Jack Vettriano What Do Artists Do All Day?

-MAN SINGS:

-# She wore blue velvet

# Bluer then velvet were her eyes... #

The fact is I love to see craftsmanship.

I love to see craft.

# She wore blue velvet

# Whoa, whoa

# Bluer than velvet were her eyes

# Whoa, whoa, whoa

# Warmer than May her tender sighs

# Love was ours

# Ours a love I held tightly... #

I think what I do, is that at least I try.

And I love that part in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

when Jack Nicholson tries to lift the big basin.

And he doesn't do it.

And he turns round and he looks at the rest of them and he says,

"At least I tried."

And that's what I think I do. At least I'm prepared to paint

and put it up on the wall, and you can have go at it if you like.

MUSIC: "When The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash

# There's a man going round taking names

# And he decides who to free and who to blame

# Everybody won't be treated all the same

# There'll be a golden ladder reaching down

# When the man comes around...#

KNOCKING

MUSIC: "Wondrous Place" by Billy Fury

# I found a place full of charms

# A magic world in my baby's arms

# Her soft embrace like satin and lace

# A wondrous place... #

I'm like a director.

But you don't get a movie from me, you get just one shot.

It's a kind of nostalgia, purely escapism.

It just takes you somewhere else.

# A wondrous place

# Man, I'm nowhere

# When I'm anywhere else... #

I'm usually painting by five o'clock.

You know, steal a march on the world and get up early

and get on with the bloody job.

# Her tender hands on my face... #

I paint in this bay window.

I'm not somebody who, you know, who throws paint around.

Buckets of this and rolls of canvas and stuff.

Everything is fairly tight.

So I knew that if I was tidy enough, this would do me just nicely.

INTERVIEWER: What's this one called?

This painting is called For My Lover.

It's really to do with the fine art of preparing yourself for courtship.

I say that tongue in cheek.

But we are no different from any other species.

Is that when we want to meet a member of the opposite sex,

or even same sex, is that we make ourselves look as good as we can.

And this woman painting her toenails and it's called For My Lover.

And she's having a glass of wine

because she knows the night is going to go quite well.

Or she hopes the night is going to go quite well.

In the early days I can recall a critic saying,

"Jack Vettriano is not a painter, he just colours in."

And another one saying...

.."Jack Vettriano is a painter by numbers."

And I just find that arrogance to be breathtaking,

really breathtaking because that, to me, is not criticism.

That's almost violence.

I personally...

PHONE RINGS

INTERVIEWER: Are you going to get that?

It might happen now and again. British Gas are after me.

I was born in November 1951.

I lived in a town called Methil.

At that time, that area of Fife relied completely on coal mining.

My father was a coalminer, my grandfather was a coalminer,

and it was pretty poor.

Me and my brother had to share a bed.

And the bathroom, I remember,

was kept immaculately clean, for visitors.

So my dad had to shave at the kitchen sink.

And all my father ever said to me was,

"Look, get a trade, just get a trade."

And I was down the pits at 16.

I think the only people that romanticise about working down a pit

are people that never worked down a pit.

You know, it's hellish, it really is hellish.

And I paint what I paint because it's escapism.

And for me, what romance was, was fur coats

and cigarette holders, and nylons and stilettos and make-up.

You know, that's what I paint.

JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

Well, having never attended art classes for any length of time,

I think that I realised fairly early on that

I don't want to work with anybody around me.

I don't want to have a model sitting there for three days at a time.

I want the photographs taken. And I want her out of here.

When I first started to get recognition,

I felt a bit fraudulent about working from photographs.

But I think... I think most artists do.

INTERCOM BUZZES

-Hiya, Kara.

-'Hi, Jack.'

-First floor. Come up.

-'Coming.'

-Hello.

-Hiya.

-How are you?

-Lovely to see you again.

-Good to see you.

Come on in.

-I'll get you a cup of tea in a second.

-Oh, I love this room!

We've got, I think, about six outfits for you to try.

Outfit number one.

-Oh, my God.

-I like this.

It's lovely. What colour is that? Is it cerise?

-I would say fuchsia but...

-But I can't spell fuchsia.

No, neither can I!

THEY LAUGH

I suppose secretly I'd quite like a dark, oomphy picture by Jack.

I would say the dark side, the seven sins side.

But I've got a feeling there's a car involved.

I've had lots of photo shoots done in the past

and seen photos of myself, but never a painting.

I think what a lovely thing to have.

Not that I'm getting it.

I don't think he said I can have it!

# Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin... #

I love this one.

As Marlon Brando said in a film, "I could have been a contender."

-Yeah.

-That could be a contender.

-I think this is a real...

-Yeah, yeah.

# Dance me to the end of love

# Dance me to the end of... #

I think I made a mistake with that.

Oh, I'm glad this is the last one.

Ooh.

What are you doing on Saturday?

HE LAUGHS WRYLY

Erm... I love that because I think that it's going to be a grey day

in London and you're going to be in a grey mood,

and I just love this splash of colour.

Right, well, thanks very much, that was great.

I'll see you...

-Friday, 11 o'clock.

-I look forward to it.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Thank you.

Have a good day. Right, see you then.

-See you on Friday.

-Take care, bye.

-Lots of love.

I was painting a lot of paintings to do with love and affection,

betrayal, you know, everyday things we all do,

or some of us do.

I was busy painting people in bedrooms and bars and stuff.

And then I thought, "Where do people who fall in love...

"where are they drawn to?"

They are clearly drawn to beaches.

Most people, given the opportunity, would dance on the beach with

the one they love with a butler sheltering them from the rain.

You put that up on the wall, and perhaps it gives you some hope.

It would be churlish of me to say that I'm not proud of that painting.

But it's got me into a few scrapes because I painted the figures

directly out of Artists & Illustrators manual,

and then somebody came across it.

And went to a newspaper in Scotland and said,

"Here's what he's done."

And they made a huge thing out of,

"Oh, he's copied this, he's copied that."

And I said, "Look, that's what the book was for."

MID-TEMPO JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

I don't say this lightly. The public support for me has been astonishing.

I've never denied that I would like recognition

from the National Galleries of Scotland or Tate.

I often think that, where would you rather be?

Would you rather be hanging on people's walls,

or would you rather be in the basement of the Tate?

SULTRY MUSIC PLAYS

I don't think that the art establishment take sex seriously.

In this country we're still thinking that...

"Mmm, sex, oh, no, that's not serious. That's not serious."

If I were to paint industrial decline or inner city drug abuse,

you can't help but think that might be taken quite seriously.

But a woman painting her toenails for her lover.

That's just Benny Hill.

# Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

# Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in

# Lift me like an olive branch... #

I like to think I'm very considerate when I'm working with models,

in so far as I always tell them what the idea is.

Perhaps you may be looking like a streetwalker or something,

so that they don't get the sense of being exploited in any way.

# Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone... #

And there have been women who have said, "No, I'd rather not do that.

"It doesn't seem right for me."

Which I've always thought quite odd, because in the acting profession,

I mean, nobody really thinks Sharon Stone goes around with no pants on.

ROCK'N'ROLL MUSIC PLAYS

Lovely to see you.

-So good to see you.

-You're looking good.

Thank you.

-Right, erm...

-Wow!

John, come in.

This is Kara Tointon. This is John Swannell.

-Lovely to meet you.

-Nice to see you too.

British icon, British icon, British icon.

And some obscure painter.

HE GIGGLES

I once had a relationship with somebody

who I shouldn't have had a relationship with.

And we used to meet.

We both used to drive to a certain spot.

Then one day, she just never turned up.

The idea is that I want Kara to be playing the role

that I was playing at that point in time.

And so I'm trying to create you know, this beautiful woman

who's about to be terribly, terribly disappointed.

I often put women in my paintings to play the role

that I would be playing, because I'm a wee bit shy about saying,

"I got my heart broken."

So I make it a woman so I get off the hook, and I don't have to say,

"Oh, yeah, that's me, dumped again."

I've been having an affair for quite some time.

We've been meeting at this particular venue,

all through the summer.

And this evening, the guy is not going to turn up.

And there's a lot of heartbreak in that, so it's quite a sad story.

So I've got to channel sad thoughts, of, you know,

she's going to get her heart broken.

No, that's OK. Just push... That's nice.

Just turn your head to the mirror.

Can you close your mouth in some of them?

I'm not very good at doing teeth.

-John, this is my job.

-Sorry?

This is my job.

Good, and then just over your shoulder again.

CAMERA CLICKS

John Swannell's taking over my job.

But he is good.

When I first became a painter, that is a professional painter,

up until then, I just copied paintings

because I didn't have any ideas.

Just try it. Being a bit impatient, just stick that hand on your hip.

Just a bit impatient - that's lovely.

What is it that means anything to you?

Because I do believe as an artist

there has to be a degree of integrity.

The work has to come from here, you know.

And I thought the things that move me

have been in front of me all my life.

They're called women.

Kara, could you lean back?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, yeah.

Lovely, it's got a nice mood to it.

MUSIC: "Hey Good Lookin'" by Hank Williams

-JACK SINGS:

-# Hey good lookin'

# What ya got cookin'

# How's about cookin' something up with me... #

# Hey, sweet baby

# Don't you think maybe

# We could find us a brand new recipe

# I got a hot rod Ford and a two dollar bill

# And I know a spot right over the hill... #

Right, that's me, ready to roll.

And here we go.

You just really hope that you've got your colours right.

You know, I'm one of the few painters who paint

in a realist and figurative way.

And this is my territory and I will defend it

and I'll try to look after it until I stop breathing.

MUSIC: "Dink's Song" by Bob Dylan

# Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well... #

I must confess to you, I'm not too pleased

with the colour of this chrome, I'm really not.

I'm sorry I'm slightly distracted here, um...

Oh, Christ!

RATTLING

The problem is that this area here, this is supposed to be chrome.

Then when I look at that, there's a section there that is not.

That's the colour of the car.

So I'm going to take a rag

and lift that paint right out of there and try to get this colour,

the colour of the car, down there on a strip.

That's just what you would call an irritation.

Because it's not as though I've never painted before.

You know, I ought to know what I'm doing.

So, um... Yeah, I'm a wee bit disappointed in myself

for getting this wrong.

Yesterday was just a bit of a bloody nightmare, because...

Oh, shit!

-Oh, bugger.

-INTERVIEWER: What's wrong?

I've just put too much...

I forgot that the brush had turps on it.

DRILLING OUTSIDE

INTERVIEWER: You don't feel you're having a great day?

No, I'm...

DRILLING STOPS

DRILLING STARTS UP AGAIN

Oh, Christ!

Well, if this doesn't work,

let's blame it on the roadworks.

I just I haven't...

Haven't prepared well enough for this, even in my mind.

Erm...

And, er...

This just is not...

DRILLING STARTS AGAIN

This just isn't the quality that I could do.

This is just a bloody nightmare.

MUSIC: "Personal Jesus" by Johnny Cash

It's just not good enough.

# Your own personal Jesus

# Someone to hear your prayers

# Someone who cares

# Your own personal Jesus

# Someone to hear your prayers... #

That's it.

So... That's what I call turping.

HE SIGHS DEEPLY

# Well, my friends have gone and my hair is grey

# I ache in the places where I used to play

# And I'm crazy for love

# But I'm not coming on

# I'm just paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song... #

The last exhibition I was at was Francis Bacon at the Tate.

I just got this awful feeling that I was looking at a real artist.

And I felt, not fraudulent,

but I started to think that my art just didn't stand up.

And I remember feeling almost breathless.

And I don't think I painted for about two weeks,

because I felt like a sham.

And it took me two weeks to recover.

And think, "No, Jack. That's Francis Bacon, that's what he did.

"This is what you do. Don't get the two things confused."

MUSIC: "Crazy" by Patsy Cline

# Crazy

# I'm crazy for feeling so lonely

# I'm crazy

# Crazy for feeling so blue... #

Well, after yesterday's very disappointing day,

I've decided to go back to my original idea, which was

a full-size study of Kara.

I can't promise you much today.

But what I can promise is that this will come to life very quickly.

Well, what I'm going to do is to start to pick out

the highlights in the car.

That is to say, you know,

the areas that the sunlight hits the car.

Suddenly, something which was kind of flat and 2D,

suddenly starts to ping.

Um... I'm quite pleased with it.

Right, so you pick up a bit of light paint, and you know what I do?

I cross my fingers.

HE LAUGHS

I don't think there's much more I can do to this,

so we'll stick it in the frame and see how it looks.

I don't think it's the best painting I've ever done,

but it's a study and it's whether... Does this work?

And I think it does. I think it does.

I think that looks pretty good.

I think it's quite a sexy little piece.

She looks great there,

you know, standing waiting for her lover.

So... Well done, Jack.

I wish sometimes that I could appreciate my success a bit more,

but it's just not my nature.

# If I had wings... #

I've been blessed with a certain gift that is appreciated by people.

And I'm cursed with this mind

that doesn't quite ever give itself peace or give itself credit.

# Fair thee well, my honey fare thee well...#

And to quote the bard, Leonard Cohen, he says,

"People think I'm miserable and that I'm suicidal, but I'm not."

It's just that this is my mode. This is my personality.

I like to examine religion, I like to examine love.

The last thing I am is cutting edge.

I just believe that you have a vision

and you know what you want to do.

Honesty. I put a lot of... I put a lot of...

What's the word I'm looking for?

INTERVIEWER: Store?

I put a lot of store in honesty, yeah.

MUSIC: "Hey Ho" by The Lumineers

# Hey

# Ho

# I been trying to do it right

# Hey

# I been living a lonely life

# Ho

# I been sleeping here instead

# Hey

# I been sleeping in my bed

# Ho

# I been sleeping in my bed

# Hey

# Ho. #