An Errant Polar Bear
Frank Zappa once said that without deviation there can be no progress. Well, I am certainly enjoying being a deviant in the workshop at the moment, experimenting with encaustic monotypes, a type of printing technique using hot wax, which I've never tried before. I've been testing out different japanese papers to see how the wax reacts and trying out different tools, from sponges to shapers to hairdryers. The background in this sketch of a polar bear is the result of one of these tests and the fact that I was even sketching a polar bear in the first place, was itself the result of a deviation - one that came about after my visit to The Polar Museum the other week.
The front elevation of The Polar Museum - part of The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) - has two large curved windows either side of the main door which act architecturally like planar maps to the two inverted globes within. Inside are two linked entrance halls - one for the north and one for the south - each housing a beautifully painted ceiling dome. The domes are by MacDonald Gill, the famous cartographer and artist who was commissioned by the building's architect, Sir Herbert Baker in 1933 to depict important polar expeditions. The names of famous explorers encircle each one and they are beautiful works of art, simultaneously acting as a record, a celebration and a rememberance.
The black and white photograph below shows Gill and his assistant, Pamela Johnstone standing on scaffolding (not seen) painting the 'Arctic' dome in situ. Greenland and Iceland are to the left of Gill so if I am not mistaken, he must be painting the 'Baffin', a whaling ship built in Liverpool, which under the command of William Scoresby the younger, surveyed the east coast of Greenland in 1822. (Source: Chris Routledge)
By using Google Earth (and compensating for the skewed perspective by eye) I was able to estimate that the spot over which Johnstone is holding her paintbrush must be approximately 67°30'N 77°22'E. The nearest village today would be Nakhodka (Находка) on the Taz River in the Tazovsky District of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia. I'm not sure why I felt the urge to figure this out other than I had been wondering what Ms Johnstone herself had known of the places she was depicting. What was she thinking at the moment this photograph was taken? The contrast was interesting - her time-consuming, freehand artistry as opposed to the accuracy and accessibility of modern day digital mapping, where the ability to zoom in and out of unknown lands is almost taken for granted. How different to be standing there meticulously drawing the outline of a place you know nothing of and will no doubt never see.
Six years previous to Gill's SPRI commission, he had been employed by The Empire Marketing Board to produce a map showing The Empire's air and sea trade routes. It was called Highways of Empire and was a half circle mercator projection with Antarctica unfurled in beautiful, icy, white gusts across the bottom. On closer inspection of the map, a little way in from the left I spotted something that really shouldn't have been there. An errant polar bear!
Highways of Empire, by MacDonald Gill
Issued in 1927 by The Empire Marketing Board
Source: Jeffrey S. Murray www.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/1002/empire-2.phtml
Whether this was a genuine mistake or whether Gill had simply used a little artistic license I'm not sure, but it did make me smile. I presume SPRI must have put him straight by the time he painted the Antarctic dome though, as no polar bears feature there, as far as I can tell. Then again, perhaps Frank Zappa's 'Nanook' came and 'rubbed it out'? (Feel free to deviate here).
