Hester
Framed double portrait made by Hester Schofield and her mother. Charcoal on paper, dating from early 1980's. Text, photography and printed matter dating from 2005. See images below.
I got to know Hester when she volunteered to be both model and subject matter for Re-Magazine. During one of our meetings she showed me her childhood drawings and this particular drawing initiated the following story:
Framed double portrait made by Hester Schofield and her mother. Charcoal on paper, dating from early 1980's. Text, photography and printed matter dating from 2005. See images below.
I got to know Hester when she volunteered to be both model and subject matter for Re-Magazine. During one of our meetings she showed me her childhood drawings and this particular drawing initiated the following story:
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I found a drawing I did of my mother. It was in an old sketchbook and it’s not signed or dated. I know it was the summer before going to art college, but I don’t remember exactly why I drew her. I was quite happy drawing rocks, plants, and trees that’s what I was preoccupied with. I was drawing outside and when it got too dark to see anything I went inside. Then I must have decided to draw her because she was sitting there. We lived in a very old house in the middle of the countryside, with low ceilings and beams. It was dark when I came in and my mum was sitting in a chair next to a lamp, reading a book. She’s an incredible reader and I know that when she reads she’s totally absorbed, so I didn’t feel the need to ask her to pose. I just drew her very quickly. It’s more of a sketch, really. Not more than five minutes.
In the drawing, she has her head down because she was reading. She’s spent most of her life reading, its her way out of her depression. I remember being quite conscious of drawing her double chin, since she hates it. My mother hates the fact that she’s losing her jawbone. I thought, ‘No, I’ve got to scrub it out.’ So I drew a shadow there. But these dark areas, the chin and the bags, emphasize her depression more than they show her reading a book. I felt uncertain about my skills. I had a fear of doing portraits, because that’s what my mother loved to do. She was very into figure and life drawing. And she has never been very complimentary about my drawings. She used to go on about them with her very clean aesthetic eye. I remember going to my first life-drawing class and bringing home the drawings and being really proud of them. My mum flipped through them and said, “Well, you need to improve.” That really cut. She looked at them like an art critic would look at a famous painting.
There’s a love for art in both of us. But we were in a double bind about me going to art college. She went to art college herself, but dropped out. On the one hand, she was always encouraging me to develop my talents and, on the other, she was afraid I would become better than she was, or would fail like she had failed. So, when I showed her the result that evening, she didn’t approve and even seemed offended. What happened next was that she took the sketchbook and drew a picture of me, on the same page. She could have drawn me on the other page, but she didn’t. She just turned the board around and drew me there. She didn’t say much, she started drawing right away. When she had finished, she presented it to me and I liked it as little as she liked mine. At that age the barriers were up. It was so depressing at home, I couldn’t wait to leave and I think she was quite happy to see me go. We were both worn out and, being a teenager, my reaction must have been something like ‘Oh, whatever!’ I was disappointed. Even now I find it remarkable how I do not resemble the drawing my mum did of me. Where I was playing around with gestures and sensitive strokes, she drew me very graphically. Plus her technique of shading is very academic of her time. It’s mechanical the way she reduces the person’s head to the shape of a potato and ignores the expression. I think the only personal bit she drew was my upper lip, but I think it looks more like there’s a stain on the lip.
If I let the two drawings speak, my mother is wrapped up in her interior world. Although my touch of the pencil is rather light, it still gives a heavy and moody impression. If you don’t know that she’s reading, it’s a perfect image of her being depressed. Her eyes are looking down. She’s not engaging, while I’m asking her to engage with me by staring at her. When I look at the drawings now I see the impossibility of one reaching the other, or dealing with the other. I was asking her for approval, and she gave back to me what she thought was appropriate. She was totally absorbed in her book, so she may have been gracious enough to come back from that world and look at my drawing and do one herself, but she wasn’t going to put much effort in it, because she wanted to go back to her book.
Years later, when I had my degree show, I remember being cruel to my mother. It was quite horrible really and mean. I really wanted her to come up and see my work, and knowing that it was very difficult for her to travel, I still made a big fuss about her coming up to Newcastle. I wanted to show her what I had done, and to show off as well. She drove to Newcastle, which took her almost twelve hours, because she got lost a lot and she can’t read maps. When she arrived she was exhausted, she went straight to bed and stayed there for three days. When she finally appeared at the show, on the very last day, I didn’t have much time to engage with her. She walked around my work, mostly sculpture, and said, ‘I don’t understand it.’ She said my work disturbed her. And I told her, ‘Well, they’re all about you.’ The sculptures seemed very resonant of her they had this weak vulnerability on the surface but underneath were sharp and full of daggers. At that moment I felt I had overtaken her. Before I went to college, I had all these preconceived ideas about art based on what she taught me and on the books in her house, which were all very traditional. The work I presented at my degree show was conceptual work that she didn’t have a language to describe or analyse, so she was lost. That was my moment of triumph.
Art has been a language for the two of us to communicate, or discommunicate, depending on how you look at it. But at least it is a shared language. Obviously I know who’s who in the portraits we drew of one another that night, but my drawing of her turned out to be a self-portrait foreshadowing my own depression. I do look like my mother. She’s taller than I am, but we have the same physical type. Our faces are very similar, same colouring, same colour eyes, same colour hair. Our laughter is almost identical. We even share gestures and body language. And we both lack self-confidence. We both shut ourselves out from the world.
I remember being very young, four or five, and being frustrated not being able to draw a rabbit. I remember going to my mum in tears, saying, ‘I can’t draw, I can’t draw.’ She said, ‘You have to do it every day. You have to practice.’ Which I did from then on, every day. It was part of growing up. It was something I did with an almost Victorian mentality. And my mum did so too. And her grandmother drew and her mother drew as well. In my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s homes there were these beautifully crafted sketches of plants, still lifes, and watercolors. In our family, drawing is sort of like that’s what girls do like embroidery. You pass things on, from mother to daughter: life, art, depression.
Hester
FAMILY
September 12, 2001
1904 - 2013; 1907 - 2090; 1996 - 2074; 1910 - 2097; 1986 - 2094; 1960 - 2094; 1907 - 2061; 1936 - 2081; 1949 - 2059; 1977 - 2016; 1919 - 2054; 1963 - 2053; 1948 - 2068; 1905 - 2079; 1988 - 2043; 1965 - 2014; 1929 - 2008; 1957 - 2046; 1974 - 2054; 1953 - 2095; 1946 - 2045; 1926 - 2048; 1996 - 2030; 1968 - 2014; 1988 - 2094; 1941 - 2019; 1972 - 2076; 1951 - 2007; 1977 - 2070; 1919 - 2054; 2001 - 2080; 1952 - 2094; 1913 - 2088; 1906 - 2020; 2000 - 2001
1904 - 2013; 1907 - 2090; 1996 - 2074; 1910 - 2097; 1986 - 2094; 1960 - 2094; 1907 - 2061; 1936 - 2081; 1949 - 2059; 1977 - 2016; 1919 - 2054; 1963 - 2053; 1948 - 2068; 1905 - 2079; 1988 - 2043; 1965 - 2014; 1929 - 2008; 1957 - 2046; 1974 - 2054; 1953 - 2095; 1946 - 2045; 1926 - 2048; 1996 - 2030; 1968 - 2014; 1988 - 2094; 1941 - 2019; 1972 - 2076; 1951 - 2007; 1977 - 2070; 1919 - 2054; 2001 - 2080; 1952 - 2094; 1913 - 2088; 1906 - 2020; 2000 - 2001
Valéry Proust Museum
Curator Camiel van Winkel has taken German philosopher Th.W. Adorno’s 1953 essay ‘Valéry Proust Museum’ as the point of departure. The exhibition is not a regular group show, but an environment composed of selected works by a range of artists from different periods. Avoiding art historical and thematic selection criteria, the exhibition is based on the idea of the inevitable disappearance of the work of art in the empty spaces of the museum.
Curator Camiel van Winkel has taken German philosopher Th.W. Adorno’s 1953 essay ‘Valéry Proust Museum’ as the point of departure. The exhibition is not a regular group show, but an environment composed of selected works by a range of artists from different periods. Avoiding art historical and thematic selection criteria, the exhibition is based on the idea of the inevitable disappearance of the work of art in the empty spaces of the museum.
My Dad Playing Piano
The closet in his study kept the usual mix of essential and trivial: drawings from high school, student paraphernalia and tons of paper work from his job as a teacher. In an old shoebox we found a microphone and some old music cassettes. When he had retired, eight years before his death, he had picked up playing the piano again. He had taken lessons again and had studied every day. Sometimes he would make a recording of the pieces that he played, as a reality check.
The closet in his study kept the usual mix of essential and trivial: drawings from high school, student paraphernalia and tons of paper work from his job as a teacher. In an old shoebox we found a microphone and some old music cassettes. When he had retired, eight years before his death, he had picked up playing the piano again. He had taken lessons again and had studied every day. Sometimes he would make a recording of the pieces that he played, as a reality check.
Family and friends
Seven drawings of penises in various forms and sizes. Black pencil on 9" x 11" sheets of paper. First published in Butt magazine # 4, summer 2002 and later in Butt book - adventures in 21st century gay subculture, 2006. Based on dating site profile pics, named 'Dieter', 'Bram', 'Henk', 'Andrew', 'Harry', 'Erik', 'Martin' and 'Edward'. The drawings are framed in individual frames and for sale as a group. Price on request.
Seven drawings of penises in various forms and sizes. Black pencil on 9" x 11" sheets of paper. First published in Butt magazine # 4, summer 2002 and later in Butt book - adventures in 21st century gay subculture, 2006. Based on dating site profile pics, named 'Dieter', 'Bram', 'Henk', 'Andrew', 'Harry', 'Erik', 'Martin' and 'Edward'. The drawings are framed in individual frames and for sale as a group. Price on request.
Auntie Truus and Auntie Mok
With utmost concentration I tried to capture the atmosphere in the photos as closely as possible, but again and again I would screw up somewhere halfway. Either the balance in shading wasn’t right, or I couldn’t get the expressions right on their faces. When I finally managed to give Auntie Truus the right expression, I reached the point where I had a physical sensation of being on that lawn on Texel again on that day in 1969, asking Auntie Truus and Auntie Mok to pose for me. At that very moment, reality as such was redefined as an object for exhibition.
With utmost concentration I tried to capture the atmosphere in the photos as closely as possible, but again and again I would screw up somewhere halfway. Either the balance in shading wasn’t right, or I couldn’t get the expressions right on their faces. When I finally managed to give Auntie Truus the right expression, I reached the point where I had a physical sensation of being on that lawn on Texel again on that day in 1969, asking Auntie Truus and Auntie Mok to pose for me. At that very moment, reality as such was redefined as an object for exhibition.
Untitled (Onkenhout)
Staring at the picture of the garden on the postcard I catch a glimpse of my mother in a version of her life that she never lived, one in which Nico had gotten in touch, after that evening out. Perhaps now she’d have a different surname and be sitting by a different fire drinking wine with a different child. In a moment that feels like an oedipal short circuit, I experience something impossible: that I never existed.
Staring at the picture of the garden on the postcard I catch a glimpse of my mother in a version of her life that she never lived, one in which Nico had gotten in touch, after that evening out. Perhaps now she’d have a different surname and be sitting by a different fire drinking wine with a different child. In a moment that feels like an oedipal short circuit, I experience something impossible: that I never existed.
Susan Sontag
I’ve always thought of photography as something very magical and it is my belief that this is based on a genuine experience: in my early childhood there must have been no sharp distinction between a real thing and its image. In the same way that kids see themselves as inseparable from their mother until the age of three, I thought that object and image were simply two different manifestations of the same energy.
I’ve always thought of photography as something very magical and it is my belief that this is based on a genuine experience: in my early childhood there must have been no sharp distinction between a real thing and its image. In the same way that kids see themselves as inseparable from their mother until the age of three, I thought that object and image were simply two different manifestations of the same energy.
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