RA Summer Exhibition 2024

August 10, 2024

What to do about the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition? Every year members may exhibit up to three works, but there is also an open competition to which anyone can submit a work, and this is the part that captures the public imagination (my late father submitted a couple of his surreal paintings, without success). Most of the pieces are for sale, at prices ranging from less than £250 up to tens of thousands or more. The result is a wildly varied ragbag of every kind of art from the cornily lowbrow to the most opaquely avant garde, and from works of peerless skill to casual daubs. Quite a few of the works on display are jokey or entertaining novelties. The Academy likes to show as many as it can, so some small pictures are left way up the gallery wall where they cannot be seen properly. It’s all sort of fun, but it isn’t coherent or representative and not much is memorable.

No information about the artists is given beyond their name, and if I were in charge, this is what I would change. I would give a picture and short bio of each artist beside their work. This year’s pieces would be low on the wall, with the opportunity to show others by the same artist directly above, with each vertical space reserved for one artist. I think a little context like this would make the whole thing more interesting.

That would mean fewer artists on the walls, but I would compensate with a big online show, which would also be displayed on screens in one gallery.

That’s that sorted out.

There is Light Somewhere

July 24, 2024

Tavares Strachan: There is Light Somewhere, at the Hayward, is striking and provokes both thought and quibbles. It features many striking pieces. Heads of black heroes, either huge and crisscrossed with cracks full of writing (which I couldn’t read), or open to reveal another head within, or fronted by an African tribal mask. Celebrations of the invisible (Strachan’s own encyclopaedia, glass statues suspended in clear oil). And pieces that relate to aspirational journeys, whether a Black Star ship amazingly on the gallery roof, black astronauts, or Strachan’s own journey to the North Pole, where he planted the flag of his native Bahamas, and shipped back a block of ice.

It seems clear that this show is about black aspiration, a search for light in the darkness and within the self. The message is encouraging, inspiriting, not downbeat, but even without that positive context most of the works are well worth seeing.

The quibbles? Some of the people in the encyclopaedia don’t seem all that invisible (Mary Woolstonecraft? Xenocrates?) while others perhaps deserve to be (minor characters from cartoons?). It’s not clear that the African people who made the masks would have liked their being used here, nor whether all the heroes would welcome wearing them. Is Septimius Severus the Roman Emperor here because he was born in Africa? But he is surely a leader of European imperialism (clue’s in his title).

But those are indeed quibbles. A memorable exhibition.

August 2024 Competitions

July 22, 2024

A selection of writing competitions with deadlines in August that I might enter.

  • Black Warrior (from the University of Alabama) wants stories up to 6,000 words, by 2 August. Entry is $20 and they say there is a cash prize, but not how much. Let’s hope it’s more than $20.
  • Aurora (from the East Midlands) is back, looking for stories up to 2,000 words: entry is £9 and you can win £500 plus membership of the Society of Authors. Deadline 7 August.
  • Gival wants between 5,000 and 15,000 words: $25 to enter and top prize $1,000. Deadline 9 August.
  • Juxtaprose will take as few as 500 words or as many as 7,000: it’s $15 to enter, you could win $1,000 and the deadline is 11 August.
  • Book Pipeline’s standard deadline is 20 August (pay more for a later entry). They have ten different categories: for literary pieces the word count can be between 40,000 and 120,000. It’s $45 to enter and there’s a prize of $2,500 for each category.
  • The Westerwood competition from the Scottish Association of Writers looks for 2,000 to 3,000 words: £7 entry and a (rather modest?) £100 prize. Enter by 24 August.
  • The Masters Review summer competition is for stories up to 6,000 words long: $20 entry and $3,000 prize. Deadline 25 August.
  • OTP look for 1,000 to 5,000 words: entry is free and if successful you’ll be paid their standard fee. Stories must be on the theme ‘Expertise’ and be submitted by 30 August.

All the rest have that psychologically compelling end-of-the-month deadline (31 August)

  • Publishing Lab want full-length works, either novels or collections. $28 entry and they will give the winner a contract and $10,000 advance.
  • Aesthetica look for up to 2,000 words: £18 to enter and you could win £2,500, an Arvon course and other goodies.
  • NAWG want stories between 500 and 2,000 words: a £5 entry fee gets you the chance of a £200 prize.

If you get anywhere with any of these, do let me know!

Tiles and Flowers

June 29, 2024

We had some roof tiles (Acme brand, of course, suitable for dropping on the head of Wile E Coyote) left over from our recent building project. I thought I might try painting some with the kind of flower design that is the traditional decoration for narrow boats.
I drew out the design, traced it onto the tile, and filled in with gesso to provide a decent surface to paint on. Once painted I used a stencil to spray varnish on the painted area. It all worked OK, but I think the fact that I was copying meant I didn’t quite get the free, stylised look, and the colours are a bit light. Still, I quite like them!

Down Street

June 27, 2024

We did the tour of Down Street, ably directed by a team from Hidden London under the aegis of the London Transport Museum. This is one of a number of abandoned tube stations, in this case on the Piccadilly line. Since opening in 1906, Down Street was never a great success. Down a side street and with better sited stations nearby it attracted few passengers and closed in 1932. In wartime, however, it got a new lease of life as a secret safe headquarters for the committee that ran the railways, and was used a few times by Churchill.

Conditions were not great, with corridors limited to the width of a standard tea trolley (obviously an essential). Yet people worked shifts, living in the station for weeks at a time without seeing daylight, putting up with limited bath and toilet facilities and rotating use of beds. The executive class were better looked after, with a kitchen that apparently served caviar and fine wines even at the height of the war. When peace came, it was pretty well abandoned, though it is still an official escape route from the Piccadilly line and the tube engineers make some use of it. There are plans to use its shafts to improve ventilation on the Piccadilly line, apparently.

These days it is a bit of a wreck. The platforms were walled off in 1939, but the trains can still be heard, and seen flashing by in a few places. Odd bits of signage from different eras are still in place, and some of the fine old tiling. It seems odd to me that a space like this in the most expensive part of London is not more imaginatively used.

FreeFall

June 27, 2024

One of my stories has been shortlisted in FreeFall magazine’s annual contest! I’m not allowed to say which one until the judging is complete.

July 2024 Competitions

June 23, 2024

Here again is a look at writing competitions I might enter during the coming month (so no poetry or competitions not open to UK writers, for example).

  • With a deadline of 1 July, New American Fiction looks for a full work of various kinds (novel, novella, collection) likely to be at least 100 pages.  Entry $25, top prize $1,500
  • It’s still not quite too late to enter the London Independent (LISP) contest if you are willing to pay the late fee of  £16.50 and get your entry in by 1 July. They want up to 3,000 words and the prize is a mere £100, so honestly not great value for money at this stage.
  • The Goldenberg Prize is offered by the Bellevue Literary Review – entries must be on the themes of health, healing, illness, mind and body, and run to no more than 5,000 words. Entry is $20, top prize $1000, and again you need to be quick because the deadline is 1 July.
  • The Hastings Book Festival wants up to 2,500 words: the entry fee is a weirdly precise £8.25 and top prize just £250. Deadline 7 July.
  • The HG Wells prize this year is for stories on the theme ‘The Fool’, of up to 2,500 words. Entry is £10 and the prize is £500. Deadline 8 July.
  • The Doris Gooderson Prize comes from Wrekin Writers, who say that at least half the profits from their comp will go to the Severn Hospice. They want stories up to 1,200 words, entry is £5 and the top prize is £200, with a deadline of 12 July.
  • Leicester Writes will accept stories up to 3,500 words: entry is £7 and the prize is £200. Enter by 15 July.
  • With the same deadline, the Adrift comp has a word limit of 6,000: entry is $30 and the top prize is $500.
  • Petrichor looks for 100 to 350 pages of finely crafted prose. Entry is $25 and the prize is $1,000.
  • Witcraft looks for short humour of 200-1000 words: $5 to enter with a prize of $250, and like all the rest the deadline is 31 July.
  • My good friends in Norwich are again running the Olga Sinclair Prize: up to 2,000 words on the theme ‘Nature’, £9 entry and £500 prize.
  • And in Munster the prestigious Séan Ó Faoláin prize is for stories up to 3,000 words. Entry is €19 and the first prize is €2,000 plus an invitation to read your piece in Cork, accommodation paid for.
  • Hawk Mountain wants a collection of stories: $20 entry and you could win $1,000 plus publication.
  • The Plaza Literary: First Chapters comp wants the first 5,000 words of your work: entry £20 and a prize of £1,500.

Not Ian McKellen

June 21, 2024

We had booked to see Ian McKellen as Falstaff in Player Kings, an abbreviated merging of Shakespeare’s Henry IV parts one and two. Then he fell off the stage and was hurt. At first he hoped to be back on Wednesday, then they said one more day cancelled and he’ll be back on Thursday (our day). On Thursday, they said the performance was going ahead – but with the understudy. Nobody would want Sir Ian to take any chances, but of course it was disappointing.

The understudy was David Semark, and he did a very good job (perhaps being physically a better match for Falstaff). The production was very good. Modernish dress, and for some reason the characters smoked cigarettes. The sword fights, here performed with knives, sat oddly in a battle where guns and high explosive were being used.

The cuts needed to bring two plays down to a manageable single evening had some impact – Hotspur here, deprived of scenes with his wife, lacked charm and seemed merely belligerent: on the other hand for some reason he was depicted as easily defeating Hal, who had to resort to abusing the sporting chances he was given and stabbing his opponent in the back.

Toheeb Jimoh’s reading of Hal gave us an uncertain Prince rather than the steely, cold manipulator which is another reading. This perhaps sat well with the merging of the plays. Shakespeare had to depict Hal’s transformation twice for two audiences, and when you put both together he seems less decisive than he does in either play alone. I thought (and I know you can’t criticise Shakespeare) that the merger also highlighted the redundancy of some minor characters

Some wonderful passages, of course, and an enjoyable evening still.

Creation

June 20, 2024

We went to a performance of Haydn’s Creation in Westminster Abbey – a great experience.

Haydn was apparently inspired by hearing oratorios in England – he must have listened to the Messiah and thought ‘I could do that’. And he did, producing one of his best-known works, popular ever since its first performances. The libretto, a bit more intelligible than the rather obscure one for the Messiah apparently comes from an English text, but has existed in parallel English and German versions since the beginning. Some of the words sung here differed very slightly from those in the programme and, I think, from those I sung at school fifty years ago.

But it’s the music that matters, and Creation, just as a good oratorio should do, delivers all the entertainment, emotion and uplift of a fine opera while remaining upright and morally unimpeachable, without any of the lush presentation and morally questionable themes you’d get in one of those Italian things…