Then Alice
Then
Alice
This, exactly this, is what I spent my teenage years dreaming of, holed up in my bedroom, surrounded by sketchpads and pencils, as if I could somehow draw myself away from my father’s scorn into a world of decadence and liberation.
From my first incendiary meeting with Jake a few weeks ago, I have morphed into the band’s ‘artist in residence’, a title he jokingly bestowed upon me when I sketched them picnicking in St James’s Park.
The idea has grown from me creating an image for the album cover to documenting the fledgling stages of a band already being talked about as the new Rolling Stones. I’ve drawn them on stage, drinking halves of beer in the French House, playing football in the park. My favourite is one of Jake dressed in a black polo neck and his flared black jeans, cross-legged on the floor, a mug of coffee beside him. I like the everydayness of it, the reminder that I see him in a way no else does; he is mine, that’s what I think when I look at this drawing.
Sometimes, especially when he’s stoned, Jake talks about the times we’re living in, this age of reinvention and aspiration, where anything might happen and you can be whoever you want.
‘We’re young at exactly the right time, when people are prepared to take a chance on us. When we can make our own success.’
The first time he said this, I thought: it’s all right for you, you’re already halfway there, the front cover of Sounds magazine, two Top 20 singles under your belt. Me? I’m a nobody. Just an undergraduate art student racked with ambition and the need to impress her father. But his self-belief is infectious, and with the band’s flattering and constant acclaim, I’m beginning to hope that perhaps I might be halfway there too.
And then the most extraordinary thing happens. A casual Tuesday at the Slade, no classes, and I’m in the studio working on a painting of the boys, Eddie, Jake and Tom all in black, lounging on a violet sofa, that wonderful juxtaposition of masculine and feminine. I’m interested in the pale purple slashes of this fabric, the mottling of silver grey where the material has rubbed, and I’m trying out a tight stippling technique to achieve it. Next to me, Rick has almost finished a portrait of David Bowie, borrowed from a Sunday supplement photograph but colour-washed in red. The effect is like a red-based sepia; it looks amazing.
Neither of us has spoken for hours, there have been no tea breaks; our absorption is absolute.
When Lawrence Croft, the principal, walks through the door, without warning or ceremony, accompanied by Robin Armstrong, the famous gallery owner and patron of Disciples, it takes us a few seconds to register their presence.
‘Hard at work, I see,’ Lawrence says. ‘These two always are. I don’t think workaholic is too strong a word.’
‘Mind if I take a look?’ Robin asks, and inwardly we both recoil – I know this without looking – but Rick says, ‘Of course,’ and stands up to allow him a clearer view.
‘I always see Bowie in red too,’ Robin says, after a good minute or two of looking. ‘It must be the Ziggy Stardust lightning flash. I liked your self-portrait in San Lorenzo, by the way. I’ve been keeping an eye on you.’
It’s hard to keep a straight face, knowing how this remark will have Rick doing inner cartwheels of joy, but we both remain nonchalant, casual.
‘Do you plan on staying with portraiture? Unfashionable right now, of course.’
‘I don’t really care about that,’ Rick says. ‘I’m interested in people. I want to catch that moment of honesty when you get a glimpse of who they really are. I’m quite ruthless. If there’s no chemistry between me and the sitter, I’ll just abandon it halfway through.’
Robin nods at this, and a glance passes between him and Lawrence before he turns to examine my painting.
‘I’ve come to know these boys rather well and your likenesses are exceptional. Jake tells me you’re documenting this phase of their career with informal sketches?’
‘To begin with I was working on artwork for the new album. But the project has sort of grown.’
‘I think there might be something more interesting to be done with this, given that Disciples have a record to promote, one I’m keen to support however I can. Why don’t you and Jake pop into the gallery tomorrow evening? Bring any finished sketches with you and we’ll have a proper chat.’
The Robin Armstrong Gallery is in Duke Street, next door to the Bernard Jacobson Gallery, which has a Lucian Freud charcoal in the window, a nude woman with unevenly sized breasts and cartoonish kohl-rimmed eyes. Freud gave a lecture in our first term, one hundred per cent attendance from students and tutors and a relatively forgettable seminar about colour. The thing I remember most clearly is the coffee afterwards, where he was to be seen locked in earnest conversation with a gaggle of pretty female students.
To see Freud displayed in the next-door window, to know that I am about to have an informal chat with one of the most revered gallerists in London, is to tremor with nerves. But I have Jake by my side, the top half of his body almost hidden behind my one finished canvas, the boys picnicking in Hyde Park. He pauses just before we reach the door.
‘Alice,’ he says, lowering the canvas so that I can look into his eyes. ‘There is absolutely nothing to worry about.’
The gallery is closed, but an assistant unlocks the door for us and shows us into Robin’s office, bypassing walls hung with his most famous clients: Gillian Ayres, Peter Sedgley. In contrast to the sparse white-walled gallery, the office has the feel of an old gentleman’s club, or at least how I’d imagine one: deep-red and chocolate-brown colours, a magnificent leather-topped desk where Robin is sitting, an ancient-looking chesterfield sofa for his visitors. The room is crammed with artefacts: carved ebony heads, a marble nude, a framed series of painted gradient circles, each one more intensely coloured and mesmerising than the last; you realise on entering that here is a man who has dedicated his life to beauty. He is dressed in a navy velvet suit with a pale yellow silk shirt, and he stands up as we walk in, arms around Jake in an enveloping hug, for me a European kiss on both cheeks.
He gestures to the sofa, and the three of us sit like podded peas, me in the middle, flipping through my sketchbooks.
At first Robin says nothing, and I fill the silence with background noise about each sketch. It’s easier when I’m talking about Jake, my specialist subject; I’m able to tell him why I think something works and what I was trying to achieve.
Together we examine a drawing of Jake sitting up in bed bare-chested, notepad balanced on his knees. He is songwriting and completely absorbed, one of the best times to draw him. I’ve caught the abstraction in the way he concentrates, an almost dreamlike quality, yet his focus is so absolute it’s as if he is surrounded by an impenetrable wall.
‘For me this works because Jake is unguarded, lost in thought. It’s obvious to the viewer that he’s thinking about a song, and I think it shows the effort and intensity that goes into the creation of the music.’
‘Do you know, Alice, I rather think you’re on to something.’
Robin stands up and walks back to his desk.
‘You’ll be with the band in Italy, I assume?’
Jake says, ‘We haven’t got around to that, but of course you should come. If you’d like to.’ He looks at me quickly and squeezes my leg.
‘It’s an important stage in the band’s career,’ Robin says. ‘I’ll cover all your expenses, no need to worry about that.’
‘I’ve longed to go to Florence,’ I say, and he smiles for the first time.
‘Every art student should spend time in Florence, in my opinion; it really ought to be a prerequisite for a fine arts degree.’
He leans forward on his desk.
‘Your style is still developing, I can see. But what I like is the way you capture the casual immediacy of a snap. And I wonder if this should be your definition, those off-camera moments, a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the life of an up-and-coming band. All the normal stuff – cooking, washing, eating – alongside the making of music.’
‘That’s sort of what I’m trying to do already, but I also want the paintings, in particular, to be stylised and instantly recognisable rather than an almost photographic likeness.’
‘Yes, I’d agree with that. Shall we have a glass of champagne? I’ve had rather a good idea.’
While Robin is out of the room fetching the champagne, I ask Jake, ‘What do you think he means?’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. But I can tell he likes you. He’s rarely so complimentary, trust me. If he thinks something is shit, our songs included, then he says so.’
Robin opens the bottle expertly, a gentle sliding out of the cork, no pop, no fizz, and pours it into three pale turquoise glasses, so thin and fragile I am almost afraid to touch them.
‘Venetian,’ he says, when I ask. ‘Eighteenth century.’
He raises his glass and the three of us clink.
‘You know, it seems to me that the two of you are having a moment. Your careers are heading in the same direction and at exactly the same time. You’re connected not just as lovers but as artists, and I think we should capitalise on that.’
He pauses, but his eyes never leave my face.
‘Alice, how would you like to have your own show here at the gallery? Focusing on your drawings and paintings of the band, documenting six months in the life of Disciples. We could tie the show and the album launch together – maybe do both here at the gallery next year. What do you think?’
I put my glass down on the table with precision, even though my hands are beginning to shake and my heart is racing.
‘What do I think?’ I say, trying to sound considered and sensible, though it’s hard with this gigantic grin that is spreading across my face. ‘I think that sounds incredible!’
‘Excellent,’ Robin says, and he raises his glass again. ‘A toast, then. To Jacob Earl and Alice Garland, whose moment has well and truly arrived.’