![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.polymathperspective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/ColinSelfGuardDogOnAMissile.jpg\")
Guard Dog On A Missile Base by Colin Self 1965<\/p><\/div>\n
Living as an Artist<\/strong><\/p>\n I am patently aware that if I can\u2019t be creative there\u2019s not a lot else I want to do. I think in the \u201970s I would have like to have known manipulative therapy. I thought that might be a good one, but you don\u2019t know who your clients would be, so it was just a dream.<\/p>\n The other thing I did, slightly, was rummage and find bits of scrap metal and stuff. I am like a ferret down a hole in life and love rummaging, I love objects and things and seeing things in things \u2013 it\u2019s almost the way I see. I used to find myself taking bits of scrap metal in, but I\u2019d be hopeless at making a living out of it, I patently know that. I\u2019m talking about an extension of art.<\/p>\n My other half, Jess, sometimes does car-boot sales and I go to some of them, which has changed me a lot. I used to be tunnel-visioned and into my art and not make eye contact with people. I\u2019m quite an inward, shy person, I really am, and I think I need to be an artist to say what I feel. Having said that I will look at you! But I know how to fail the interview \u2013 I would do it every time. I think they must lose a lot of good people in interviews.<\/p>\n When I started going out with Jess I\u2019d sit in the van and draw people. I must have done that for two years or more and if Jess wanted a wee or anything she\u2019d say \u2018Just look after the stall,\u2019 and I\u2019d be terrified. I\u2019d be standing on the bumper thinking \u2018Where the hell is she? Someone is going to ask me about something soon.\u2019<\/p>\n It must have been about two years before a lady did come up and ask me how much something was. I think I said \u201830 pence,\u2019 and she said \u2018I\u2019ll give you 25,\u2019 and I said, \u2018yeah!\u2019 I\u2019d actually made a sale! I thought, \u2018Bloody hell, how did that happen,\u2019 then within three minutes I made another one. It had been two years and suddenly I\u2019d done two. I learnt a lot because Jess is much more open and gregarious.<\/p>\n On the other hand, I find no anguish doing a spontaneous talk for an hour and a half to a gallery for 300 people. I can do that. But I\u2019m like a jazz saxophonist, I\u2019ll just blow freeform. Jazz players wear shades so they\u2019ve got this blockage between them and who it is for, but if I looked up and I saw somebody like Jess in the audience then the rest of it would be for Jess because I would have locked onto her and it would weave that way, so I look at the floor much like I\u2019ve been doing in this interview.<\/p>\n I never know what comes next. You might get my inner theories and my hopes and dreams and aspirations, maybe jokes, funny things or wacky stories about well-know artist that I\u2019ve know. They just come out. I get nerves. I\u2019d get three weeks where secretly, if I was picking flowers or digging the garden or mowing the lawn it\u2019s just going over and over in my head. Then, suddenly, I\u2019d get a good idea and think, \u2018I\u2019ll lock that away. If the fee is a hundred quid then it\u2019s patently not worth it but you are doing it for another reason. I suppose racing drivers and athletes do it \u2013 they run the race for weeks; they know the course, and what could happen and who could make a break and when. It\u2019s like the creative equivalent of that. So when you actually do it for real, it is a relief.<\/p>\n Show and Exhibitions<\/strong><\/p>\n On average I\u2019ve been in a group show every ten weeks for 33 years now and it\u2019s unpaid. It\u2019s like this unwritten thing. It is something like 150 shows and its all stress. First you are waiting for the frames, and then you are driving there and it is petrol and you don\u2019t want to do it.<\/p>\n I wonder how many artists there are in Europe or Britain. There are all those art schools with students coming out and every one could potentially become an artist. If you think of how many people who are still living and have been to art school in Britain, it\u2019s got to be millions. That\u2019s a lot of energy and it\u2019s all just happening for free.<\/p>\n So there has to be something wrong somewhere if after ten years there is maybe only one percent of the college intake actually still hard at it. It\u2019s quite unbelievable. How come it\u2019s expected to just be done for free? And MPs on their summer breaks, I bet there aren\u2019t many of them who went to Bosnia or Kurdistan. You know they\u2019ve all gone somewhere tropical, sunny and posh-deluxe. What hypocrisy.<\/p>\n And there is so much corruption in art as well. The freebie trip for the bureaucrats: \u2018Darling, I simply had to see the Henri Matisse in New York.\u2019 I\u2019ve been trying to get on with a leading gallery director who has ignored me in the street over the last ten years. Now I\u2019ve had a show at the Tate she\u2019s started ringing me up. But I\u2019ve had my mouth open ready to say hello to her many times.<\/p>\n Recently I was in London negotiating for my Tate show. It was the first autumn after my son had died and I was feeling grim. My son had been to London for two periods of two months, just walking the streets and living rough and he didn\u2019t tell me. It was my first solo trip since then, I was walking the pavement in his shoes and I couldn\u2019t handle it at all. And the gallery director still had her nose in the air. And I just thought \u2018Fuck you! You could say hello.\u2019 I was negotiating a major Tate show and she chose to totally ignore me. But now the Tate show has happened and had major reviews in the Times and the Observer it has reached the point where the Norwich art set can\u2019t ignore me. That\u2019s gone on for 16 years but it\u2019s like water off a ducks back because I am quite tough. But my punishment hasn\u2019t been as bad as Warhol had, for example. He was certainly victimised but in a big city way. Then everyone felt sorry after he died.<\/p>\n I had a big show of 250 drawings, collages, paintings and sculptures at the ICA in 1986, and then I\u2019ve had the more prestigious one at the Tate in two rooms, which was multimedia and had 59 works in it. I\u2019ve spent the last five years negotiating a major purchase with them.<\/p>\n There\u2019s one on now at the Imperial War Museum, Angela Wake, contemporary work from the museum\u2019s collection. There\u2019s one at the Santa Barbara Museum of art California, 20th Century Figurative Art. London, the independent Gallery who\u2019s a guy called Robin Hardy and he has got the back room of a very trendy, lovely shop on Clifford Street called Squire. The guy designs shirts for rock groups like Blur.<\/p>\n He loves his \u201960s stuff. He\u2019s actually got one of the crazy, futuristic sofas that were in Barbarella. That show is called \u2018In Glorious Black and White\u2019 and I\u2019ve got two prints in there. Then there was one in June on Cork Street called England\u2019s Glory, which was on for a week when the Euro 96 competition was on.<\/p>\n The old Self household on Greenborough Road<\/p><\/div>\n Primal Vision<\/strong><\/p>\n In the war my dad rag-rolled the bedroom walls with two different colours of paint and when I was a kid and it was getting dark, I\u2019d look at the patterns and see this leaping horse on the wall and there would be another little horse inside its tummy. I\u2019d think \u2018Why is there a little horse inside a mother horse?\u2019 The next day it just wouldn\u2019t be there, but I\u2019ve named this kind of thing Primal Vision. It\u2019s a bit like the primal scream and all that Californian \u201960s psychology.<\/p>\n I am trying to build pictures up around that initial flash of whatever it was I saw in something. So, for example, behind the hospital years ago I found some hardboard that had obviously been ripped off of a wall somewhere and dumped ready to burn. It was painted black at the top with a sandy kind of cream colour on the bottom, and obviously came from a two tone wall. When I saw it I instantly thought that it could be a desert and the night. I\u2019d built that picture up with pyramids and camels, working around the original Primal Vision. I\u2019m working on a lot of ideas like that.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve also been weaving in what I call people\u2019s art. I\u2019m not saying people\u2019s art is necessarily great \u2013 there are more boring folk songs written by the people, than there are good ones, and likewise with trademarks and matchbox labels and images that become folk artistic icons.<\/p>\n I\u2019m also building up some sculptures and trying to work in bronze as well, but making smallish things. And it\u2019s almost like I don\u2019t care how long they take. I suppose if somebody was composing a novel, they\u2019d be writing, maybe not freeform, but not in a way which would look like it had developed or had a thread. But maybe months or years later, you would actually find that, like doing a jigsaw, they\u2019d slide that whole bit across the table because they\u2019d realize that it actually did fit into the other bit. So I\u2019m kind of working in that way! Not myopically finishing a piece and then hurting myself to finish the next. And there is a lot of work which is actually bearing fruit.<\/p>\n Ambitions and Dreams of Life<\/strong><\/p>\n I have always wanted to be a great artist or a footballer and I never made it in football. But there was a boy, a bit younger than me, called Tony Woolmer, who actually was an art student at Norwich Art School and played football for Norwich City! I saw his first game and he scored and I thought \u2018Bloody Tony\u2019s scored!\u2019 He was a second-division footballer, as it was then, and an art student, but never knew what to do.<\/p>\n I once caught the train back from London with Hugh Curran, the Scottish footballer who played for Norwich before he was transferred to Wolves. He played for Scotland too. We were waiting for a train and it was late because there was snow. He didn\u2019t know me from Adam, but I knew him. He said \u2018Do you wanna a cup-a\u2019 tea?\u2019 and bought me a cup. And when he drank his tea he threw the little plastic carton up in the air, went to kick it on the line and missed! I thought, \u2018Well, I can do that!\u2019 We shared a carriage all the way back to Norwich and it was freezing. And his one joke all the way back was if it get\u2019s any bloody colder we\u2019ll wake up dead. I didn\u2019t get the joke for about a year.<\/p>\n But Hugh thought Tony Woolmer was weird because he was an art student. Can you imagine a footballer thinking another footballer was weird because he was an artist? But if I speak to Tony Woolmer now he says he actually wanted to be a footballer, a great artist and a great rock and roll guitarist \u2013 he wanted the whole thing! But I am talking beyond academics; I\u2019m talking ambitions and dreams of life.<\/p>\n Michael Cooper: Blinds & Shutters, Edited by Brian Roylance<\/strong><\/p>\n During our interview, Colin produced his copy of Blinds & Shutters, a limited edition book of photographs taken by the late Michael Cooper. Colin talks through some of the images and his memories of the time. TF<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Blinds & Shutters book cover<\/p><\/div>\n Michael Cooper was a great photographer and a lovely guy. I suppose you could say he was an East End Jewish boy, as Keith Richard writes in the front. Michael literally walked around with a camera around his neck and took all the photographs of the Beatles and the Stones. This guy used to hang out with all of them. He must have shot over 40,000 photographs and finally somebody got his pictures together. I\u2019ve got four pages in the book. I couldn\u2019t believe it when it came out.<\/p>\n I signed over a 1000 and got two of these books, one that Francis Bacon signed and one that Andy Warhol signed. Andy Warhol signed 90 copies. Brian Roylance who put this book together, came here with a tape recorder, we spent a day jawing and it all came out in this book. He told me he took a tape recorder to interview Francis Bacon but Bacon said \u2018I\u2019m not talking into that thing, but give me a week and I\u2019ll write you something.\u2019 Brian went away and thought, \u2018Will he?\u2019 Sure enough the letter came and it just said this:<\/p>\n \u2018When Michael Cooper was working in the \u201960s, it was a much more exhilarating and productive period than now. More like the \u201920s. There was exploration and excitement in all the arts and a feeling that something could happen. This feeling had nothing to do with value for money, as now. Francis Bacon.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Isn\u2019t that great? And he\u2019s right, value for money was all you got in the \u201980s. What\u2019s it worth?<\/p>\n Bacon was nice and rated me as an artist. He came across the room with a bottle of champagne and said \u2018Someone told me you\u2019re Colin Self, how do you do?\u2019 and we drank the bottle. He was unbelievable \u2013 crazy.<\/p>\n Bacon\u2019s hands were beautiful for a big bloke. I mean, my hands aren\u2019t totally butch male; but I once met a Scottish girl who said \u2018Och, you\u2019ve got nice hands, normally guys have got grotty hands.\u2019 But Bacon\u2019s hands! And if you put your arm around him he was big \u2013 like a fucking barrel, and totally pissed. He was so pissed it was like everyone else had their feet on the floor and he was on a boat all evening.<\/p>\n The stories! He started getting into a conversation with the bloke who ran the Colony Room who I think had originally moved to London in the notorious \u201940s or \u201950s. \u201cI\u2019ve never heard any other guys get into that sort of rap. But, my God, what an education he was. He was just outrageous and he swore all the time, more than your average sailor. I was miserable when Michael Cooper took this picture because the Rolling Stones were in his office smoking joints and were coming out of the door every now and then and sniggering, doing all this putting on stuff as if to say \u2018Who the hell is he?\u2019 I just folded my arms and hated it because they were taking the piss. But they were nice afterwards.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a picture of Robert Fraser who was my dealer. He was one of the first people to die of AIDS in Britain. The poor bloke had just started to make a comeback.<\/p>\n That\u2019s one of them building the set for the cover of the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s photo session. Michael has his boy, Adam, in the shot. Doesn\u2019t Paul McCartney look like he wants to ding Adam over the head? That\u2019s Peter Blake with his picture. He left spaces blank for the Beatles to sign it but they wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n There are pictures of Peter Blake, John Dunbar, Keith Richard \u2013 he had one of my Guard Dog drawings. There\u2019s Bill Wyman. Remember how he played his bass guitar straight up, while chewing gum? That\u2019s Anita Pallenberg, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithful and Mick Jagger and his boy.<\/p>\n There\u2019s one of John Lennon and Yoko. I never met John Lennon or Andy Warhol either because I was always macho, like a boxer, and it was like a part of me thought I\u2019d better not meet them and make a fool of myself. But we probably would have got on.<\/p>\n But I used to feel like a really country cousin. I thought \u2018I\u2019m just not sophisticated enough for these people; I\u2019m not hip to it.\u2019 But I can see from this book that Michael had his problems too. But when I was with him I\u2019d always get lost for words and think, \u2018Oh dear, I\u2019m just not up to these people\u2019s mark.\u2019<\/p>\n I knew Jim Dine a bit then. He wasn\u2019t quite in your face but he wouldn\u2019t be backwards about coming forwards. He was sociable. He was great then, but he\u2019s very deeply into his own thing now.<\/p>\n The only time I saw Michael happy was when he said \u2018I\u2019m just back from Belgium, I\u2019ve been photographing Rene Magritte!\u2019 I know this is clich\u00e9d, but I could have gone across and met Magritte. And I bet you could have rung his bell and he\u2019d have been there. He was lovely. I once saw two highland chairs made out of deer in Portobello Road. The antlers were the back of the chair, the chair legs were the legs of the deer and the seat was the hide. And I remember saying to Christopher Lurgen, \u2018I think I should buy them and take them to Rene Magritte.\u2019 TF<\/em><\/p>\n Part 1 of the Colin Self interview can be found here: Part 1<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nMaybe the stories come out and maybe they don\u2019t but it\u2019s like you are creating and revising, constantly. In the middle of the night you wake up and it\u2019s just happening.<\/p>\n
\nI was at the Tate waiting for the assistant keeper of the modern collection to come out and see me at the whirly door, but by some coincidence, the Norwich gallery director had caught the same train down and was also waiting for someone in the Tate, but near the desk the other side of the foyer.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.polymathperspective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/GreenboroughRoadHouse1-1024x656.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.polymathperspective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BlindsShutters11.jpg\")
\nThere\u2019s a picture of one of my \u2018nuclear\u2019 sculptures, and Terry Southern, who wrote Dr Strangelove and apparently did the original script for Easy Rider. Terry bought that sculpture after he saw it in Robert Fraser\u2019s gallery, so that\u2019s him with his new acquisition.<\/p>\n