Disguise (Winter 2010)

ART PHOTOGRAPHY UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL C R E AT I V E A R T S M AG A Z I N E WINTER 2010

POETRY PROSE F E AT U R E S

DISGUISE

Cover photographs by Yassmina Karajah

Tom Brooks

Editor Emma Davies

Online Editor Chris Ackroyd

Promotions Officer Leah Eades

Art Editors Isaac Harland Kate Hollowood

EDITORIAL This term’s been an exciting time for all at Mount Helicon: blogging; cross-dressing (proof of our Art Editor Isaac’s willingness to blur gender boundaries can be found below); and sifting through an inbox overrun with amazing submissions on the theme of ‘disguise’. Before you rush off to your computer to check out our recent online escapades and ‘like’ us on facebook, take five minutes to sit down in the real world with these wonderful pages for company. Find a bench and marvel at nature’s own disguises. The grey squirrels tumble around the autumn leaves: a cloak of orange and red cast aside by the trees to surprise winter.

Tom

Photography Editors Tristan Martin Jack Mitchell

Poetry Editors Abby Worth Patrick Burley

Prose Editors Michaela Mare Rachel Stewart

Features Editors Emma Harris Dimitra Taslim

heliconmagazine.co.uk heliconbristol.blogspot.com facebook.com/heliconmagazine twitter.com/heliconmagazine

Joe Mortimer

Editor-in-Chief

HAIK-WHO? Throwing ideas around in the pub for this issue’s competition, our prose editor Rachel came up with the astonishingly witty concept of ‘Haik-who?’: asking readers to submit haikus describing someone in three succinct lines of five-seven-five syllables. It also proved the perfect opening gambit for our recently established Helicon Magazine Illustrator’s Network (find it on facebook) as we comissioned three willing members to translate the winning words into pictures. Here they are for your visual and linguistic delight, along with the five runners-up.

Dark Manhattan plays its codas across his face, dead (Beat) man walking.

Emilie Chetwynd

,

Beauty bright launched one Thousand ships, my minds eye squints.

Now I’ve run aground.

White, small and birdlike.

The librarian sorts books And hunts bookworms.

Niall Moore

Nic Chedgey

RUNNERS-UP Sat into the bench, Upturned palms reflections of The back bowed by life.

Blond festering gums, Oily skin, crusted hair, lust, I run from blind dates.

Nic Chedgey

The face that launched a Thousand hairspray cans: icon, Your band is sub-par.

Rachel Schraer

Freakish Appearing She’s got to love nobody...

But she’s a lady.

Sharmini Pitter

with her scathing tongue and her cold disposition she has got no friends

Kate Samuelson

Illustrations (clockwise from far left): Callum Russel andabandana. blogspot.com Josh Hurley thickblackrain. blogspot.com Jen Springall jenspringall. blogspot.com

Robin Cowie

Dimitra Taslim

Disappearance Speaks Disguise. Hypocritical term. Appearance says the same thing better. Guise, meaning appearance: it has slipped away under an unnecessary prefix (it has dis-appeared). A word that can never catch up with its concept.

This is like that famous problem of two guards at a crossroads: one who only lies, one who only tells the truth. Ask either “Which gate would the other man say is safe?” and the right answer is always the opposite. Truth seems displaced somewhere amongst guises that haven’t been discovered yet.

Disappearance speaks. Then a cruder copy of it fills the space. Poor word. I would like to have written something on limpets, or the life of a potato. That’s what I would have said it was about anyway.

Oscar Jenkyn-Jones

Joe Munday

Lydia Greenaway

M eet : J amaica S treet A rtists One of the largest art collectives outside London, Jamaica Street Artists has been calling Stokes Croft home for fifteen years. In the first of a series of features on the studio, Dimitra Taslim meets manager Andrew Hood for a quick chat.

Born in 1964, Andrew was brought up in Edinburgh before his family settled in Cheshire. Initially, he worked as a graphic designer, but soon enrolled in college for a degree in illustration at John Moores University. His work has been regularly accepted at the RWA Autumn Show. An annual exhibitor at the London Art Fair and Art Holland, his work was also recently exhibited at the Oriel Gallery (Ireland), Beaux Arts (Bath) and the Weifhaus Gallery near Eindhoven.

Tell me a little about yourself.

Well, I’ve been here for about 10 years now, perhaps longer. When I first came, I found it great to have a studio space, but it was a bit different then. Over the years it’s evolved. It’s a really busy studio now, as you can see. We’re really lucky; it’s a fantastic place to work.

How are you involved with JSA? I’m here primarily as an artist, so I paint and I put up exhibitions. I also help to run the place; it’s really just day-to-day things – keeping the place tidy, doing the accounts. Last year we did a show at Bristol museum, which was an auction and exhibition. That raised our profile a lot. We worked for a lot of companies, getting sponsorships, so over the last few years it’s really blossomed.

With the money from the auction, we employed Gemma, who does our administration and promotion. We’d like to eventually buy the building, but that’s kind of a 5-year plan. We’ll look more closely at that if we get more sponsors.

How and when was JSA formed?

The studio started about 15 years ago; 4 landlords bought it, and wanted to rent it out as studio space. But JSA as it is now has probably really developed over the past five years. The way it’s developed is that we have a core of members, who work more or less full time. So on the second floor we’ve got mainly illustrators, this floor we have fine artists, and on the top floor you’ve got a mixture – some textile artists and filmmakers. Before, there were different groups in the building, but now it’s just one, and that’s JSA.

What has been your biggest challenge as an art collective/art studio? How did you overcome that?

Logistically, the biggest challenge was doing the show at the Bristol museum last year, because there was the auction that involved a lot of work. I was amazed you know, we raised a substantial amount of money, but we had to get loads of people involved. We worked loads with the museum, we did loads of publicity; logistically, it was massive, and it was quite tiring really.

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Artist Vera Boele Keimer at work in the studio.

Trish Lock - ‘Angels’

What do you consider JSA’s greatest achievement?

The greatest achievement is itself, really – that it’s such a diverse collective of artists. And I think that there’re so many people here that make a living from what they do. We’ve got quite a few successful people here. I think it’s just having that atmosphere, having a busy studio and making it work – is its greatest achievement. Some studios tend to be a little bit underused, a bit empty; here it’s a great atmosphere with people always around.

As studio manager, what qualities do you value most in your artists?

I just like people who are committed, people who want to experiment, people who want to use the space. They can get involved to whatever extent they want; if they just want a space to paint or to create, that’s fine. We just got a new painter in, whose work is quite different, quite unusual. It’s good because it feeds other people here. But it’s also really good to see people come in, begin their career not sure about what they’re doing, and over a couple of years they take a direction. And I think that’s the good thing about the studio, it really helps people to find their feet.

What is JSA’s greatest fear?

In 5 years, when our contract runs out – either we don’t get a new contract or can’t buy the building, and we disband; that would be a great shame. Other than that, the art market might crash, that’d be quite bad.

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What is the ultimate direction (or hope) for JSA in the near future?

Ideally, it’ll be nice to take over the whole building, have a gallery on the ground floor, and a café. Just somewhere people can eat and enjoy themselves. And it’d be quite nice to have a bit more financial backing, which would really help because it’s nice to have opportunities for different types of artists, not just the ones that make money, but people who have unusual ideas. It’d be nice to help them develop, see how successful they can be.

What advice would you give to a young artist just starting out?

If you really want to be a successful artist, you have to be committed.

Put as much time as you can into your art. Accept the fact that you’re going to be a bit skinny for 2 years. Try not to work too much. People who work, you know, 3 days a week and paint 2 days a week; it’s better if you can paint, or create, 4 days a week.

Put a lot of time into it and just really, be committed, that’s the main thing.

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Tom Mead - ‘Fox’ (below) and ‘Diving Bull’ (opposite)

JSA will be exhibiting a pop-up shop and gallery: “The Art Box” at The Showroom on College Green from 1st to 24th December; and feature alongside a Hayward touring exhibition of Matisse in “Inside-Out” at the RWA from 8th January to 8th February 2011.

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Masks like glass shards in the subconcious Day by day we run our fingertips along a felt facade of love Assaults of supposed love and romance Lay like butt ends on asphalt Cold kisses that taste of deceit and salt Masks like semi truths and off white lies sewn together in the dark I will wave my mascara wand at the mirror I will wear Spanx and pretend I don’t have saddlebags Lament the day when my tits will sag Feeling like a five year old caught rifling through mummy’s make up bag Masks like curled toes, burnt toast, futile fallacies of blinked back tears Fears embed themselves underneath your fingernails So you paint them bright fuschia On crumpled faces we paint lemon rind smiles Hiding secrets in the silent groove between the bathroom tiles Masks like indecisions and revisions Feeling ambivalent about Marmite Laughing at jokes you don’t understand Growing moustaches that really don’t suit you But no one will dispute you and your grass blade tufts of facial hair Shave the whole lot off and the congealed steel of shame is still there Masks like cheap vodka, Friends reruns Abbreviations of words, lives, wishes, friends Deviations from when life begins and ends Masks we wear to trap uncertainty in the thieving hands of time Masks like poems that end on a cheap Easy Vanessa Kisuule Rhyme

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Joe Mortimer (and overleaf)

Tristan Martin

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Daniela Alziari Meg Deeney

T h e U n - N a k e d Tr u t h In the heat and steam of the shower skin has been buffed and scrubbed until pink and gleaming. The slate is wiped clean. Everywhere hair has fallen to the firm sweep of the razor. All is smooth and naked.

Outside of the shower an instant swaddling of deep-pile towels, a slathering of creams and unctions.

Perfumes vie; cocoa butter, almond oil, vanilla. Toenails are a flamingo shock. Underwear is fixed and clipped and tied. Straps, panels and moulding achieve the desired effect. Fine tights slide up legs. A dress is wriggled over the head. A Little Black Dress. It is fitted and short but not low cut because it is Chest or Legs. A necklace caresses the nape while bangles jangle softly about the wrist. No rings, no earrings.

Fingertips are a more subdued ballerina pink.

And now the make-up, not a mask but a revelation. The skin becomes clear and finished as foundation evens out Nature’s laziness. Contours appear and a pearl glow illuminates the arch of a brow and reloads Cupid’s bow. The apples of cheeks blush charmingly as eyes darken and lashes curl suggestively away.

And the mouth, its luxuriant fullness now apparent, is hypnotic. The bitten colour, the licked gloss, the warm, parted lips and the soft breath whispering between them.

This is not dressing up; this is an undressing. The crassness, roughness and senseless angularity of the newborn’s now grown body is the disguise. That body’s suits and strained smiles have been packed away until tomorrow. Tonight this mask reveals me.

Charlotte Humphery

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Daniela Alziari

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Sitting and thinking, propped, Cushioned against a pane of icy autumn sunset, Russet-red fingers feeling over my shoulders.

Skidding backwards to the rainbow playground and criss-crossed tarmac, Sliding past climbing frames to white chipped football goals frosted smooth.

Like glass fogged with clinging breath as eyes sting and shake to follow my new Nikes and steam in laughs and shouting.

Then muddy school corridors and out into fresh, crisp air and more kicking; October snowflakes and conkers spinning over the road.

Flinching again to ankles stung by zipping sand, Soft, cool like liquid pushed between my toes, Night air so crammed with stars its hard to breathe and safe to choke on fumes of fire.

Sat on scavenged odds and ends, three smugglers, Chris, Rupe and me and three beers each and one scavenged for luck, Pearls seeping down the glass and sand creeps up, And amber eyes glow.

Flinging goose bumped skin a final, final time, In rabid seas, in salt burned fury, Toes plucking bedded pebbles like shellfish then overturning, bowled and spat out by the swell, and, Riding the surf to shore to stagger sea soaked, Sun-beam glistening white like gulls, Shrieking and flapping, Tottering toes over sharp stones towards ice cream prizes, Squealing and clicking our beaks.

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S itting and

Pushing through leaf litter with my brother, snagged by acid thorns twitching on the breeze, Nudging in and out of the glitter-ball dapples, Green and humming, Tickled by nearby ripples, glistening, Weaving elfin through the trunks.

To a shady spot filled with midges for watchmen, Where the water is glassy and the waterboatmen play across the surface, And we call the place ours.

Hunkering under low eaves and iron farm tools clutching cups of hearty froth in both hands, Malted, chocolate, hazel natter, School-type secrets.

Whispers stoke the embers as we lean, closer, Backs bent from the thin lead windows and the howls outside.

Sitting, thinking, slipping off into moments that burn.

Sew me a disguise and they’ll shine through the stitches.

It’s them that make me me and perhaps that’s the best way to say it, Not to sound like a maudlin figure beckoning with an arthritic finger!

Matt Crow Isaac Harland

thin k ing

Climbing the winding hillside path higher with Tris, Kissed, covered, then carpeted by fog, The world by headstand, On a floor of cloud studded with peeking streetlight stars.

Then sheltering in the Tor, still, plucked skinny and shivering, Banging the ruins to knobs of stone with laughter, Smoke-seared throats and swirling like deep places.

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Emma Davies

Behind the contorted face, Lives a man of half my age A smilling child, forgotten now Too tired to seem to dream of how Life was good but hours ago Cooking apple pie, living sweet and slow Freddie Herbert

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Xander Lloyd

Untitled ‘The Wasteland’

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‘Ribbons’

“ As far as inspiration goes I painted Ribbons after I had set up an installation on a theatre stage where I draped ribbons (unsurprisingly), cloths and basically different materials over the light fittings. I took photographs and then painted from these” Georgina Hammond

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Words: Zoe McIntyre Illustrations: Andrew Duncan

The Male & His Cross Dressing In this metro-trans-hetro-sexual melting pot of modern society, coming across a casual crossdresser is hardly worth an eyebrow raise. Whether it be in preparation for a university booze up, or some cocktail party haute-couture, a rustling sound can be heard all over Britain as men pillage women’s wardrobes, picking out a frilly frock, fixing their makeup and preparing to revel in a night of feminine role-play. Yet, does cross-dressing still retain some social stigma, deemed only really appropriate for fancy dress tomfoolery, or have some daring personalities succeeded in making it a form of artistic exploration and a testament to a 21st Century sexual revolution?

Contemporary art has often explored the multiple facets of sex, gender and sexuality, many of which have manifested in the form of a Freudianesque “alter-ego”. The artistic pioneers of male-to-female crossdressing can be found within the prominent Dada Movement; a school of early 20th century artists who classed themselves as anti-war, anti-elitist and anti-art. Having already causing a succession of scandal for his exhibits, the notorious avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp strived for a new level of outrageousness with the creation of his feminine alter ego “Rose Selavy”; a play on the phrase “Eros, C’est la Vie”, or “Sex, That’s Life”. The most famous photo of Rose Selavy was taken by Man Ray, a fellow Dadaist and hugely respected photographer. Snapping Duchamp in a voluptuous feather black hat, pearl necklace and

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a full bodied wig, Ray succeeds in capturing the womanly subtleties of Duchamp’s persona, who strikes a pose that combines composure and self-assurance, putting two fingers up to society’s tedious bourgeois conventionalism. The photo came to be featured on the front cover of the New York Dada, earning Rose both ‘cover girl’ status and an iconic place in the history of artful cross-dressing.

Duchamp and Ray arguably opened the flood gates for alternative sexual representation to become part of experimental art. Andy Warhol, the father of pop-art, took a particular interest in drag. In his early “Ladies and Gentlemen” series, which later to become known as “Drag Queen Paintings”, Warhol took photos of Africain-American and Latino men dressed as women and overprinted them on vibrantly coloured backgrounds. Unlike the bulk of his Warhol’s celebrated and high paying subjects of the 1980’s, the drag queens were anonymous and unknown, selected at random and paid for their work. Yet his most famous cross-dressing themed photos were those of the artist himself, as Warhol collaborated with photographer Christopher Makos to produce a series of self-portraits. Whilst seemingly willing to reveal himself with naked starkness, the feminine mask adopted in these photos allowed Warhol to simultaneously construct a new identity. His expression is one of both vacancy and vulnerability that doesn’t try to hide his masculine attributes, but just adds to them a new layer of deception. Warhol was often criticised for his superficial celebrity persona and this Drag performance can be seen as a prolific testament to his play on concealment and exposure.

Present day artists are continuing the trend of gender blurring. The 2003 Turner Prize went to the English artists Grayson Perry, for his collection of ceramics that comment on social taboos and hypocrisies. Perry memorably accepted his award dressed as his alter ego Claire, sporting a little girl style frock, complete with petticoat, laced ankle socks and patent shoes. Indeed, cross-dressing seems to go hand in hand with a challenge to social conventions and predetermined roles. Cross-dressing may still continue as a rather ambiguous phenomenon, but one that reminds us that nothing within identity is fixed, and that often disguise and false identity can uncover some unnerving truths. Like any other aspect of identity, gender can be seen as a performance; a fantasy, a disguise.

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G e t a w a y Wa l k i n g Rubbed raw by the padding of weathered boots, The moor has lost its skin.

Exposed lie roots bleached and brittle like bones, Scorched by cold North winds; A tar-burnt dissection of a smoker’s lung, Bare to the indifferent fierceness of the sun, Clay for roaming sheep to sculpt their routes, Kicking up clouds of sick tissue and soot.

The clouds are white-gold gilded lead And placed low in the sky By an engine that is hot and red And leaches moisture From the air like dead Grass, guzzled by a hay maker.

The climate is a difficult child Abandoned by its mother.

The wind kicks like a horse left wild.

We lean towards each other.

Marietta Kirkbride

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Sam Duckerin - ‘Allison VII’ (Self-Portrait)

“Taken with a home-made matchbox pinhole camera, called Allison.”

Wind off the rolling, heaving Yorkshire Dales Should strip hot city shackles from our wrists, Relay them through heather shrubs into the Swale And sink with good riddance through muddy mists.

But open places can still be prisons, Landscapes of division, angst and schism.

The bottomless, vast, grey lake is crowned With slate mountains of untreadable ground.

Kate Hollowood

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Bad Crowd Her thick black coat muffled the thud as she hit the ground. Someone screamed. We had been pedestrians in a late but innocent street, which dripped with fluorescent lights and the smells of meat frying. Now we were statues, watching the life flicker out in her eyes. Her coat fell open to reveal a neat white shirt, spoiled under the left breast by a dark red line. Our hearts stopped with hers and we wished that we had not seen the little line of white vomit slip from the corner of her painted lips. Then the crowd took another breath and lost its connection to her. There were shouts for a doctor and fabric rustled as a hundred phones were pulled from pockets and handbags. I walked towards the body and scanned the crowd. They huddled together, an uncertain herd looking for a shepherd.

‘Does anyone know this girl?’ I said as I reached her and knelt with a young couple who were crouched, staring at her, all good intentions and no action.

‘I don’t think she was with anyone,’ said a woman in an ugly brown coat. Curiosity hung like a mist. I felt for her pulse for show but I knew she was already dead. Looking around at the faces that circled me, I shook my head like a good Hollywood doctor.

I checked the wound without moving her; you could see where the sharp knife had been tucked under the ribs and into her heart. She had died so quickly that only a small trickle of blood had been squeezed out before it had stopped and dried in the warm air. I could smell it, mixed sweetly with her perfume. A neat job.

‘Did anyone see what happened?’ I said. A round of shaking heads. I leaned over and stroked her cheek.

‘You’ll stay with her until the police get here?’ I said to the crouching couple, not really asking. They nodded. I got up, dusted off my skirt and then swept my hands downwards once more in a finishing movement. The crowd understood and began to move again, dazed. I slid easily through them as they began to turn to each other and away, checking my gloves as I walked. There was not a drop on them. I pressed on my coat pocket with a flat hand. The blade and its handle made a reassuring cross against my thigh.

Pam Lock

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Flora Davidson

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