Category Archives: Valdehouse

excerpt from BLOOD MERIDIAN, Cormac McCarthy

Chapter 17, page 243

He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He’d long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men’s destinies are ever given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he’d drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he’d ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them.

“Juan Calabazas” – Diego de Velázquez

82,5 cm x 106,5 cm, oil on canvas

“Francisco Lezcano” – Diego de Velázquez

83,5 cm x 107,5 cm, oil on canvas

Bromancing

Valle: Jericho! Ni vet att det smärtar mig att höra om edra svårigheter. Vet att jag på en daglig basis tänker på eder, på ett vis som möjligen skulle befoga misstankar om homosexualithät.
Bilder skickar ni då ni därför finner tid. Jag är endast intresserad av edra förehafvanden. Icke ber jag eder om ALLA bilder. Nej, från tid till annan önskar jag bara att jag visste vad som försigår i edran ateljae.
Ho Ho, gosse, jag kan icke ens erinra mig sist jag inandades tobaksrök. Sannolikt är att jag mäktar än mindre än jag gjorde som ung palt.

Dark Horse: Warmt treffas jag af edra ord. Ni skola sjelfklart få se lite af min skijt. Jag ähr ju enbart en simpel mångsysslare.
Jag finner det ack så sött ock gulligt att Ni hafver problem medh tobaksvaror. Nästan upphetsande ifallo. Sjelfv hafver jag funnit migh inhandla John Silvers rökverk allt oftare. Tillsammans medh ett stendigt snusintag ock en ock annan kwells-pipa äro detta ett allt större problem. Ekonomiskt sett alltså. Ty njutbarheten äro galant.

Open letter to Valle’s buddy

Hey Valle’s buddy,
Since I use facebook in part as a forum to promote my art and me – the artist, so I start now, even a Facebook page where I’m Valle Buddy. Knows that it can be useful to distinguish between the artist / professional man, and individuals.
This e-mail, you only if you are a close friend / someone I like to communicate with in any way / no I would follow here on fäjjan. My hope is that you want to be friends with both me – Valle Buddy, and with my Alterego – Valdemar Lethin.
You come as a friend of both of us do not have to put up with twice as many statusupdates o shit from me. It will be as much as before, and Liiita for – infrequent update on what I do in the studio. In Waldemar Lethin will only things that relate to my art, and perhaps one o another to still be “me” for my fans
My usual chatter be located at Valle Buddy page.
So if you appreciate both the beauty o the frustration in me, and if you want to go along with my desire to remain personal facebook friends, accept my friend request!
If you want to make do with my remains more polished / clean room artistry,
or if you are tired of döljt o me o my many statusupdates, as Valle Buddy is not for you. I take it personally, but at the same time understanding
Are you a friend who might shoot me sometimes, upload pictures here o tags, so I ask you to continue to tag me as “Valle friend”.
As I will clean up the Valdemar Lethin page. Remove inappropriate vulgarity, politically incorrect name, tags that I behave like strange …
You may be thinking – but hell, is MUSH buck really worth all this trouble?
Well, I’ve got me both friends and enemies over facebook, so I chose to try to drive safely.
Furthermore, this lodge appeal to me, rather, just kidding. Double Identity – Fun!
/ Valle

Tricky trains

Tricky trains. Bloody veins. Cracksmokn’ slaves. Whores. Horse. Mr. Moore got bored n’ cut his torso open wide. Slabby contents. Hellcome. Walnut. Boy. Jerkaway.

-Dark Horse

classic

To set the tone here in Valdehouse I’m using an old, bitter and frustrated classic.

I wrote this text several years ago, at a time when I was very angry and lonely. A year or so had passed since I left the art academy where I got my training, and by this time I had a thing or two to say.
Reading it now is good fun. At times it’s hard even for me to understand what I was trying to convey.
Thinking back on my school years, in some weird way, I think they might have been the best part of my life. Working harder than ever, in a culture very different from the Swedish one, with all the expectations, and the hopes I had for my future…
By now in my memory it’s all magic.

This fire spitting young man feels foreign to me now, but he sure is ambitious and funny.

—————————————————————————————-

why the negative feelings towards the so-called academy? (a brief simplification)

on mechanical ponies they rode to the battle of the mind

where there was once the notion that their lances were too small, there was now the never ending struggle to convince a hostile world that theirs were the biggest.
they thought they looked like they had what was required to conquer the she-beast. indeed they were convinced they had what was needed to spread superior seeds and save humanity.
they built walls of arrogance, ignorance, and of pride. they used lifelines of technique and tradition. they drank from the old well of knowledge which they thought was reserved for their race only.
but even with, or because of, appearance, walls and knowledge,
they looked at the finger that was pointing, rather than to where it was pointing.
for that was a place of love and humility.
and their nature was such that they would only be able to venture there at great personal sacrifice. they had all already sacrificed far more than was sustainable.

these were warriors living in a parallel universe.

This school…
It is what it is. But what is it? What do you get?
The package does look very impressive. Increasingly so when tuition fees rise every year.

I spent a bit more than three years at an American academy of art in Florence, Italy. I graduated from their three year painting program. I was granted the opportunity to teach for a year.

They claim their goal is to provide the highest level of instruction in classical drawing, painting and sculpture. Curriculum and teaching method supposedly derive from the “classical Realist tradition, rooted in the Renaissance, and revived by the major Realist academic ateliers of the 19th century”.

After having been left confused and disappointed by experiences at art schools in Sweden, I had high expectations after what I saw as the honour of being accepted to this apparently serious institution. With a feeling of awe I embarked on what was to be a guided journey towards isolation. At first I was very susceptible. In my first conversation with the very intelligent director, he gave me the first display of his remarkable talent for telling people exactly what they want to hear, -“We’re actually not teaching art. We’re teaching control”. I was overjoyed. Readily I took it to heart. But it would turn out to be the ultimate lie. I was to be disappointed again. My heart broken.

Step by step I quickly advanced through the increasingly difficult projects presented to me. Being a young angry man I thrived in the competitive atmosphere at the school. Thinking back, I was the perfect impressionable little soldier.
After having mastered the basics, and first after having managed the difficult task of gaining for advancement necessary approval from one or two tricky egos, after two short years my self-confidence was boosted yet further when I was asked to teach. The experience of teaching was going to be very valuable for me.
But I was to understand that I would never fit in at the school. I would never really be accepted. Of talent and ambition I had more than anyone could wish for. The reason for my alienation in the community was my shyness, my poor ability to express myself verbaly, and the maturing of my artistic expression, which somehow was unacceptably out of line with the rigid direction of the program.
Today I take great pride in that my voice / my style could develop at all in the environment that the school presented. Although I believe I was held back to a large extent. More so as I rose in the hierarchy.

When at the hight of my love for the school and what I was doing there, I was told that I wasn’t following instructions and that I wasn’t fitting in ( -“people look at you strange” ), that it would be best if I left, I was devastated. After two years of hard work it came as a huge shock to me.
The director of the painting program at the time let me have it. Their champion / their most promising artist / the best teacher whenever it suited him, seemed to not be able to get along with people who wouldn’t put their nose up his ass. First when I dared attempt to open up a dialogue and try to convince him of my devotion to learning what they had to teach, did he find it suitable to drop the bomb.
I was very upset. The next day there was a pathetic attempt at soothing relations. Supposedly the suggestion that I should leave was only his personal opinion, and not that of the top dog.
I stayed on at the school.
It took me a few years to understand that that director had been right, it would have been best for me to leave. Time spent elsewhere would have been far more stimulating for me as an artist of my time and background.
Specifications of what I did wrong will surely seem insignificant and quite strange to anyone outside of the school. Adding modern elements to still lifes, experimenting with colours, being independent and not always following senior students… All still within the confines of realistic interpretation. Although sour, all would have to be accepted if I could only distinguish a clear picture of what it was they were trying to teach, and how I violated that more than any other individual.
Without that the school turns into something very ugly.

The grades they hand out at the end of every trimester is a joke. The choices for scholarship recipients are often questionable. The winners of best drawing, best painting etc, is nothing but confusing.
What you hope will be an education where you learn to develop your expression, may very well turn out to be more of a demanding test of character.
Knowledge gained and the experience of teaching hardly compensates the lasting pain of having been lied to. I was promised to be taught control in craftsmanship, nothing else. That’s what I payed for. That’s what I devoted my time to. I was told by the director that he, and no one else, would help me find my true self, and my true honest expression.
Far from getting that, I had to try to objectively learn as much as I could from under a fuzzy ideology ignoring much of recent history and aggresively denouncing todays artworld.

Being an artist there is rarely financial security. Pursuing it as a career is a gamble.
When running a school where you invite people to study, people who have accepted the challenge, and are willing to put huge amounts of money and time at stake, you at least accept the responsibility to respect them for what they are and to give them what they’re paying for. I saw this responsibility repeatedly being taken very lightly. At this school respect was something you earned. But not the good ol’ way through showing respect and being honest. This was a pretty isolated elitist society. Male dominated. Darwinian. Politicaly challenging. Much of the instruction was given by assistant instructors, chosen because of their talent. Many of them lacked any understanding or interest in pedagogy. They often seemed to lack an interest in what they were hired to do – instruct. Sadly that went for some of the permanent faculty as well.
Your place in the school was determined by how talented you were, how well you confined your talent to the confusing ideals and tradition, and how good you got along with the people in power and their loyal friends. Being rich, having the right / important acquaintances may have also greatly enhanced your position and prospects.

My attempts at fitting in in that community today serve as a yardstick to how low I can go. I feel ignored and disrespected by them, and I take that as a good sign. Only now, one and a half years after leaving them, do I feel like I’m beginning to drop the suffocating rules and philosophy I was inspired by while there. I’m a recovering art student. My friends will be pleased to see a return to form, a return to my true expression.

In what kind of environment do you want to grow?

Would I recommend this school to anyone?
Would I do it again?
No

/Valdemar Lethin

“In a school of fine arts, it is one’s duty to teach only uncontested truths, or at least those that rest upon the finest examples accepted for centuries.”

H. Flandrin