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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
David Betteridge <\/strong>takes us along Glasgow\u2019s Byres Road, enjoying several works of public art by the late Alasdair Gray,\u00a0who died on 29 December, 2019,\u00a0the day after his 85th<\/sup> birthday<\/em><\/p>\n Perhaps the best thing I could do is write a story in which\u00a0<\/em>adjectives like <\/em>commonplace and <\/em>ordinary have the significance\u00a0<\/em>which <\/em>glorious and <\/em>divine carried in earlier comedies.\u00a0<\/em>What do you think? – Alisdair Gray<\/em>,\u00a0Lanark<\/em><\/p>\n I<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a stub. Many more hands and minds besides my own would have to be set to work, to write a piece giving proper value to Alasdair Gray\u2019s achievements. Like his admired William Blake, he was an artist as well as a writer, a lover of both the epic and the miniature, a deviser of both encyclopedias and minute particulars. He ranged over many genres, deploying details from his own life (a long one) and his own city (Glasgow), but at the same time he regarded the whole world with its many cultures and many histories as his oyster (not forgetting the cosmos in which the world has its unique place). He was, as Ali Smith wrote in an eloquent short obituary, \u201ca renaissance man\u201d. He was, she judged, the very heart of that revival in Scottish life to which he contributed, and from which he drew strength.\u00a0<\/p>\n A walk of a few hundred yards along Byres Road, in Glasgow\u2019s West End, affords a good introduction to the man and his work.\u00a0<\/p>\n II<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>On the corner overlooking the Botanic Gardens, there is a former church, now converted to a bar, restaurant and performance area called the Oran Mor, which in Gaelic means \u201cbig song\u201d or even, some would have it, \u201cgreat melody of life\u201d. That epithet describes Gray pretty well.<\/p>\n As you enter the Oran Mor from Byres Road, look down at the white and grey marble floor of the porch. There, carved into the tiles, you will see \u201cWELCOME\u201d, in 32 languages. Gray took great care with the lettering of this message, as with every aspect of every part of his quite substantial contribution to the Oran Mor\u2019s conversion. For all those words of greeting that were in the Roman alphabet, he designed his own lettering, using sans serif block capitals that slightly taper away from you as you read them. This lettering he called Oran Mor Monumental.<\/p>\n Go to the third floor. There, extending across the breadth and length of the ceiling, you will see one of Gray\u2019s largest and most ambitious works: a painting that combines myth and legend, Biblical reference and astronomical lore. \u201cIt\u2019s a song of praise to the colour blue,\u201d wrote Figgy Guyver, after a visit she paid to view it, and also \u201ca heartfelt, humanist plea for people to come together for a better future.\u201d This plea is directly expressed in words, as well as art. In gold lettering, across the roof beams, we read: \u201cWork as if you live in the early days of a better nation.\u201d This motto, borrowed from the Canadian author Dennis Lee, has been widely adopted as a motto for modern progressive Scottish politics, thanks to Gray\u2019s use of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Looking up, you will see a cross-section of Creation boldly and beautifully represented. As in Gauguin\u2019s famous Tahitian triptych, big questions are asked: \u201cWhere are we from?\u00a0 What are we?\u00a0 Where are we going?\u201d and answers are given, if we search for them.\u00a0The planets and the Milky Way give us a sense of Time and Space. The Tree of Life drives its roots into fossils and skeletons. A varied fauna and flora inhabit land, sea and air.\u00a0 A naked Adam and Eve kneel, entwined in one another\u2019s arms. A phoenix rises.\u00a0<\/p>\n The present day and the present city are not forgotten, either. Contemporary citizens, including folk who worked on, and work in, the Oran Mor have their likenesses portrayed here, honouring their labour. Gray\u2019s is a democratic intellect, and a democratic aesthetic, and a democratic structure of feeling.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0 As you leave, as a companion piece to the \u201cWELCOME\u201d on the way in, you will see, and walk on, a set of 32 carved tiles bidding you \u201cGOODBYE\u201d. Many of Gray\u2019s books end on a similarly friendly note, from his early masterpiece Lanark <\/em>onwards, as if he wanted you to feel that reading the books was akin to visiting him, maybe at home, maybe in a shared public space, and he was your host. \u201cGoodbye,\u201d he says, as you turn the last page.\u00a0 I see him as a latter-day Interpreter, as in Bunyan\u2019s The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress. <\/em>In his House, we are shown \u201cexcellent things, such as would be helpful to [us]\u201d.<\/p>\n In fact, the more you immerse yourself in the print-world of Gray\u2019s published works, the more parallels you discover between them and buildings. As you make your way through them, the books seem to have doors and windows, and rooms and corridors, and stairs and landings, with good labelling and sign-posting so you do not get lost, all in Gray\u2019s distinctively bold, clear style.<\/p>\n Gray was fortunate in having Canongate as his publisher for Lanark<\/em>, as for many subsequent books, as its owner Stephanie Wolfe-Murray gave him creative control over all aspects of its look, from the grand plan of the art-work to the details of line-spacing and indentation. Like William Blake or William Morris before him, Gray was enabled to work in the combined roles of artist, \u00a0artisan and author.<\/p>\n III<\/strong><\/p>\n After leaving the Oran Mor, turn left along Byres Road, and very soon you come to Hillhead Public Library. It was much used by Gray in the second half of his life, when he lived at various addresses in the West End, just as, in his earlier years in the East End, Riddrie Public Library had been a favourite haunt, being almost a home from home for the inveterate bibliophile.\u00a0<\/p>\n In his retrospective memoir, A Life in Pictures, <\/em>Gray tells of an occasion when one of his teachers at Whitehill Senior Secondary School invited him to give a lecture to the school\u2019s Literary and Debating Society. This he did, with specially drawn illustrations projected on an epidiascope. These illustrations are recognisably by the same hand, and from the same mind, as all his later art-work, including the Oran Mor ceiling. Gray appears to have developed his skill and found his genius very young. His chosen subject for the lecture was \u201cA Personal View of History\u201d, no less, typically encyclopaedic. He started with The Ice Age and The Stone Age, and ended with The Industrial City and The Triumph of Socialism.<\/p>\n Along this onward march, full of epic horrors, two sunnier episodes are celebrated. Babylonian priests are pictured \u00a0\u201crecording an eclipse, having devised an alphabet and calendar that made writing history possible\u201d. Later, the schoolboy lecturer showed his audience The Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus tells the people of the slave-based empires of the world that \u201cevery human soul was equally valued by God\u201d. Regrettably, his art-work for that episode was mislaid, as he explains in A Life in Pictures.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n For the end-point of History, The Triumph of Socialism, he chose as example and symbol the nearby Riddrie Public Library. \u201cI thought,\u201d he tells us, \u201cthis well-planned, well-stocked public library was a triumphant example of local egalitarian democracy.\u201d Here we find the bedrock of Gray\u2019s later more developed politics. He never lost his youthful Spirit of Forty-Five. Again, as with The Sermon on the Mount, we only have his word for it, as, for some reason, the drawing of the Library \u201cwas to be\u201d, but was in fact never actually drawn.\u00a0<\/p>\n IV<\/strong><\/p>\n I started writing this short guide to Gray\u2019s visible legacy in Glasgow\u2019s West End shortly after his death at the very end of 2019. For inspiration, and for refreshing my memory, I followed the route that I am here recommending. Arriving at the wide inviting entrance of Hillhead Public Library, I found that I could not pass it without going in.<\/p>\n There, next to the librarians\u2019 issue desk, was a display of all Gray\u2019s books that they had in stock, and a table set aside where his fellow-readers were invited to sign a book \u00a0–\u00a0 not so much a Book of Condolences, more a Book of Celebrations. Already, after only a few days of the library and the book being open after the New Year holiday, page upon\u00a0 page of entries had been written. As I read through them, I became aware that \u201cAlasdair\u201d had been well-loved as a local worthy, a kindly man, and a great conversationalist, as interested in his interlocutors as in himself; but, at the same time, \u201cGray\u201d was well-regarded as an important author-cum-artist, who had put his native Glasgow and Scotland on a world map, and also brought the world to the very streets of this city. This \u201cfat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glasgow pedestrian\u201d, as he once described himself, had made his mark, a large and indelible one.<\/p>\n There is a point of correction to be made regarding Gray\u2019s self-description as a \u201cpedestrian\u201d. For his final few years, after a fall that nearly killed him, he was a wheelchair user.\u00a0 Undaunted, after seven months in hospital, he was to be seen again, visiting his\u00a0 favourite places, going about his many ploys, and continuing his last great project, his re-telling of Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy. <\/em>How like Blake, who also immersed himself in the old Tuscan\u2019s Hell, Purgatory and Paradise!<\/p>\n V<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>After Hillhead Library, proceed further along Byres Road to another place where Gray\u2019s presence is felt, namely Hillhead Subway Station.<\/p>\n Look across the entrance hall, beyond the turnstiles that lead to the platforms and trains. There, confronting you, is Gray\u2019s final work of public art, a mural made of ceramic tiles, two metres high and twelve metres wide. \u201cAll Kinds of Folk\u201d it is called, and so it is identified in elegant lettering to the left. Alternatively, it is called \u201cFolk of All Kinds\u201d, to the right. In the middle is a panoramic view of the streets and buildings of Hillhead, the busiest part of the West End. The panorama is so boldly three-dimensional that you can imagine yourself walking there. It is flanked on both sides by panels of equally bold drawings of the very kinds of folk whom Gray imagined using the subway.<\/p>\n He gives us Lucky Dogs and Financial Wizards, Hard Workers and Brain Babies, Lovely Mums and Bonny Fechters, Lassies and Lads, Cocky Chaps, and others. A|few beasts and fairy-tale figures are thrown in for good measure, including Urban Foxes, Fiery Dragons, Birds of Paradise, and Unicorns. The effect is to make you smile, and that was Gray\u2019s intention, as he indicates in a bit of verse inscribed on the wall:<\/p>\n Do not let daily to-ing and fro-ing Now look below the station\u2019s \u201cExit\u201d sign. There, in black block capitals, you will read that same motto that you saw in gold on the Oran Mor ceiling, regarding early days, a better nation, and working. Those block capitals, by the way, like all the lettering here, were specially designed for this project. They are based on Gray\u2019s own handwritten letterforms, for that reason being known as Gray Display.<\/p>\n VI<\/strong><\/p>\n I had got this far into writing my piece, when Covid-19 closed down everyday life as we are used to living it. The three places that I have described above\u00a0 –\u00a0 the Oran Mor, the Library, and the Station\u00a0 –\u00a0 are now in lockdown, as is a fourth place that I would have directed you to, namely a restaurant and bar in a lane off Byres Road, the Ubiquitous Chip, the decor of which, on a lavish scale, was Gray\u2019s work. (He was paid for doing it, it is said, by the promise of free dinners for ever.)\u00a0<\/p>\n It was my intention to illustrate my conducted tour with photographs taken specially for it, but that cannot now be done until Glasgow and the world return to the old normal, for good and ill, supposing that is possible. What with \u201cself-isolating\u201d and \u201csocial-distancing\u201d, and shutters being up, it is as if we are suddenly inhabiting a nightmarish or dystopian or purgatorial or infernal scene of a kind that Gray might have included in the \u201cUnthank\u201d chapters of Lanark<\/em>. You can, however, find plenty of already existing photographs online, and so compose your own visual commentary for the itinerary.\u00a0 You might well begin here<\/a> and then progress to Gray\u2019s official website,<\/a>\u00a0and then delve into his publisher\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n My thanks are due to Canongate for giving me permission to enliven my text (above and below) with illustrative material from their files. Maybe, post-Covid-lockdown, I will be able to return to my tour of Gray venues and take photos of my own, for splicing\u00a0 in.<\/p>\n How, then, are we to leave this inconclusive ramble? There is no better way than in Gray\u2019s own words. In an interview that he gave in the year before he died, to Gutter<\/em> magazine (Spring, 2018), he remarked on the pleasure he took from being able to work and create, even in old age and ill health; in fact, especially <\/em>in old age and ill health. At the time, he was putting the finishing touches to the \u201cHeaven\u201d part of his Divine Comedy, <\/em>\u201cEnglished in prosaic verse\u201d, as he put it, after Dante. In words that reveal a great deal about himself, Gray concluded the interview as follows:<\/p>\n Everyone who makes something that survives them has overcome death to that extent: especially if it is another human being.\u00a0 It may also be a well-built wall or other work of art.<\/em><\/p>\n VII<\/strong><\/p>\n ENOUGH TO LIFT MY EYES TO<\/p>\n An imagined meeting with Alasdair Gray, <\/em> \u201cThere\u2019s not a street in Glasgow, \u201cFor self-protection,\u201d he explained, \u201cIt is not the steep slope David Betteridge takes us along Glasgow\u2019s Byres Road, enjoying several works of public art by the late Alasdair Gray,\u00a0who died on 29 December, 2019,\u00a0the day after his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":13287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1645],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultural-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2\"](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/2.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"3\"](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/3.jpeg\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"4](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/4_2.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"5\"](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/5.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
To earn what you need to keep going
Prevent what you once felt when wee
Hopeful and free.<\/p>\n![\"6\"](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/6.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
in a Glasgow street<\/em><\/p>\n
Anyplace, or Purgatory that I don\u2019t know.
I\u2019ve sojourned here for all my years,
studying the root and consequence
of the world\u2019s good and the world\u2019s ill,
watching both succeed, pondering
how the one can let the other grow.\u201d
Looking up intently from his wheelchair,
like a tree\u2019s last stubborn leaf
lit by a late sun, in a winter\u2019s wind,
not torn, not shaken even,
he held my attention as he spoke.
I thought of the Ancient Mariner,
as for a long moment he had me
in his close focus there.
We were like two islands in a flow
and counter-flow of passing folk.<\/p>\n![\"Untitled](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Untitled_7.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\u201cor, if hurt, self-heal, I carry with me
images and words that speak truths,
some from the past, some being formed.
Reviewing them can feed them present life,
and make them for a moment real.
\u201cWhoever harrows any kind of Hell
must do the same. But\u2026\u201d –
he cautioned with a work-worn hand –
\u201cknow this: there is no certain Paradise
at journey\u2019s end, perhaps no journey\u2019s end;
but I have seen, for sure,
occasional glimpses of a far-off hill,
part-grey, part-green, chequered bright.<\/p>\n
that Dante wrote of in his Purgatorio.
Rather, it is some high point,
beyond our city\u2019s boundary,
that catches now and then whatever rays
there are of the day\u2019s light.
It is enough for me to lift my eyes to.\u201d
Then, “Look!” he cried,
and gave a sudden whoop of joy,
pointing across the street to where,
in a park, a chestnut tree stood tall.
\u201cImagine,\u201d he said, \u201cimagine playing there,
swinging on a knotted rope,
collecting conkers, being Tarzan,
being a dryad, trying not to fall.\u201d
Studying that tree, we saw –
he made me see – a rain of golden orioles.
As if so many falling meteors,
as if directed by a hidden hand,
in a swoop, they cascaded to the tips
of the bare boughs.
There they perched for a short while,
overlooking the neighbouring ground.
Talismans, they flashed forth
against the evening\u2019s blue.
I see them now, transfiguring
the landscape of my mind\u2019s-eye view.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"