Running Away with the Hairdresser Kevin Sinnot 1995
Blog # 22
It’s hot, sultry, cloying. Even the few trees were looking for shade. Dog days, unusual in a South Wales Valley.
He sits on a bench, a bench with concrete moulded ends where small stones outdo the cement, shedding them like acorns. The wooden cross slats, often replaced over the years, are home to moss and lichen, soggy, ubiquitous in the Welsh climate. He sits on the bench where it appears to be dry but soon the damp seeps, his boxers soon clammy.
The bench looks directly down Hill Street, a sloping cavern sided by uniform terraced houses, now revamped and done up to overcome this repetition.
The terrace stops abruptly at the top of the slope, just below the bench, as if the material, bricks, mortar, roof tiles, and tarmac had suddenly run out during the building. The bench marks the demarcation between civilisation, if we can call it that, and the now desperate, mangled, nature, overloaded with the remnants of coal mining.
Alongside the bench, the remains of a fire, black and burnt out. Coal from the tip behind. An attempt to keep warm in the cold starless night ? And then of course rejected syringes, signs of disenchantment and disaffection, the valleys are not what they used to be in those nostalgic earlier days.
He feels hemmed in, hemmed in by the heat and hemmed in by the narrow, terraced cavern of a street. Claustrophobic. Hemmed in by this place.
But sitting here he remains, a moment, no, many moments, of contemplation. How, when you think of things past do you avoid nostalgia? That twinge when previous episodes in your life suddenly take on a golden, rosy glow. It was not really like that, but nostalgia is so good at metamorphosis and casting aside the less pleasant.
Anyway he’s thinking, contemplating, while fending off nostalgia, thinking about that it was on this very bench that they had first recognised a developing fondness, a developing togetherness and developing lust.
They were soon an item, partners, significant others. In parallel with the passion he continued his apprenticeship as an electrician in the mine. He was not enamoured with it, not giving it his best, but doing it. It’s what everybody did. On the other hand she laughed, smiled and was joyous as she learnt the art of hairdressing in the local salon. She wished for things to stand still. She felt content in this tight knit mining community, she knew most folk, could say hello to anyone on the street and never felt the urge to leave, well never say never.
He had, felt the urge to leave. In those days further education was not a matter of debt but a matter of Local Authority grants. A Working Man’s College and then University. He got through it and managed. It turned his head, but he didn’t turn him, he, himself. So much of him remained, remained part of this place. Here he was, years later, home, silent, suspended between two worlds.
The heat stifling, oppressive, the urge to move, to run, overwhelming. Which is what he did, run, run down this narrow terrace, past the junction of Nelson Street, past the chemist, slowed, stopped, thought and then dived into the hairdressers salon.
There she was. As always in conversation with elderly ladies and the same pungent smells of hair solution
There she was, she swung around, to see over her shoulder. The looks between them once more. Never really disappeared. He couldn’t help himself. Somehow she knew.
Fancy the beach.
She throws her comb on the table and runs.
This wonderful painting tells many a good story. I have ventured one such story.
Perhaps one reason for so many good stories is that the painting has the feeling of a myth, of being mythological.
We need to tread carefully here, we are on sticky ground, myths can mean many things and quickly lose their footings, wallowing in a quicksand of meaning.
Myths can be true. They can also be spurious, fallacious and deceptive. Myths might well have been legitimate in the first instance but become mangled through the ages and have their origins obscured. They can provide a basis for ways of living. They often appear as a moral tale to lead us in a specific direction.They can also be misguiding, deep enough to seem impregnable.
Myths can be small, local and perhaps humorous ;
eat your crust and you will get curly hair
Myths can be large, worldly and perhaps even dangerous ;
Great Britain had an empire.We are now eminent in the wider world.
Nevertheless let’s pursue this idea of mythology.
Running Away has parallels with another mythological painting.
Bacchus and Ariadne TITAN 1520
What an earth are you talking about you might well ask. Well, I think there are a few parallels here.
First of all both of pictures are highly dynamic, with the subjects caught in mid flow, moving with intent and purpose Both the paintings have a wide colour range, have vibrant pigments. The colouring is dominant, explicit and full of meaning. The colours shout at you.The main subjects in both the paintings reveal a strong relationship between them, something is obviously going on here, perhaps relating to events in the past or futures about to happen.
The best of all, and perhaps most importantly, both the pictures have the ability to evoke a story. Both the pictures prompt the imagination, to ponder and speculate. They both have many layers of meaning, layers that encourage narration. For me this speculation, this ability to inspire storytelling is a central element of myths, that’s why we hang onto them and that is why we learn from them.
These layers of meaning often lie below the surface of the myth, hidden by mere appearances. They hide under the window dressing, the here and now, revealing other meanings, other interpretations, enlightenment and guidance.
We can look at Running Away with the Hairdresser and realise that of course running away is a significant element in the painting, perhaps indicating an alternative, deeper, story. Maybe the painting, like a valuable myth, can lead us to contemplate the need to leave, the need to get away, the need to escape, the need for pastures new. It is interesting to know that the painting began as a much darker painting of a single half length male figure with the underlying theme of leaving the past behind.
Kevin Sinnott said this of his painting ;
I find myself wondering what or who the figures are running away from.
I can’t help reflecting on a possible narrative or reaction to the work.
I find myself thinking about people the world over currently running away – fleeing abuse, persecution, genocide and war: running away for survival.
Running away promises an alternative. Although they are in limbo, the figures are also in motion – hope.
And indeed there is a tradition of the people of Wales, usually young, having to leave Wales for employment or education. Their destination was often London. As a result the growing Welsh community in London needed somewhere to meet, socialise and worship. The first Society for the Welsh diaspora in London was created in 1751 and in 1920 another key society was set up in London, Young Wales, which in 1937 became the London Welsh Centre. This glorious meeting place continues to this day to attract the people of Wales in London, especially on Rugby International days.
A Welsh language primary school was established in Willesden in the 1950s – Ysgol Gymraeg Llundain – and there’s also the famous London Welsh Rugby Club, passed its heyday but still hanging on. Don’t forget the chapels of course, in 1936 there were 30 Welsh chapels and churches across the city. Today, 12 of these survive.
Now I’m not suggesting for a moment that this kind of reading was Kevin’s intention or motivation in the creation of this painting, no, what I am suggesting is that a powerful painting like this can allow us to contemplate alternative levels of deliberation, allow us to dig a little and see what we might find.
There is of course a major difference beyond the surface appearance of these two paintings. Titian’s painting is an illustration of a classical myth, that of Bacchus and Adriadne, brought to us by Roman poets. Titian’s subject is the myth itself , with all its details spread around the painting, ready for us to search and discover. Running Away treads another path, it is mythological in its atmosphere, it has the feeling of a myth, the emotion of a myth, the passion.
It is indeed a myth with a moral. Perhaps leading us to the notion of the need to run away from trouble and maybe the impossibility of running away from trouble. Who knows.
Running Away with the Hairdresser was voted as the most popular painting in Wales in 2014. It’s huge, life-size and is the property of the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, where it can generally be seen.
Titan’s Bacchus and Adriadne is part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery in London
Just for fun, here’s a photograph I found . . . how sweet a connection can be.
Stimulating article, thanks. The Kevin Sinnott painting might also speak of that yearning that led to so many diaspora such as the huge migration to the USA.
Showing the Titian at the same time is interesting. I feel the yearning there may be for something more basic.
Art at that time, and even in Venice, was dominated by the will of wealthy patrons and the church. Venice could show off its wealth with sumptuous colours and expensive pigments. There is a lot of lapis lazuli ground up to produce that wonderful ultramarine blue sky and flowing robes. The only place they could get it was from Afghanistan mines. Donkeys carting it over the mountains. Outremer is a French word describing anything from overseas and started in Crusader times.
So wealth was being flaunted but also human flesh. Bible stories didn’t quite fit the bill so Greco-Romano myths would come in handy.