#6. Bull Terrier (aka "Better the devil you know")
The giclee print for sale on the site called “Bull Terrier” was published in an article titled “Better the devil you know; all the best tunes and some good ideas”.
As with "Shoal", the giclee print "Bull Terrier" differs from the painting from which it derived which was originally commissioned for, and published along-side, the article "Better the devil you know". I cropped the image somewhat and made the dog larger, but more noticeably I removed the pink objects hanging from the tree. Their significants will become apparent in the next paragraph, but I felt the image could be just as playful without them, and with their removal the focus rests more on the dog.
“Better the devil you know” opens with an announcement that the Archbishop of Genoa has released a ten step programme on how to resist the devil and his work, and follows it with a consideration of the personification of evil through the ages from a theological perspective. The writer tells us that during the previous week it took a trip to what must be the epitome of evil in the Archbishop’s eyes, London’s Hampstead Heath where, during the cover of darkness, gay men go to meet strangers to have sex in the bushes with.
The Heath has semi-officially become known as a safe place for gay men to meet at night in the sense that the police only intervene when there has been violence or theft and have been non-judgemental and supportive when they have been called. Working for a charity the writer had the job of chaining two large fibreglass dispensers to a tree in the woods, one filled with condoms, the other with tubes of lubrication gel, and illuminated by one of those chemical glow sticks. As well as providing the physical means of protection from the likes of A.I.D.S. by distributing condoms the charity also conducts what they call “motivational interviews” where they try to make sure the men taking part in such potentially dangerous sexual activity are aware of the possible consequences of the choice they are making. Success has been measured by the observation that over the years repeatedly more condoms are taken than lubrication packs.
The image above is a detail from some of the sketched initial ideas for the “Bull Terrier” painting / giclee print. At this early stage of the thought process the drawings are kept very lose (scribbled visual notes) since I am more concerned with coming up with ideas, working the stronger ideas into more polished drawings later (as can be seen in the image to the left). When you click to enlarge the image you will notice that it is one of many on an A4 sheet with type written at its head. Occasionally the writer was late with completing the article. At such times he usually sent me the bare skeleton of what he thought the article would eventually be based upon. If you read what he has written you will see that in this instance he just gave me one idea to work on, and as he happened he decided not to mention the tree in the final version of the article, so I am not sure whether somebody reading the printed article would have had a clue what I was addressing in the illustration?
I’m still not convinced that the condoms read as condoms. When I look at them now I think they look more like sausages! I would do them differently if I had a second chance. I had wanted to paint a bull terrier in an illustration for ages, so this brief gave me the perfect opportunity. I love the shape of their head and the areas where the short coat of white hair thins around the snout and ears to show the pink of their skin.
At the time I was supplementing the income from illustration by working from 5pm to 2am in a call centre for a large american credit card bank. One of their cards, the card I was chiefly employed to sell, was aimed at people in the u.s.a. who classed themselves as Irish-americans. We would be calling them just as they were winding down after work, the idea being that they, being Irish-americans, would be so excited at receiving a phone call from an actual Irishman or woman all the way from the "Motherland" that they would be begging to have the card we were flogging by the end of the call! Anyway, as you can imagine it was soul destroying but I used to escape to a certain extent by bring the illustration articles into work and doodling ideas on the job.
