Art isn’t always comfortable, it isn’t always pretty
Mum
Michelle Franklin Interview
So am I going to see myself today? I ask Michelle in her living room which has an eccentric bohemian style, it’s a true treasure trove of photographs, paintings and get this a charming clock that’s just cuckooed from on top the mantlepiece.
We’ll see, I might give you a sneak peek, laughs Michelle, referring to the modelling I did for her some time ago, where I vaguely remember splashing about in a bath sans water, with very little clothing whilst she sketched and took photos of yours truly -but we’ll talk about that later.
Dad
Michelle’s work is not only diverse and thought provoking, the rich art history and innovative family that has surrounded her from a young age is fascinating, but it hasn’t been without controversy… She points to a black and white newspaper clipping of her parents on the wall. This was taken in 1953 when they got married, it’s very unusual because they are a mixed race couple, there weren’t many at the time and it caused a lot of trouble in her family, but they were perfectly happy.
Naum Gabo
Both of Michelle’s parents were vigilant activists, her father an environmentalist, her mother Beverly Franklin a civil rights activist which she wrote about in her autobiography. This common thread of ‘speaking’ up and creativity is intrinsically connected with the people that surround Michelle Franklin, from her late husband Brian Taylor, her former tutor. Oh that’s another scandalous story, I told him I was going to marry him, after that he didn’t really have a choice, says Michelle. Taylor was a successful sculptor, her son Gabriel is a composer and musician, and her daughter Belle a much sought after tattoo artist; so my question is, if she had a part in inspiring her own children, who inspired her?
This common thread of speaking up and creativity is intrinsically connected with the people that surround Michelle Franklin, from her late husband Brian Taylor her former tutor: Oh that’s another scandalous story, I told him I was going to marry him, after that he didn’t really have a choice, says Michelle. Taylor was a successful sculptor, her son Gabriel is a composer and musician, and her daughter Belle a much sought after tattoo artist; so my question is if she had a part in inspiring her own children, who inspired her?
Miriam Isreal’s my grandmother, was the niece of Joseph Isreal’s a famous Dutch painter, but also the daughter of Belle Moskowitz who was an important political woman in New York, she was an American and my grandfather Cyril was British and so it was a kind of an arranged Jewish marriage, which they had for about ten years until she divorces him as she can’t stand it any longer, this causes an uproar. She had my father and two boys and gets remarried to Naum Gabo, a famous Russian constructivist artist.
The Cockrel
His collection of art is owned by the Tate now, he had a stellar career, and was a major influence when it came to my art because I knew him all my life, and I bonded with him as well as my grandmother who was also a painter.
It was then I realised early on, the type of sophistication art needed to be produced, the level you had to go.
Right, I want to get cracking and look at some work, we start by looking at Michelle's embroidery which she’s been doing for about five years, the interviews all going swimmingly when suddenly I get a little tongue tied, but what else was I supposed to say…
Does this cock have a name? I pointed.
Naturally there’s a burst of laughter and yes I’m pretty much mortified- moving on, moving swiftly on.
“The Cockrel” was a sample piece of embroidery, and yes I really enjoyed doing it…years later I made a bunch of maternity clothes but nothing of much consequence. The turning point came when I went to Spain to look after my brother who had cancer. I stayed there during Covid and started designing this.
Michelle picks up a framed piece of embroidery, depicting a woman with braids extending out of a beautiful afro. The piece is called “Luchadora”, apparently a lady that Michelle got talking to in Spain about people who look after those in need called her this, you are Luchadora! which translates as powerful fighting woman and Michelle loved it.
Luchadora
Mermaid
Flood
Holocaust Fire
This comes after our artist shows me a handful of photos of her family, all of whom are various shades in colour, and features. I ask her if she considers race in her work… I didn’t think I realised that it was that important until I did my self-portrait, my hair was short here, she taps the photograph. It changed my view of how people saw me, because when my hair was longer it didn’t have any signs of having an African texture in anyway, and I was treated differently.
“The woman of black conch” a book by Monique Roffey, has been an inspiration for a new collection of work: I think the book is really important, the story is so unique it talks about women's issues, and race is prevalent to the story as well. Michelle pulls off a cloth which is covering a hoop showing an umbra of embroidered greens, from grassy to teal, with a sea of water in which a woman is immersed and that woman is: You, Sabrina you are the mermaid with two tails.
For a minute I’m stunned into silence. It’s the first time I’ve seen any work since I sat for her and it’s actually quite emotional, the detail is crazy for a start, the colours joyous, and I can actually see myself, she’s captured a real sense of me.
Soon after Michelle takes me for a short stroll to her art studio, which is ten minutes or so away to see some of her still life and other works…
Dead artichokes are one of my favourite things to paint, and when they’re not dead they have a wonderful flower. My father used to grow them and we always used to eat them. I love them, I love still life. They always have to be beautiful unlike other subjects I’ve worked on, like the holocaust or the tsunami where there’s a lot of horror.
I get the sense that artichokes are the light relief, the reprieve, where the focus can be shifted to an inanimate object with no immediate story to tell, where it just is, and things just are… It’s also an exercise in colour and form. I like making compositions and I’m always learning. I’ll make two or three of the same thing, with the idea that at least one of those paintings is going to be successful and the others aren’t.
Artichoke
Looking around I imagine that Michelle Franklin’s cosy little studio has seen more than one side of the artist, am I right… I’ve been known to get in a bit of a temper and stamp on a few! she laughs. But if you don’t get frustrated with a piece it’s never good, at the time it often feels impossible while other times your past experience helps you.
That experience seems to have led to an exploration of her own grief from the death of her parents, a best friend and a sibling which shows up in works like “Flood” where the charcoal sweeps across the page, pulling the viewer in.
When I was 25 my best friend died, we were such good friends he had AIDS… and when I lost him that was my first experience of death. I had started painting but none were finished, so I thought for the first time in my life I’m going to try and draw from a photograph, and eventually I did a whole series.
Is there a type of catharsis in choosing subjects such as this? I’m not always conscious of that…You don’t always plan what you’re going to paint or draw, it just sort of comes out, it’s like a compulsion, and you have to try and find out where it’s going.
Michelle faces this need head on, while exploring other difficult subjects in works like “Tsunami” in charcoal and the holocaust in her etching “Holocaust fire”.
Art isn’t always comfortable, and it’s not always pretty.
It’s this kind of acknowledgement that has taken Michelle to produce the kind of work that she has, and I imagine no matter what life throws at her, no matter who she may have lost or indeed gained she will not be a bystander and back away into the rubble with nothing to say.
Her decades of work speaks for itself tackling the beauty of still life, striking embroidery, portraiture and challenging subjects, she converses directly with the world through her brush strokes and canvas, and I don’t know about you but I’m all ears.