Category: Victoria Hinshaw

The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant

Victoria here, reporting on several favorite topics all at once: the Queen, the Diamond Jubilee, watercraft, and music…based on the latest issue of BBC Music, one of the magazines I try to read each month.  In the March 2012 issue, The Full Score reports on the line-up for the Thames Pageant, the ten official musical barges which will parade downstream from Hammersmith to Greenwich on June 3, 2012.  How I wish I could be there!!  For more on the Pageant, click here.

A long-ago royal barge

In the first of the musical barges, the Royal Jubilee Bells will announce the parade, in the midst of a thousand other vessels authorized to be on the river that day.  It is reported that more than 2,000 applications to join the eclectic fleet — from kayaks to yachts — had to be turned down to preserve some sort of traffic flow on the river.

Barge Two will carry the musicians of the Academy of Ancient Music performing Handel’s Water Music, composed in 1717 for a river procession honoring King George I.  The familiar music is a favorite of concert-goers worldwide.

                                      Handel in 1733, by Balthasar Denneer (1685–1749)

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was born in Germany and trained under continental masters in Germany and Italy.  He came to London in 1712 and composed dozens of pieces for orchestra, many operas and oratorios, most famously The Messiah, first performed in 1742.

Water Music CD from the AAM

Handel’s Suites of Water Music were first performed on a Thames barge for the entertainment of George I and his guests.  The music was so enthusiastically received that the musicians played them over and over until well into the wee hours.  The AAM will also perform selections from the Royal Fireworks Suite by Handel, composed for George II in 1749, performed as fireworks and illuminations lit up the Thames near the Duke of Richmond’s.

Barge #3 will carry the Herald Fanfare Trumpeters and on #4, the Band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines will hold forth, heading a group of small vessels which took part in the Dunkirk Evacuation in 1940. 

Her Majesty’s Royal Marine Band in a dry land performance

The Jubilant Commonwealth Choir will be on Barge #5, followed by the Shree Muktajeevan Pipe Band and Dhoul Ensemble on #6.  This group sounds quite fascinating.  For more information, click here.

Shree Muktajeevan Pipe Band and Dhoul Ensemble

Barge #7 will bring an ensemble playing new music created for the occasion by ten prominent UK composers, each taking as inspiration a movement from Handel’s Water Music.

The Mayor’s Junior Jubilee Brass Band will perform on Barge #8. Still to be determined is Barge #9.

On the final musical barge, #10, the London Philharmonic Orchestra will perform favorites from the Proms.

The new royal barge

Since I will not be in London (boo-hoo) for the great event, I am hoping that arrangements have been made to capture the flotilla on the Thames for the rest of us — on a DVD.  [Or could we suggest to BBC America that they take a day off from that predictable cursing chef and the Top Gear nutcases and Dr. No (how many times???) to bring us something we really want to see on June 3?  I fear it is too much to hope for.  Nevertheless, I will keep my fingers crossed.]

For more pictures and all the details, check out the Daily Mail’s article, here.

Tom Sully, Artist Extraordinaire

On March 11, 2012, Jo Manning wrote here of her experiences associated with the current exhibition The Look of Love at the Birmingham (AL) Museum of Art, for which she wrote selections in the catalogue.  She rhapsodized about the talent and charm of Tom Sully, a contemporary artist who has painted several types of miniatures: portraits, eyes, and pets, as well as accomplishments in many other formats.  We wanted to know more about him; what follows is our interview with artist Tom Sully.

Tom Sully: Self Portrait, 2010, watercolor on ivory, 2 7/8 x 2 3/8 in.

Number One London:  You have a very famous great-great-great-grandfather, renowned portraitist Thomas Alfred Sully (1783-1872), who painted Queen Victoria and Thomas Jefferson, among others. How did it affect you having the same name as your grandfather and being an artist as well?

Thomas A. Sully (1783-1872), Lady with a Harp: Eliza Ridgely, 1818
Tom Sully:  As a young man I found Victorian art cloying.  I decided to go to art school in California where few had ever heard of Thomas Sully.  When I arrived in New York afterwards, theories of deconstruction held sway in the art world.  While all my peers were making conceptual art, I turned to illustration for my living, since you still needed to know how to draw for that.  My first portrait commission was from The New Yorker, who hired me to paint a singer performing at The Rainbow Room.  It was then that I took Sully’s Hints To Young Painters down from the shelf and got to work.

Tom Sully: Garland, 2012, oil on linen, 24 x 20





NOL:  Have there been other people in the arts in your family?

TS: Sully’s parents were actors and all his siblings were actors and musicians.  His children painted – the most promising, another Thomas, unfortunately died young.  I’m descended from Sully’s son Alfred, an army general who painted Native American scenes while serving in the Dakotas.  The most recent artist family member of note is Thomas O. Sully, a celebrated New Orleans architect who bridged the 19th and 20th centuries.  His grandfather, the portraitist’s brother, had moved to Louisiana in the early 1800s.  When he wasn’t designing Queen Anne-style Garden District mansions, the architect loved to hunt and fish in the Louisiana countryside. I feel a connection to him when I go into the bayous and swamps to find subjects for landscapes.

Tom Sully:  After Henry Inman, 2011, oil on linen, 15 x 12 in.
NOL: You have painted portraits, landscapes, and other relatively large-scale oil paintings for years. What inspired you to paint portrait miniatures?

TS: In 2001 I saw an amazing traveling exhibition. Love and Loss, American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures, organized by Robin Jaffee Frank at Yale University Art Gallery.  What intrigued me was that these are intimate portraits, full of heartfelt, personal associations. These charged images sustained a current between people otherwise separated by the vagaries of life and geography, the daily routine, or even death. An image of a family member or loved one, small enough to be held in the hand and carried  on your person, can take on the properties of a talisman. When worn, they become a public emblem of affection. The
y were and can still be used today as a catalyst in courtship.  To me, this is portraiture at its best and about as far away from the institutional boardroom portrait as you can get!  The show included a miniature Sully had painted to mourn the death of his mother. Of course, the technique and sheer artistry of these paintings is incredible.  It took me awhile to track down the materials and get up the nerve to work so small. 

NOL:  Do you paint in the traditional technique with tiny stippled dots of watercolor on ivory?

TS: Yes, I use a combination of stippling and hatching, applying small amounts of paint and waiting for each layer to dry before adding the next, gradually and patiently building up richness and depth while achieving a likeness.  A little like the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, this small space becomes your world.
Tom Sully:  Susan Tying Her Necklace, 2011, watercolor on ivory, 2 7/8 x 2 3/8 in.
NOL:  Do you work from photographs or do your miniature subjects pose while you sketch or paint?

TS:  I like to work from photographs that I take myself.  I find photography a useful conceptual tool – we can try out different angles on the face, different hairstyles, clothing, jewelry and lighting until we are happy with the composition in one or more of them.  The photos do not then become “the be all and end all” but what Degas called an “aide de memoire.” While I paint, I improve on the photos.  Sentiment, emotion and empathy continually inform my hand.  My ancestor said, “from long experience I know that resemblance in a portrait is essential; but no fault shall be found with the artist, at least by the sitter, if he improve the appearance”. 

NOL:  How did you learn about the availability of woolly mammoth ivory? 

TS:  My first efforts were on Ivorine, a 20th century ivory substitute, and then vellum mounted on card.  One supplier led me to another until I found someone in Dorset who could obtain mammoth ivory from Siberia where research crews have been finding whole woolly mammoths preserved in the permafrost.  He has since sold his business but fortunately I have a pretty good stockpile.  

Tom Sully: Eric, His Eye, 2011, watercolor on ivory, 3/4 x 5/8 in.
NOL:  What led you to painting eye portraits?
TS:  My interest was piqued by an article about eye portraits that I found in a 1904 issue of The Connoisseur.  When a portrait commission took me to Philadelphia, I was spellbound by the collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  They are surely the most startling and, as portraits exchanged between lovers, the most romantic form of the art.  There is a mystery to eye portraits that I’m unable to explain.  It may come in part from seeing such an arresting image in so small a format – they are usually no bigger than one-half to three-quarters of an inch.  In the Look of Love show currently at the Birmingham Museum of Art, there are stick pins and rings with images even smaller!  In my experience of painting these, people that know the portrait subject immediately recognize them from this one fragment.  I also find that they resonate well with a contemporary art audience.  As I said to my wife one day,  “eye portraits are so damn strange that they may as well be cutting-edge contemporary art!”

Tom Sully: Lucy, watercolor on ivory, 2/2 x 2 1/8 in.
NOL:  We noticed on your website that you also paint dogs.

TS:  I love painting dog portraits.  One need only look at the work of Sir Edwin Landseer to see that dog painting is serious business. Dogs are great to w
ork with since they are less self-conscious than we are.  A British client hired me to paint miniatures of his two bulldogs.  When one of them died about six months later, we realized we had been unknowingly prescient. I painted a West Highland Terrier in Palm Beach who was so poised that she must have been a fashion model in a previous life.
Tom Sully: Solomon, 2006, watercolor on ivory, 2 1/2 x 2 1/16 in.
NOL: What do you charge for a portrait miniature?

 

TS:  I charge $3,000 for a head and shoulders to half-length portrait miniature and $2,500 for an eye portrait.  These prices include the cost of a locket in rose gold, yellow gold or sterling silver.

NOL:  Tell us about your current work?

TS:  I’m currently painting an eye portrait commission for a client in Birmingham, Alabama.  I’m also working on a body of Louisiana inspired landscapes for a show in New Orleans this fall.  I used to live there and began exploring the countryside for landscape subjects during the evacuation from Hurricane Katrina.  The bayou country and especially the swamps, which seem to exist outside of time and civilization, are a great subject for a painter with a Romantic bent.
Tom Sully: Grand Coteau Oak, 2012, oil on linen 22 x 27 in. 
NOL:  What are your upcoming exhibitions?

TS:  Louisiana Reveries: Landscapes by Thomas Sully, October 6 – 31, 2012;
Jean Bragg Gallery of Southern Art, 600 Julia Street, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Tom Sully:  Nocturne in Blue and Gold, 2011, oil on linen 24 x 18 in.

NOL:  Many thanks to you, Tom Sully. Your life and work are fascinating. 
Visit Tom Sully’s website here to see more of his work.
Tom Sully: Night Flight, 2012, oil on linen, 17 x 24 in.

Captain Gronow on His School Friend Shelley

Rees Howell Gronow (1794-1865) wrote his Reminiscences late in his life.  He knew many leading figures of his era.  Below are his comments on Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), one of the most famous of the Romantic Era English Poets. 

Rees Gronow
SHELLEY

Shelley, the poet, cut off at so early an age; just when his great poetical talents had been matured by study and reflection, and when he probably would have produced some great work, was my friend and associate at Eton. He was a boy of studious and meditative habits, averse to all games and sports, and a great reader of novels and romances.  He was a thin, slight lad, with remarkably lustrous eyes, fine hair, and a very peculiar shrill voice and laugh. His most intimate friend at Eton was a boy named Price, who was considered one of the best classical scholars amongst us.  At his tutor, Bethell’s, where he lodged, he attempted many mechanical and scientific experiments.  By the aid of a common tinker, he contrived to make something like a steam-engine, which, unfortunately, one day suddenly exploded; to the great consternation of the neighbourhood and to the imminent danger of a severe flogging from Dr. Reate.

Percy Byssche Shelley
Soon after leaving school, and about the year 1810, he came, in a state of great distress and difficulty, to Swansea, when we had an opportunity of rendering him a service; but we never could ascertain what had brought him to Wales, though we had reason to suppose it was some mysterious affaire du coeur.

 The last time I saw Shelley was at Genoa, in 1822, sitting on the sea-shore, and, when I came upon him, making a true poet’s meal of bread and fruit; He at once recognized me, jumped up, and appearing greatly delighted, exclaimed, “Here you see me at my old Eton habits; but instead of the green fields for a couch, I have here the shores of the Mediterranean. It is very grand, and very romantic.  I only wish I had some of the excellent brown bread and butter we used to get at Spiers’s: but I was never very fastidious in my diet.”  Then he continued, in a wild and eccentric manner: “Gronow, do you remember the beautiful Martha, the Hebe of Spiers’s?  She was the loveliest girl I

ever saw, and I loved her to distraction.”

 Shelley was looking careworn and ill; and, as usual, was very carelessly dressed.  He had on a large and wide straw hat, his long brown hair, already streaked with grey, flowing in large masses from under it, and presented a wild and strange appearance.

Lord Byron
During the time I sat by his side he asked many questions about myself and many of our schoolfellows; but on my questioning him in turn about himself, his way of life, and his future plans, he avoided entering into any explanation: indeed, he gave such short and evasive answers, that, thinking my inquisitiveness displeased him, I rose to take my leave.  I observed that I had not been lucky enough to see Lord Byron in any of my rambles, to which he replied, “Byron is living at his villa, surrounded by his court of sycophants; but I shall shortly see him at Leghorn.” We then shook hands.  I never saw him again; for he was drowned shortly afterwards, with his friend, Captain Williams, and his body was washed ashore near Via Reggio.  Every one is familiar with the romantic scene which took place on the sea-shore when the remains of my poor friend and Captain Williams were burnt, in the presence of Byron and Trelawney, in the Roman fashion. His ashes were gathered into an urn, and buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome.  He was but twenty-nine years of age at his death.

The Funeral of Shelley

Notes from Victoria: This painting by Louis Edouard Fournier, completed in 1889 obviously long after the event, shows Edward Trelawney and Byron at the cremation of Shelley’s remains on the shore.  Also pictured are Mary Shelley, second wife of Percy, kneeling at the far left, and Leigh Hunt, though neither of them actually attended. One of several blue plaques honoring Shelley, the version below can be found at 15, Poland Street, WI, London, between Oxford Circus and Soho Square; Shelley resided here after he left Oxford.

And Now for Something Completely Different…

Victoria here, with a completely off-topic post. It’s completely shameless self promotion as a matter of fact.

My first novel, originally published in 1983, is now available as an e-book on Kindle, Nook and Smashwords. BirthRights: A Dangerous Brew is a family saga about three generations of  Milwaukee, Wisconsin, brewers – of beer, not baseball players. Starting in 1870, the novel concludes in 1920 as prohibition and the Volstead Act take over the nation, ending the era of the great breweries until 1933.

Pabst Brewing Company
Milwaukee was first settled by New Yorkers and New Englanders, known as Yankees.  They followed the explorers like Father Marquette and the French fur-traders like one of the city’s founders, Solomon Juneau.  By the 1840’s, however, the city attracted thousands of German emigrants and took on a distinctly German flavor for decades.  Many breweries filled the thirst of the new residents, with more coming on every ship that landed at the Lake Michigan waterfront.
The authors in the Pabst Brewhouse, 1983
In the early 1980’s, my co-author, Reva Shovers, and I were inspired to write a book when we when couldn’t find much that interested us on bookstore shelves.  That first attempt will never see the light of day, but we sort of taught ourselves what to do, with the help of our agent and many others. Although he probably despaired of our eventual success, Al Zuckerman suggested we write a story about the great brewing fortunes in Milwaukee. 
Along with dozens of small breweries —  and today many boutique breweries and brew-pubs — four of the largest breweries in the U.S. called Milwaukee home:  Pabst, Miller, Schlitz, and Blatz.  Though all these beers are still on the market, only one of the great old breweries still operates on a large scale in Milwaukee – and it is a very large scale indeed.  The Miller-Coors  brewery annually turns out ten million barrels of beer at its great complex on State Street in the Miller Valley where more than 700 employees work.  Miller is a popular tourism site. Their website is here.
Writing BirthRights: A Dangerous Brew was truly a labor of love. Lots of research and lots of fun.  Eventually, the book was sold to Pocket Books and came out as BirthRights in 1983.  We had a ball promoting it.  And we started working on a sequel. Wouldn’t you know that we got caught in the revolving door of changing editors – and our option book fell through the cracks. We picked up the pieces and went on to other things.  Reva is truly a contemporary art maven, serving the Milwaukee Art Museum  in multiple capacities.  Victoria turned her efforts toward regency romance and published 8 novels and 3 novellas for Kensington Zebra.
1983 Pocket Books Edition
Now we have re-issued BirthRights (with a subtitle attached – A Dangerous Brew) as an e-book.
Back when it was first written, of course, it was pre-computers and done on a typewriter.  We had to have the book scanned and we had to re-edit it to find all the glitches in the type – then we had James Bolen, techno-expert extraordinaire, prepare it and upload it to Smashwords, Kindle and Nook.  Many thanks to Bo and his colleagues at http://ebookeditorpro.com/. Bo also created the wonderful new cover, at the top of this post.  We recommend them enthusiastically.
 
Back in ’83, we did our promotion work by snail-mailed press releases and included a  black and white glossy photo (as above).  We offered ourselves as speakers and went to a number of groups to talk about the book. And we cooked a dinner with every course made with beer. It was featured on the front page of the Home section of the Milwaukee Journal with color pictures and our recipes.  Sometime I will put those recipes on the Summit Wahl blog. We did many signings in  bookstores.
How times have changed!!!  Now we are tweeting and doing Facebook and blogging — amazing!!  Here is the blog: http://summitwahl.blogspot.com where there  is an excerpt of the novel.
And you can look for us on Facebook as Summit Wahl and twitter @summitwahl 
And now we return you to our regularly scheduled program of British-oriented material!! As we say in Milwaukee, Prosit!

Naturalist's Diary for March

From the Times Telescope, an annual almanac, here is the entry for March, 1826, with a few quite optimistic pictures:

March, though the hours of promise with bright ray

May gild thy noons, yet, on wild pinion borne,
Loud winds more often rudely wake thy morn,
And harshly hymn they early-closing day.

            The cutting blasts of March, so trying to the invalid, are equally injurious to the progress of vegetation; and the ‘sweet flowers’ are compelled to await the smiles and tears of gentle April to encourage their growth, and to bring them to perfection. Some more bold than the rest, who dare to brave the warrior front of Boreas, often perish in his chilly embrace. The winds of March, however, are highly beneficial to drying up the superabundant moisture of the earth; and although they may retard the delights and beauties of Spring, these are rendered more valuable to us, because they are less fugacious.

            The russet-brown dress of the hedges is now spotted with green, preparatory to their assuming the complete vesture of Spring.—The leaves of the lilac begin to peep from beneath their winter clothing, and gooseberry and currant trees display their verdant foliage and pretty green blossoms. The yew-tree, ‘faithful in death,’ as it protects our tombs from the gaze of every passing stranger, when our more gaudy floral acquaintances have deserted us, opens its blossoms about the beginning of this month.

            The melody of birds now gradually swells upon the ear. The throstle, second only to the nightingale in song, charms us with the sweetness, and variety of its lays. The linnet and goldfinch join the general concert in this month, and the golden-crowned wren begins its song. The lark also, must not be forgotten.—While the birds delight us with their song, the bees read us a lesson of industry, for they are to be seen collecting materials for their elegant condiment of honey on every fine day throughout the year.
Goldfinch

            Each succeeding week pours forth fresh beauties from the lap of Flora, and furnishes the botanist with new sources of delight. Golden tufts of crocuses, expending their corollas to receive the genial warmth of the sun, interspersed with pink and blue hepaticas, and the garden daisy, with its little tufts of crimson velvet, united with the blossoms of last month, greatly ornament our flower borders. The alpine wall-cress is still in bloom; the mezereon puts forth its leaves; and the primrose peeps from the retreating snows of winter: it forms a happy shade of distinction between the delicate snowdrop and the flaming crocus.

            Daffodils, yellow auriculas, coltsfoot, with its brilliant golden and sometimes pink or silvery stars, and hounds-tongue, are in blossom about the middle of the month. The American cowslip, with its beautiful rose-coloured blossoms, growing in thick branches in the form of a cone, flowers in March. The charming violet, whose attractions have been the theme of many a poetic effusion, makes her appearance this month, but not in full perfection, for the chill winds of March are not very congenial to the expansion of so delicate a blossom.

            If the weather be mild, the rich hyacinth, the noble descendant of the modest harebell—the sweet narcissus, delicately pale, and some of the early tulips, are now in bloom. The peach and the nectarine begin to show their elegant blossoms.

            Protected from inclemency of the weather by our green-houses, roses, hyacinths, heliotropes, and geraniums, are now in full blossom, regaling the senses with their varied hues and rich perfumes.

            In this month, black ants are observed; the black-bird and the turkey law; the house pigeons sit. The greenfinch sings; the bat is seen flitting about; and the viper uncoils itself from its winter sleep. The wheatear, or English ortolan (Sylvia oenanthe) again pays its annual visit, leaving England in September. Those birds which have passed the winter in England now take their departure for more northerly regions; as the fieldfare, the red-wing, and the wood-cock.

            On the 20th, the vernal equinox takes place, and all nature feels her renovating sway, and seems to rejoice at the retreat of winter.

            The general or great flow of sap in most trees takes place in this month; this is preparatory to the expanding of the leaves and ceases when they are out. The ash now puts forth its grey buds; and the hazel and willow exhibit some signs of returning life in their silky, enfolding catkins. The leaves of the thornless rose and of the hawthorn are gradually becoming determinate. The field daisy is now seen scattered over dry pastures. This pretty flower, the poet’s darling, from Chaucer to Wordsworth and Montgomery, has claimed for itself many an elegant tribute.

            The planting and sowing of Forest Trees is generally concluded in this month. The mixing of fir-trees with oaks (except in very sheltered situations) is now frequently adopted by the planter.

            In March, trouts begin to rise, and blood worms appear in the water. The clay hair worms is found at the bottom of the drains and ditches, and the water-flea may be seen gliding about upon the surface of sheltered pools. Bats now issue from their places of concealment. Peas appear above ground; the sea-kale (Crambe maritima) begins to sprout. The male blossoms of the yew-tree expand and discharge their farina. Sparrows are busily employed in forming their nests. Young otters are produced, and young lambs are yeaned this month.

            The equinoctial gales are usually most felt, both by sea and land, about this time.

            The brimstone-coloured butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni) which lives throughout the winter, is usually seen in March. It is found in the neighbourhood woods, on fine and warm days, enjoying the beams of the noonday sun. Some of our most beautiful butterflies, belonging to the genus Vanessa, as V. atalanta, Io, Polylcholoros, and Urticae, are seen in this month; and the Antiopa, or Camberwell beauty, has once been captured at this season.