Lifestyle Magazines, Tanzania, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and George Jackson
In 2011/12 I started a series of drawing based on the contents
of a popular lifestyle magazine. The magazine promised the “hottest fashion and beauty buys
that are green and gorgeous”
Articles promoted 'green and 'country' living with models
wearing dresses priced between £700 and £965, sandals of wood or shoes of leather priced between £450 - £500 and a £3,600 watch. Celebrities were depicted living a ‘native’ lifestyle with a
host of adverts for face cream, sun cream and cereal for health eating and life changing experiences.
Amongst the articles was one titled 'The Tribe' promoting an eco-lifestyle
amongst the Masai locals in Tanzania, flights to there from £675.
The article included photographs of models, described as 'warrior princesses', running in silk and cotton dresses, costing between £1,365 and £1,600, and wearing expensive jewellery alongside ‘locals’. The dress patterns were, according to the article, based on traditional clothes - the locals wore 'traditional' clothes, carried spears and shields.
I’d always been interested in the 'incongruity' of ‘social’
articles in such lifestyle magazines but this one stood out. There wasn’t just
one but a whole magazine full of articles about ‘social issues’ with models
wearing expensive clothes, interspersed with adverts for some of the biggest
brands of makeup, jewellery, creams and body adornments.
My substantive paid work got in the way, and the drawings just sat in a file. In 2017 I dug them out again and began linking them to
two reminiscences.
The 16th October 2018 will be the 50th
anniversary of the 1968 Olympic 200-meter final in which Tommie Smith won in a
world-record time of 19.83 seconds, John Carlos was third with a time of
20.10 seconds. Australia's Peter Norman finished second with a time of
20.06 seconds.
The race itself would have probably disappeared into Olympic
history but for the medal ceremony. The Black Power salute given by Tommie Smith and John Carlos meant that
they would never represent America again but the image and their place in Black
history was to live on. I can remember this event and the fuss in the media. In 2008 they were awarded Arthur Ashe Courage Awards at the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly
Award to honour their actions.
In 1974 I read Soledad Brother, The Prison Letters of George
Jackson, a book I still have.
“When he was eighteen, George Jackson was sentenced from one
year to life for stealing $70 from a gas station. In all he spent ten years in
prison, seven and half in solitary confinement. In 1970, when he was 28, he was
charged with the murder of a prison guard in Soledad Prison and faced a
mandatory death sentence.. On 7th August 1970 he was transferred to
San Quentin. During the course of a prison riot George Jackson was killed on 21st
August 1971”
Soledad Brother – The
Prison Letters of George Jackson, 1970
The book had a profound influence on my political thinking
In 2017 I began putting together these three stimuluses, I
haven’t quite got there yet but these drawings and sketches are part of that
journey.
The work is still in development but is has moved forward and will be completed this year.
