Alan J Slater

News

Exhibition News (July 2008)

Currently exhibiting at:
Summer Nudes - June 26 - August 30, 2008
Lana Santorelli Gallery
110 W 26th St., Ground Floor
New York, NY 10001
(between 6th & 7th Avenues)
www.lanasantorelligallery.com

An old man meanders across America (June 2007)

For a fuller description of the trip which is summarised below, please click on this link to Carly's Website which has been created by Carly Wilkie Steven as part of a project for a Masters Degree at University College London.

I made it in one piece to Chicago O'Hare and the nice man at immigration let me in without too much hassle.... He seemed a bit worried about my wanting to visit so many places, wondered why I was intending to travel by Amtrak from Kansas City to LA rather than fly & why I was taking coffee beans to Seattle.... [because the people I was visiting enjoyed the coffee from my local roaster when they were here last year!]

Had a short El-train ride through Chicago before going to Midway to fly on to Omaha. Quite a surprise to find myself waiting for a taxi by the side of Lake Michigan.... the colour was amazing.... intense turquoise with sunlight dancing in flashes of brilliant white across the surface and, of course, massive. The Sears building looked impressive & then we had to deal with US Security at the airport!!! Never had to pass my shoes through a scanner along with everything else before!!! So there I am with my toes peeking out through the holes in my socks.... but they're "British" toes and I'm proud of 'em!

On the way to Papillion from Omaha we stopped off to eat at an IHOP for my first taste of American food.... the ham, cheese, onion & hash-brown omelette [smothered in sour cream] was good and not too big.... and I managed most of it!.... The coffee was very weak and tasteless. I see it as my duty to introduce PROPER coffee to the Colonies!!!!

While in Papillion I was also introduced to Krispy Kremes and Dairy Queen and I had my first ever burger!

Visited the Joslyn Museum in Omaha & was very pleasantly surprised to find one of Manet's late flower paintings there! Also called into Plattsmouth, a fine example of a one-street town with colourful ante-bellum houses on the outskirts.

The tornadoes in Nebraska & Kansas weren't too close.... we had only a night of storms with what appeared to be permanent lightning for two to three hours.... and a few dozen buckets of hail & rain followed by a day of strong winds which drove the birds from the trees and onto the street.

In Slater, Missouri, I stayed in the mayor's house... it's an old funeral parlour and is the biggest and best house in town!!! Great welcome party on Sunday evening and then up at dawn next day to start work with the kids in high school.... The first class I had to deal with was 8 o'clock in the morning! I ask you.... what kind of place is it where they start work in the middle of the night????!!!!

The work went well. The kids [most of them leastways] were enthusiastic about the project we worked on & I surprised myself with how well everything went from my presentation to them, to finishing the work and the exhibition.

[The project.... I showed the students [grades 9 - 12] the painting I've donated to the city whilst telling them the story of how it came to be painted [about 10 minutes worth] then turned the painting away and asked them to respond to it, to me, to England or to anything that came into their head.] I had three one hour sessions with two separate groups... very tiring but enjoyable... and discovered that I can, in fact, teach art!

The radio interview - on KMMO - went well... hardly in-depth questioning but, in essence, a plug for the exhibition. I am apparently going to get an MP3 version of it as a reminder 'cos I didn't get to hear it.

I was made very welcome, everywhere, and most of the people I met were "fine folks".... including a geezer called Nigel from Liverpool who's been living there for a month, although he has been in the USA for many years, but who delivered the sad news that there was only one pub in town... & that closed on Sunday & Monday!!!!!

Next day I had to make a presentation to the Chamber of Commerce which, again, went very well... plus first interview for the local paper!

Then I had a day off from the project to visit the State Capitol in Jefferson City.

It was very enjoyable but tiring. We drove there in an old police car [very useful for parking purposes] which still had the sirens & lights in place & police stickers on the licence plates. I had a 15 minute meeting with the Secretary of State for Missouri - then with the local senator and house representative. ... the latter insisted on introducing me to the House so I was announced as a visiting artist from London who was presenting a painting to Slater and so on.... I had to take a bow & acknowledge the applause.... all a bit unexpected & quite sweet really.

Also saw the great mural by Thomas Hart Benton and another, what a surprise, by Frank Brangwyn. On the way back we visited Glasgow - on the banks of the mighty Missouri river - and home to the first all-steel bridge ever built.

The opening of the exhibition, next day - during which hot dogs & soft drinks were served to encourage the locals to attend - went really well and most of the people who visited seemed to enjoy and appreciate it. I think the project was a great success. The students really got interested in doing the work in the end and the contrast between what they did for me and their normal work was quite striking! ... plus second interview for the local newspaper!

The great surprise [and honour] for me was that I was presented with two official proclamations from the Missouri Senate and House of Representatives as a record that both houses had passed resolutions thanking me for my cultural contribution to the State of Missouri!

The rest of my stay was spent minding the exhibition, talking with the students, their families and a few local characters including an "official" badge-carrying Missouri Santa Claus and relaxing with the Mayor, his wife & friends, chatting, eating & drinking and taking Sunday buffet lunch on the verandah at Maxine's.

Then I was driven to Kansas City, again in the old police car - via an Irish pub in Lexington - to sample a Kansas City barbecue [with a salad that would have fed six] and to pick up the Amtrak to LA.

We sped, in the shiny steel galleon, through the vastness, running from a white lightning storm whose coruscating bolts burnt the black out of the night to bring, a few hours later, a dull dawn and on through a daytime of empty plains beneath endless blue skies dotted with wispy clouds while flatness grew, via sagebrush and dust, to rocky bluff and massive mountain, via Hopper's sunset to Turner's sunrise in the immeasurable, beautifully brooding menace of the Mojave Desert.

One interruption... an hour's delay while a heavily tattooed woman - who had begged me to bless her - attempted to throw herself from the train. Thankfully she failed and we had to wait while she was removed by the local police.

And onward - sleeping through Arizona... further west through one-horse, two-horse, many-horse towns, past agave and adobe, through high pass, past shallow creek, via Indian lands of ancient majesty and modern casinos to the City of Angels and lost dreams; to the wide, heat-hazed streets fired bright by violet jacaranda, blood red bougainvillea and yellow-orange honeysuckle; to the fluttering monarch butterflies, black and gold, to the tiny hummingbirds hovering at the red velvet roses below the balcony that separated me from the glistening pool beside which sprawled the next generation of film stars and failures.

LA... what to say?

Pasadena, art at the Norton Simon museum, Runyon Canyon, Mulholland Drive, Hollywood Hills, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Sushi, Tacos & Tortillas, Seafood [including terrific oysters] at the Hungry Cat off Hollywood & Vine, Jazz at LACMA... sunshine, tourists....

That's what's to say...

Then the ol' man was back on the tracks heading north... 20 hours from the palm trees of LA, alongside the ocean with its crashing waves and incredible, vibrantly coloured plant life, to the northernmost tip of California, via Santa Barbara, Salinas, San Francisco, Sacramento... then into Oregon and Klamath Falls, Salem, Portland.... more hours passed as we passed from green lushness through pine forests, past enormous blue lakes and high, snow capped mountains... Mounts Shasta, McLaughlin, St Helens, Rainier, down deep valleys into Washington State and the Emerald City of Seattle 34 hours after we set out....

Another interruption.... three hours this time... while a broken down freight train - 100 wagons long - was removed from our path. Fortunately we rested by Upper Klamath Lake - the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi [and only 12 feet deep!] with Mount McLaughlin in the distance.

In Seattle I finally found time for a few days of rest and relaxation…wandering around Downtown - seeing mediocre art - and around Fremont, looking at cowboy boots and Al Capone suits [but not indulging], drinking better coffee in the coffee capital, sitting in the park watching the river [actually the ship canal] flow and families of geese dancing on the water partnered by the hot sun while the drawbridge was raised and lowered to let the bigger boats by. Saw herons in the sky.

Ate a wide variety of food: Pakistani, Mexican, Korean as well as home-grilled fish, washed down with copious quantities of champagne [I even managed to find my favourite Billecart-Salmon here] and fine native beer, had a narrow escape from amorous but too-young blond clutches, chatted long into the night in excellent company and played a crazy computer game called 'guitar heroes' which is like hard-rock karaoke for plastic instruments with buttons for strings and which is very addictive.

My last day was spent in the mountains.... snow, fir trees and rushing rivers! Awesome!... and a cold Corona in a Mexican bar above an Italian restaurant in the Bavarian village of Leavenworth.... kitsch and not a little weird!

Then it was red-eye time on Memorial Day when I took the big bird back to Blighty.

I may not have managed to win back the colonies for the ol' country but the colonies have certainly won a part of me… all the way from Chicago to Omaha and Papillion; from Slater, Glasgow, Jefferson City and Kansas City, Missouri to Dodge City, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, the Mojave Desert, San Bernadino, Los Angeles, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Sacramento, Klamath Falls, and Portland to Seattle… little pieces of my heart are most definitely lodged there and calling for my return...

I am planning to go back in the not too distant future to work on and film a rather larger project across several states. Then, who knows...

Potential tornado, Iowa

Main Street, Slater, Missouri

Project

House, New Mexico

Sunrise, Mojave Desert

Pacific Ocean, California

Northern California

Mt Shasta, California

Sunset, Washington State

Press Release: Art for Name's Sake (April 2007)

Steve McQueen's home town Slater, Missouri, is to undergo a week of 'creative disruption' as it plans to welcome a London artist of the same name.

The tiny US city - whose most famous former residents include The Great Escape star and the Olympic gold medallist and NBA basketball player Joe Klein - is planning a seven day art festival to celebrate the brief visit of Camden painter Alan Slater.

Mr Slater will work alongside local High School students on a joint art project inspired by an example of his own work, which he plans to donate to the city.

Residents will have a chance to view the students' work at the end of the week when it will be displayed in the city's old Slater General Store Building. The exhibition will also provide the city's local artists with an opportunity to showcase their work.

Contact between the two Slaters began on Christmas day when the artist first discovered that he shared his name with American cities in Iowa and Missouri while idling away time on the internet. A surprised Mr Slater then sent an email to the better-known of the two.

Says Mr Slater, "Bemused by the coincidence, I offered to send them one of my 'English landscape paintings' as well as a bit of art tuition. I never expected much to come of it, but when the city's Mayor replied saying that the visit had already attracted interest from the local press, TV and radio stations I couldn't believe it!"

Taking place between the 6th and 14th of May, the trip kicks off with a lunchtime presentation where Slater officials - including the city's Mayor - will join Mr Slater in outlining the background and purpose of the project at the local Chamber of Commerce.

Dr Stephen Allegri D.C., the Mayor of Slater very much welcomes the idea of a cultural exchange and is looking forward to hosting Mr Slater: "It should be an exciting time for our community." He said.

www.cityofslater.com