If I Remember Correctly….

…. the likes of Keating and Baltracchi tell us that to convince our audience that what we’re presenting is authentic, provenance or a back-story is the starting point.

Copying paintings taught me that there was no art without effort. Careful planning, attention to detail and rejection of the slipshod or inaccurate were the keys to, maybe, moderate success. The drama of a fire in a friend’s thatched house was made newsworthy by a quick-witted passer-by, seen running from the conflagration carrying aloft a (my) Cézanne – the start of a credible back-story? – I’m not sure the Hammershoi (the one I would have saved) was so lucky.

But for me, a great deal more interesting and entertaining is the art of the pastiche. The Hillman Special is just that; something which it’s not, though it fits neatly into the casual observer’s idea of things. Randy Regier, an American artist and one time curator of The Museum of the Other American Dream (MOAD) has refined this art form to a point where pastiche and reality are all but indistinguishable.

Regier’s 2007 MFA thesis looked at the way in which social history had been recorded since the Industrial Revolution with the unwitting assistance of the humble toy. He (and other commentators) had been astute in recognising that the development of Western social structures, complete with expectations and prejudices, had been paralleled in the evolution of children’s toys.

What Regier did then (and continues to do) was to embark on an exercise that playfully subverted our memories by presenting us with ‘phantom’ toys (of the period but eluding the memory) simultaneously drawing our attention to subtexts which we, as children, wouldn’t necessarily have noticed at the time, or even since.

Accompanied by convincing back-stories, almost impeccable provenance and faux period packaging to boot, of course, we think we can kind of remember if not the actual toy, then certainly the genre. This subversion (it’s carefully engineered to leave a convincing 1% of doubt) and our response to it, demonstrates to us that history is not unalterable and, more importantly, that the facts of history may not be the truth.

I first came across Regier’s work on a website that I recommend to everyone with an interest in cars, motorcycles, aircraft, boats and everything in between – silodrome.com. The site showcased this unusual pulse-jet propelled scooter produced in the cloak-and-dagger days of the Cold War. That this scooter, its supporting documentation, photographic evidence of a production run and its subsequent deployment in the field had been over-looked or, more persuasively, suppressed, ladled gravitas in buckets on Regier’s confection.

Pre-dating the current ‘barn find’ obsession, the central theme in Regier’s thesis was supported by the story of an almost complete 1920’s, home-built racing car hidden in the basement of an old bakery in Portland, Maine. Unusually, this car was built by a woman, Anna Isaak, whose story started in just post-revolution Russia. She emigrated to the USA, worked as a welder on the Liberty ship programme and died decades later, leaving behind only a suitcase containing a few clues to her racing ambitions and personal history. Regier’s carefully convoluted research culminates in the discovery and recovery of the car.

There’s a line in Frankenheimer’s ‘Ronin’, spoken by Robert De Niro: ‘If there’s doubt, there is no doubt’.

It’s worth remembering.

It’s Got to Be Done.

As our family name is Wright, my brother’s visit with his wife on New Year’s Day reminded me of my flight to celebrate the 100th Anniversary on Dec 17th 2003, of Orville and Wilbur’s triumph at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and, as evidenced by the long shadows, the sun was low in the sky. The strip was orientated NE/SW and I took off in the north-easterly direction for a quick 10 minute trip up to 1000′ or so and home again, just so that I’d done it on the famous day and besides which, it was too blinkin’ cold to be hanging about upstairs in an open cockpit.

All went according to plan until I turned round to come back to the field. Then, as I was flying directly into the low sun I couldn’t see anything at all. I could see immediately below me and that was it. I established myself on a reciprocal course and as there wasn’t a breath of wind I was confident that I could probably set the throttle for a gentle descent of about 200′ a minute and have another look down to see where I was in a couple of minutes. At about 500′ and roughly a mile from where I thought the strip might be, I suddenly caught a flash of light on the ground – something was reflecting in the sunlight and I realised (and hoped) that it was probably the sunroof of my father’s car which he’d driven to the end of the runway so that he could capture the moment on film. I aimed for the reflection, landed completely blind and didn’t see anything in front of me until I’d touched down and was half way up the strip and in the shadow of the hangar. You don’t forget those moments!

Anyway, back to New Year’s Day and off we went to the local VSCC meeting and my car of the month was this RR. There was lots of other nice stuff and an especially desirable Bull Nose race-about but the Rolls 20/25 with coachwork by Freestone & Webb, clinched it – a very handsome car.

The Jowett Jellybean is coming on – in fact there’s almost nothing to do now except get the bloke who’s meant to be doing the door catch surrounds to extractum digitum and I see that…

.. Learned Counsel has even put the GB badge on in anticipation of a trip to Pau in the Spring.

Now the grilles are all finished and the proper headlights are in, things are looking good. And talking of things looking good, I’m a regular visitor to the website silodrome.com and amongst its articles and features I tripped over some stuff about those absolutely drop-dead gorgeous Italian speedboats that you used to see in the 50’s and 60’s films, in particular the 1958 Riva Tritone. That article led me to another site – classicwoodenboatplans.com – and it turns out you can buy the plans for these types of boats relatively cheaply and some of the boring stuff can be C-in-C cut so you can get on to the good bits a bit more quickly.

Hmmm. I’ve got a couple of Morris Six engines; hook those up to make a 12….. I think it’s got to be done.