when operating fast moving machines...Factory workers had to function like parts in a well-oiled machine and tea was the lubricant that kept the factories running smoothly". Tea’s healthy properties also meant the workforce could "be more densely packed in their living quarters around the factories in the industrial cities of the British Midlands without risk of disease".

"The popularity of tea also stimulated commerce by boosting the demand for crockery and bringing into being a flourishing new industry. Ownership of a fine tea service was of great importance for rich and poor alike...The most famous of the Staffordshire potters was Josiah Wedgwood, whose company produced tea services so efficiently that it could compete with Chinese porcelain, imports of which declined and eventually stopped in 1791."

"Wedgwood was a pioneer of mass production...No longer did individual craftsmen in his factories make each item from beginning to end; instead, they specialised in one aspect of production and became particularly skilled at it. Items moved in a continuous flow from one worker to the next. This division of labour enabled Wedgewood to use the most talented designers...without requiring them to be potters too." ***

"The political power of the British East India Company...was vast...The company had many friends in high places, and many of its officials simply bought their way into Parliament. Supporters of the EIC also cooperated on occasion with politicians with interests in the West Indies; the demand for West Indian sugar was driven by the consumption of tea. All this ensured that in many cases company policy became government policy."

"The EIC's fortunes revived in 1784" (after Britain's loss of the American colonies) "when the duty on tea imports to Britain was slashed, which lowered the price of legal tea, doubling the company's sales and wiping out smuggling. But the company's power was gradually curtailed amid growing concern over its enormous influence and the corrupt and self-enriching behaviour of its officials...the company's monopoly on Asian trade was removed, except for China. The company concentrated less on trade and more on the administration of its vast territories in India; after 1800 the bulk of its revenue came from the collection of Indian land taxes. In 1834 the company's monopoly on trade with China was removed too."

"The cultivation and preparation of opium in India was, conveniently, a monopoly controlled by the company, which had been quietly allowing small quantities of opium to be sold to smugglers or corrupt Chinese merchants since the 1770s...the company set about increasing the production of opium in order to use it in place of silver to buy tea. It would then, in effect, be able to grow as much currency as it needed."

"Of course, it would never do to be seen to be directly trading an illegal drug in return for tea, so the company devised an elaborate scheme to keep the opium trade at arm's length...(this was) state-sanctioned drug running on a massive scale, which created millions of addicts and blighted countless lives merely to maintain Britain's supply of tea."

An attempt by the Chinese to clamp down on the trade, resulting in the British being expelled from Canton, "caused outrage in London, where representatives of the company and other British merchants had been putting pressure on the British government to force China to open itself up to wider trade...On the pretext of defending the right to free trade, war was declared."

"...as further wars were waged...in each case Chinese defeat entailed additional concessions to the commercial aims of foreign powers. The trade in opium...was legalised, Britain took control of the Chinese customs service; imported textiles and other industrial goods undermined Chinese craftsmen. China became an arena in which Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, and Japan played out their imperialist rivalries, carving up the country and competing for political dominance."

The beginnings of the cultivation of tea in India began around the time the EIC lost its monopoly on trade with China in 1834. "Proponents of the idea argued that...British consumers would be assured of a more reliable supply...and it would provide plenty of jobs for Indian workers, a great many of whom had lost their livelihoods when the company's imports of cheap cloth from British factories wiped out India's traditional weaving industry. Furthermore...the people of India might be encouraged to consume it, which would create an enormous new market."

"...The traditional Chinese manner of producing tea was anything but industrial and had remained unchanged for hundreds of years." There were also many middle men involved in bringing the raw material from the country to the foreign traders "that brought the price paid for each pound of tea to nearly twice the original producer's selling price. An enterprise that produced its own tea in India, however, could pocket the difference...Furthermore, applying new industrial methods...(would) boost productivity, and hence profits, still further. With the cultivation of tea in India, imperialism and industrialism were to go hand in hand."

By 1851, after difficult beginnings, "a tea boom ensued as dozens of new tea companies were set up in India, though many of them failed as clueless speculators bankrolled new ventures without discrimination...production really took off when industrial methods and machinery were applied. The tea plants were arranged in regimented lines; the workers were housed in rows of huts and required to live, work, eat and sleep according to a rigid timetable. Picking the tea could not (and still cannot) be automated, but starting in the 1870s its processing could be...

The rise of India's tea industry had a devasting impact on China's tea farmers and further contributed to the instability of the country..."

"India remains the world's leading producer of tea today, and the leading consumer...(23%), followed by China (16%) and Britain (6%)."

*** And Wedgwood allegedly got the production line idea from reading Père d'Entrecolles, the French Jesuit missionary whose letters recording the processes of Chinese porcelain production were published in 1735. See my blog: January 8, 2009 - A Note on Wedgwood.

Extracts from Around The World in Six Glasses by kind permission of Tom Standage.

A Short History of Tea

If anyone is coming to this blog as a result of A Cup of Tea Solves Everything (which it doesn't, really) and is interested in the history of tea, may I recommend A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage, in which there are two chapters on tea that offer a concise socio-political story that is a quicker read than other books on tea (listed on this blog). You may want to go on to read those other books (or you might go on to find out about the other beverages Standage covers - coffee, Coke, beer, wine and whiskey).

It's published by Atlantic Books and available on Amazon for seven quid. Standage is business editor of The Economist, is an expert on technology, and is just about to bring out a book about food called An Edible History of Humanity. He has written three other books including The Victorian Internet (described by the Wall Street Journal as a "dot-com cult classic"). He writes a blog at tomstandage.com and describes his speciality as the use of historical analogy, offering a way of seeing the past in the present, and the present in the past. Right up my street.

A Cup of Tea Solves Everything

20th February – 14th March 2009

A diverse range of artists were invited to interpret the statement “A Cup of Tea Solves Everything” in this exciting multi-media exhibition. Tea as time, tea as etiquette, tea as mathematics, tea as war, tea as peace, tea as Empire and more…

Artists include: Lorna Robertson /Raksha Patel /Emma Scarpa /Mathilda Holmqvist /Vanessa Louise Jones /Sonalle /Carol Mancke /Sonia Paco-Rocchia /Gabo /Joanna Kerr /Adnan Mirza /Wendy Couchman /Melissa Stott /Kathy Taylor /Tea Appreciation Society /Helena Wee /Mirei Yazama /Rekha Sameer /Sue Lawes /Paul Taylor /Shafique LeFreaque /Ed Huxley /Fatima Hussein

EVENTS, WORKSHOPS & FILM PROGRAMME

Friday February 20th - Opening Night:
6pm-9pm.
Free Tea for all and welcome tour.
Film Screening: The River (1951) Dir: Jean Renoir
Set in Bengal during the colonial era. Features 38 tea encounters. The key influence that launched Satyajit Ray’s foray into cinema. Described by Martin Scorsese as “the most beautiful film ever made in colour.” Starts 7pm.

Saturday February 28th
2pm onwards
Tea and Politics, the collaboration of artists Missy Mitchell-Hynd and Naimh Moor, question society’s relationship to politics through the creation of events. Influenced by the culture of coffee houses of the 17th century, they invite you to come and discuss the political events of the day over a relaxing cup of tea.

Saturday March 7th
10.30am – 12.30pm
2pm-4pm
Qualified Art Therapist Sue Briffa leads 2 art therapy workshops around the exhibition. Materials provided.

Friday – March 13th
7pm-9pm
A night of short films, plays, animations, performance, songs, discussion and more… around the world of tea.

All events are FREE. No booking required. First come, first serve basis

Venue: DEPARTURE, 649 Commercial Road, Limehouse, London
E14 7LW

Travel directions: 1 minute walk from Limehouse DLR & National Rail/ Buses: 15, 115, 135/ Opening hours: Tues – Fri 11am-9pm, Saturday 10am-5pm