Norman Ackroyd What Do Artists Do All Day?

I don't have any kind of grand plan.

I just go where instinct takes me.

And I just wanted to see what they call the "outliers",

the last little bits of land sticking up out of the ocean.

I actually feel this is what I should be doing.

Squeeze the essence out of it

and put it down in a very elegant and simple way.

I'm going to take pot luck that I've got it.

RADIO: '..Forties, Portland, Plymouth, Biscay,

'FitzRoy, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea, Shannon, Rockall...'

The start of the day is absolutely crucial.

I'm usually up at about six o'clock, half past.

The idea that I could make a living out of art was just a joke,

in a family of butchers.

It was an incredibly fertile place,

and the staff stood back and just let it happen.

It was very experimental.

You know, the great things of art

are the human figure and the landscape it lives in.

I'm just trying to get a resonance of humanity.

There it is.

Just help yourself.

Some days, I have a really big production day,

and today's one of those.

I always start off with a good bowl of porridge.

Porridge was a thing I had every morning before going to school

from being about the age of three.

And old habits die hard.

HE WHISTLES SOFTLY

It's very important that you get into the right state of mind,

so I can just really... Really thinking about what I'm going to do.

I'm actually taking myself back...

..and remembering being out on the boat

and remembering the image, remembering the feeling of it.

Even though I'm here right in the middle of London,

mentally, I'm right out on the top of the Shetlands.

When I first came to Bermondsey...

I was brought up in a very industrial and working-class area

just south of the bridge in Leeds.

And this is a similar area.

It somehow felt

very much like home, you know?

I felt very comfortable here.

It had been a warehouse. Nobody had ever lived in this building before.

It was incredibly run-down when I first moved in, about 30 years ago.

But I also wanted somewhere with space.

An etching studio is a factory, really.

It seemed to me in this building,

I could set up a proper etching workshop.

And we turned the top two floors into a home.

And so I lived above the shop.

Which was a great tradition in the Ackroyd family in Yorkshire.

South Leeds is very much the working-class area of Leeds.

My father was a butcher.

And it was...very, very, very hard work.

It was assumed that we had to help out in the family business.

That was my childhood.

My elder brothers and my father, they all thought it was a joke.

You don't make a living out of art.

My two great bulwarks were my mother

and my art teacher at grammar school,

who had identified me as somebody who really wanted to do it,

and gave me the keys to the art room

and the keys to the materials cupboards in the art room.

That was serious encouragement.

So, we were told, if we wanted to live in this building,

that we'd got to put a fire stair here.

But it also becomes a nice gallery, and one can hang a big picture here,

see it from up there and see it from down below.

There's a little etching here

of Stac Lee and Stac an Armin at St Kilda.

I let my assistant choose to keep changing what's in here,

and she brings out things I'd forgotten I'd done sometimes.

That is the...

Bishop Rock in the Scilly Isles -

the most southwesterly point of the British Isles.

If you go to the extreme northern point of the British Isles,

which is the northern point of the Shetland Isles,

there's a little run of rocks

with a lighthouse on it. It's called Muckle Flugga.

It's absolutely spectacular.

And this is really an image that I absolutely love.

I've been wanting to do this big copper plate of the image

for a long time.

Really, I've been drawing on this plate now,

on and off, for three or four days.

The first etchings were done on armour.

The king would have his armour all engraved,

you know, to make it look good.

And the next level down in society would have it etched.

It's a little bit like going to Burton's for your suit.

Engraving is engraved with a V-shaped tool,

cutting into the metal, rather than cutting into the metal with acid.

Etching is engraving with acid.

It's a great medium. I just love the medium of etching.

I've never tired of it from when I first did it 50-odd years ago.

A print from an etching, of course, is a reverse of the plate.

It prints from the plate. It's a direct print.

So when you're working from drawings

or something that needs to be the right way round,

and you want some kind of reference,

you've got to take that reference

in the mirror,

so that it's the same way round as the plate.

I don't think about the marks I'm making. I let the marks happen.

There's a huge desire to make the marks. That's the heart.

I let the eye look at it

and the hand just do what the eye and heart wants.

And I just respond to it, because I feel I want to do it.

So it's very instinctive.

I want to...

just have a look and see...

I think that's got to be right.

Got to be right.

I'm sure I've got it.

This is almost, to me, you see, a bit like music. It's very abstract.

Although it's hanging on a particular piece of geology,

I'm actually after something that is abstract.

I'm not after representing this.

Ultimately, everything I do has got an abstract basis.

I mean, that one is two triangles.

But it's a very abstract image, if you look at it.

Do you...?

I can see it now.

And there is that kind of...

something in it.

You know?

In most of the things that I do,

it's got a kind of balance.

But it's based on something that really exists

and I quite like that. You know?

I was very, very lucky

to arrive at the Royal College of Art in 1961.

I arrived at the Royal College of Art for my first term,

and I don't think anybody could understand a word I said.

There seemed to be all sorts of really fashionable, smart people.

They'd all been watching too much Noel Coward or something.

At first, it was quite frightening.

But I gradually looked at what everybody was doing,

and thought, "Well, I'm as good as all this lot. Better, maybe."

The Royal College of Art became the centre of so much

in the '60s.

You know...art, music, and everything.

It was really blossoming.

People were going off in all sorts of directions.

It was the Pop Art movement.

I did all sorts of funny things, like...

You know, but generally, landscape was always what...

I'd get excited by.

Right.

This really is the etching factory.

This is where all the acid work goes, the printing.

Mainly drawing on the floor above.

Drawing of the plates and things.

Here, we do all the processing of the copper.

I've just ground up some very fine pine resin.

And I want to lay a very fine layer of it on that plate.

Aquatint is almost like a random half-tone.

You let the resin fall on the plate very evenly

and then you melt it.

I'll be melting it with the gas poker.

And then it looks like the surface of fine sandpaper.

And then, when the acid acts on it, it gets in between the dots.

It's almost like a wash. It's almost like watercolour,

if you do it properly.

The resin comes in lumps, like that.

It's the resin that you rub on violin bows.

So it's very brittle.

You can grind it, and then you know that it's really fine and dry.

Because I want to get a really beautiful, fine aquatint

on the plate.

There was always a problem with etching and engraving -

how to get whole areas of tone.

In Rembrandt's time,

Rembrandt just used to cross-hatch by furring up the plate.

But there's arguments about who first invented aquatint.

The French say it was them,

but I've seen aquatints that were done in this county in about 1670.

So I put some of it in the box,

and this box, you've got a paddle wheel in it,

which really activates the resin.

And it comes out like a beautiful, even layer of snow on the plate.

And then you wind the paddle wheel.

That resin that I've just ground

is now up there.

When I open the door, you can see the cloud of resin.

That's...that's perfect.

Now, it should be ready in about ten minutes,

but it doesn't matter if it's there for three or four hours.

All right? All that happens

is the really fine stuff carries on settling.

This is Jose's.

This is my cafe.

HE CHUCKLES

By one o'clock, this place is shoulder to shoulder.

So I've come in while it's quiet, and maybe have a read of the paper

and think about what I've been doing.

And then I'm probably going out just as it's getting solid.

It's absolutely stunning, and it's a great bonus for me,

because it's just across the road.

If I've been up since half past five, working,

sometimes, if I've had a really good morning,

I think, "Well, that's it."

And I'll come and have really nice...two or three tapas here

and then I'll maybe go and do something quieter in the afternoon.

When people come to see me, I bring them in here

as well.

Lovely, thank you.

I'm thinking maybe a glass of...

the Flower and the Bee, the Souson?

I...I'm, er...

I might not be drinking this lunchtime.

-OK?

-That's fine.

-We'll think about it. Thanks.

Thanks.

I'm not drinking, because I'm using acid.

And I might be using the press.

And, er...it's like drinking and driving. You don't etch and drink.

This is fantastic ham.

Have a slice, go on.

One of the great things about etching is you can't rush it.

And so there becomes times just like this

when you've just got to take a break.

Yeah?

And that's one of the great bonuses of the process,

because you've got time to... Again, time to think about it,

reflect on what you're doing

and get back in the zone

about how you're going to use the acid on the plate,

because...

the use of the acid, the etching of the plate,

is absolutely crucial.

It's got to be done with great delicacy and timing.

The great disaster is to over-etch,

over-bite the plate,

because you just can't go backwards.

So you really are on a high wire

when you're using the acid.

I went and lived in New York for a few months.

This was about 1970.

And worked there,

to see if I...

At that time, it wasn't out of the question

that I would actually go and live in America.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

There was so much going on in America.

You read about it in the magazines and everything

and the artists who were over there,

and what life was like in Manhattan.

And, er...

quite a lot of my contemporaries had gone over there,

were going over there.

So I really wanted to go.

MUSIC: "Superfly" by Curtis Mayfield

# Darkest of night With the moon shining bright

# There's a set goin' strong Lotta things goin' on

# The man of the hour Has an air of great power

# The dudes have envied him for so long

# Oh, Superfly

# You're gonna make your fortune by and by

# But if you lose Don't ask no questions why

# The only game you know is Do or Die

# Ah, ah, ah... #

And then I woke up one morning and I think...

"No, this is too hysterical for my mentality."

You know?

And I suddenly... The pull was not just homesickness,

there was something else.

Now we're melting that resin.

We'll see it melting. Can you see it melting?

And when it melts, it forms into small globules,

and it's almost like a random...

..half-tone.

That is perfect.

That's done.

Now the acid's going into the plate, OK?

The acid is etching between the grains of the aquatint we put on.

And so it will grip.

The ink will grip. If we didn't have the aquatint on,

it would just take the surface of the plate down

and it wouldn't hold any ink, so there'd be no tone.

I know this image so well now that I...

that I can find my way around it, you know?

It's really on the...on the retina.

People etch in different ways, OK?

And so...

And some people really like knocking the plate flat

and burnishing it. I prefer treating it almost like painting.

-OK.

-How do you know it's ready?

It's just a guess.

I don't have any kind of great career plan. Never have.

I came back and just got on with it, really.

Only about six months after I'd come back from Manhattan,

I decided to go to the Orkney Islands. I remember.

And I went up and...

and was absolutely astounded by the Orkney Islands.

Going round and seeing the Old Man of Hoy emerge.

Standing there, sentient,

against the cliffs of St John's Head.

And you think, "This is spectacular."

As soon as I got there, I went down to the pub

and I found the fishermen.

They said, "Come down at half past three, four o'clock in the morning.

"Bring yourself a sandwich."

And we went out into the Atlantic,

right underneath the Old Man of Hoy and underneath the cliffs.

It was fantastic.

And they're shooting lobster creels,

and I'm sitting up on the top of the housing,

because they wanted me out of the way, drawing.

And I thought, "I actually feel...

"this is what I should be doing."

I wanted to squeeze the essence out of it

and put it down in a very elegant and simple way.

You know, I'm going to take pot luck that I've got it.

OK? It's a matter of making decisions.

And you can over-etch, as well.

And sometimes probably it's better to under-etch.

The number of times I've finished a plate, not knowing it.

I've gone on and added another state,

and I've come back, "God, I've finished it!"

And you've done too much.

Oh, God, it's good. It doesn't need to be any further.

It's a wonderful medium!

It's absolutely... Look what's happening there.

That copper - and there's a ghost of an image coming in it.

Can you see it?

There's the lighthouse.

There.

It could be very, very nice and soft, could this.

This is a wonderful sea chart of the whole of the British archipelago.

Each of the pins is where I've actually made etchings.

The plate that we're working on is right up here,

the most northerly point of the British Isles.

The Shetland Islands. The top island of Shetland is Unst.

And off there is the most northerly rocks.

I don't have any kind of grand plan.

I just go where instinct takes me.

And I just want to see what they call the "outliers",

the last little bits of land sticking up out of the ocean.

And, er...

I just wanted to go to them.

And then it sort of made a set, it made a group.

It made a kind of idea that I got quite excited about.

This little group of islands sitting off the edge of Europe,

which sits on the end of Asia

and then you've got 3,000 miles of ocean

until you come to the Americas.

So it really is the edge of everything.

HE WHISTLES SOFTLY

Ink mix 18, 1, 13.

It's made out of natural blacks.

There's bone black, vine black.

But how you make it... You burn something like bone

or vine leaves, so you get vine black, bone black.

Peach black, from peach stones.

You know?

And it's not just that they're slightly different colours.

Some are grittier than others.

Some are softer.

This is Beaujeu black. It's a French black.

But then I'd mix it with some pure carmine pigment.

And carmine has got a lot of elasticity

and will stretch through a soft aquatint very nicely.

So we mix some pure carmine in with it.

I'm hoping to get something really soft.

Now, you can start to see the image coming up as it's going to print.

OK? Hopefully.

Oh, that's lovely.

God, it runs so beautifully.

It's effortless, isn't it?

I've put a hell of a lot of work into this.

And it could be a disaster.

On the other hand, if it's not... If it's...

If it's a good state on the way...

..it's, um...

It's a day well spent.

It just needs a little bit more nip.

But it's not bad, you know.

And it needs another...

Just a thicker blanket on the back.

That's a good start.

There's a few little things need adjusting.

But as a first state...

..that'll do.

There's various things need polishing out here.

But the general structure of it is...

is quite nice.

So it's a good start.

I'm actually starting to feel very happy with it.

But it's only just registering.

I'm starting to feel all right about it.

It's got a kind of simplicity, hasn't it, really?

The journey you've taken to get to this stage...

-It's quite epic.

-Yeah.

But there's not much else to do, is there?

Keeps me out of bother.

To some extent.

It's, er...

It's a great medium, you know, and it's...

It's actually fantastic to be able to do it for a living.

I never forget that.

You know?

To be able to do this for a living is just fantastic.

I do love this map.

I can live on this map, almost.

All my life I've wanted to explore it,

and also, when I got there, I found there was great subject matter.

HE WHISTLES SOFTLY

HE HUMS "Sailing By"

RADIO: 'Becoming variable 4 in southeast Iceland.

'Wintry showers, moderate or good.

'Now the weather reports from coastal stations for 2300.

'Tiree Automatic, west by south 4,

'five miles, 995, falling slightly.

'Stornoway northeast 5...'

So many places I still want to go to and I've never even set foot on.

There's enough stuff here for a dozen lifetimes.

You know?

I'm just...I'm just scratching the surface, really.

HE WHISTLES

RADIO: '..falling slowly.

'Aberdeen, southwest by south 2,

'16 miles, 994, falling slowly.

'Leuchars, west-southwest 5, 21 miles, 996,

'falling slowly.

'Bulmer, southwest by west 5, ten miles, 999, falling slowly...'

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