Interview
with FlashPoint’s
Bradford Haas
When I came upon Flashpoint's
retrospective look (link to: http://www.flashpointmag.com/coxintroA.htm)
at the relatively obscure British artist and writer Morris Cox a few months
ago, I was impressed not only at the uniqueness and breadth of Cox's work but
also the care with which his work had been presented. I interviewed Bradford
Haas via email to gain some perspective both on Cox and the efforts to present his
work.
TT
Could you provide
a brief summary of Morris Cox's work, and of FlashPoint's
presentation of his work?
Morris Cox was a
Despite the
self-evident quality of much of the work, Cox has remained a relatively obscure
figure. There are a number of factors that have contributed to this. First, Cox
never was part of a formal ‘group’ that I am aware of, and worked for the most
part on his own. His freedom to dedicate his life to art was supplied by his
wife Wyn, who had a steady job that paid the bills
while Cox painted, wrote and printed books. Secondly, his work often contains
elements which viewers find ‘difficult’. It may be that the entirety of a
particular work is hard to look at; or it may be that a generally pleasing
image has one single element that makes it ‘disturbing’. In other words, not
all of his work is immediately viewer friendly. Third, after trying very hard
to be recognized as a writer and visual artist in the 1940s and 1950s, Cox gave
up promoting himself. He turned to printing his own work, which ironically
created a small but dedicated audience among the collectors and manufacturers
of private press books.
In 1991, when Cox
was 88 years of age, three of his friends and patrons put together a wonderful book
that paid tribute to his work at the Gogmagog Press.
Printed in an edition of 1650 copies, it allowed more people to glimpse what
Cox had accomplished, and it is still a great introduction to Cox’s private
press books. Around that same time, Cox was persuaded by some friends to donate
his own copies of the Gogmagog books to the
In 2003, to celebrate the centennial of Cox’s birth, FlashPoint
Magazine launched an on-line exhibition which featured for the first time a
representative selection of his work. Virtually no one, aside from a very small
group of people, had seen the scope of his paintings, his prints, his poetry
and prose, or had had the opportunity to look at actual Gogmagog
Press books. The internet seemed the right place for such an exhibition. There
was, after all, no limit as to the space we could use; no worry about the cost
of the many color illustrations, as would be the case in a print journal. And
it could be added to and amended as new images and texts and information became
available. It seemed like a perfect marriage.
As of right now (April 2004) the exhibition features nearly 100 visual
artworks, about the same number of poems and prose pieces, and three ‘virtual
facsimiles’ of Gogmagog Press books. We will continue
to add new items and correct information in the future. It’s a deep well, and
we haven’t seen the bottom yet.
Do you remember what specific work, or
book, of Morris Cox first captured your attention? Were you first drawn to the
writings, the paintings and prints, or to the design of the books themselves?
In a way, the
poet/painter David Jones brought me to Cox. At one point I lived in Stratford-on-Avon,
and I had come to know some wonderful booksellers, Nial
and Margaret Devitt, who were (and still are) located
in Leamington Spa. A visit to the Devitts
meant good conversation, a cup of tea, and the opportunity to see interesting
things. After a few visits, Nial had become of aware
of my avid interest in the work of David Jones. He suggested that I visit the
Catherine House Gallery in
When I traveled
back to the
Do you find
yourself more drawn to the literature or visual work? Or is such a binary even
applicable to Cox?
It’s funny. When
I had purchased a copy of GOGMAGOG, I showed it to a student of mine who was a
trained artist. She had been quite excited at first, but when she returned the
book she told me, ‘I think he is probably a better poet than he is a visual
artist’. I had felt exactly the opposite. I find this interesting, as I came to
Cox’s work as a teacher of literature - and particularly from the aesthetics of
High Modernist literature - so the poems by Cox included in the GOGMAGOG book
did not quite ring true to me at that time. For my student, she was coming to
Cox as an artist, and she found the art lacking,
as she had particular ideas about the practice and aesthetics of visual art,
and Cox’s work did not agree with this. From what I have seen, this is fairly
typical of reactions to Cox’s work. It leads me to believe that it does not
matter whether he is writing or creating visual art, specialists in either
field will initially find his work not fitting into pre-conceived notions and
expectations. This can cause an immediate dislike or dismissal. As with other
original work, however, with more familiarity it all begins to make sense when
viewed in its own context. Familiarity happens when we cease to look at art to
confirm what we already know and believe (‘safe’ art), and instead use art to
explore what we don’t. Cox’s art is almost always an expedition, both for
himself in the creative act, and for the viewer.
A more direct answer is that I think the best of Cox’s visual art is more
instantly accessible and obviously good. Saying this, some of his poems, such
as several from 45 UNTITLED POEMS (1969), are highly enjoyable from the very
first reading, and many others become very appealing once the ear is tuned to
hear them. But ultimately, as with the perennial shadow of William Blake, Cox
is best understood when viewing both images AND texts. The blending of text and
image in several of the Gogmagog Press books makes
for sublime objects.
Do you believe you have great interest in
Cox as a poet and/or visual artist, or does a large part of his appeal arise
from his relative obscurity or neglect?
Does the act of "rescuing" a neglected figure have any special
resonance for you, even as a gesture?
That is, is the actual act (regardless of result) of finding and
bringing to light an ignored figure a large part of the appeal of undertaking
such a huge project, or is it more the quality of Cox's accomplishment?
There is no doubt
that a certain breed of scholar loves virgin territory. I’ve never been the
kind of person who feels the desire to work within a fully established critical
industry. I love James Joyce, for example, but I would find little joy picking
through the left-overs to find an appropriate project
on his work. Also, I’m not interested in the ‘ready-made’ approach to academic
work: apply THIS theory to THAT text. I suppose this kind of criticism has its
place. But it’s just not how I work. The world contains so much that is not
seen along the rat tracks. Even tho
we have defined our physical map, circumvented the globe, been to points north
and south, the age of exploration continues (not just at NASA) at he local
level. I take Charles Olson’s concept of the ‘istorin
seriously - not that I discovered this notion in Olson, but that I saw my own
instincts and practices mirrored in his _expression of the idea ‘to find out
for oneself’. This is as Olson wants, to make us aware of our process rather
than to claim himself (or Horodotus for that matter)
as the originator of such a concept. For me this means to leave the ivory
tower, step into the world, and start interacting with objects; see what they
have to communicate. George Oppen’s opening to OF
BEING NUMEROUS says it wonderfully:
There are things
We live among ‘and to see them
Is to know ourselves’.
But in order to
‘see’ the objects, we must approach them with what Louis Zukofsky
termed ‘sincerity’. We can’t approach them with our pre-conceived ideas and
theories - we would simply shape the objects according to our desires, and thus
only take from them what we had brought (confirmation). By approaching the
objects with ‘sincerity’, we are much more likely to understand the objects and
obtain non-regurgitated knowledge from them (exploration).
Following the trails of unestablished work, however,
creates many risks. Much time and effort can be spent before finding out that the
subject matter is vacuous. And of course, after so much time and effort, it can
be hard to admit the effort has been in vain, and to let the material sink back
into obscurity. This reality has led to much unworthy material being forced
upon the academic community, only to waste a huge amount of time we could be
spending on truly worthy material. As is often said, there is a reason why much
obscure work is obscure: it deserves to be. Not only this, but in order to
bolster mediocre work, academics will, through the manipulation of theory,
often ‘create’ a realm of meaning around a body of work that far exceeds the
initial act the creation by the artist or writer (a real lack of ‘sincerity’
towards the object)!
It was with these risks in mind that I started investigating Cox. At the very
early stages I wondered if it would be worth the effort and time. There was a
sense of something much larger, hidden below the surface of references in
GOGMAGOG, but I had no direct knowledge of what lay beneath. In ordinary
circumstances, I would have gone to the library and the rare book stores, and
found all the relevant information that would give me a thorough working
knowledge of the subject. But I couldn’t do that in this case - and it was
frustrating. It taught me patience and concentration; I had to look very hard
at what I was given (like a few bone shards suggesting a much larger skeleton),
and wait for material to emerge that would help me make sense of these scant
pieces.
I felt more than repaid for my efforts. Cox’s work became an onion, with layer
after layer to peel back, always with more underneath. I did not need to
fabricate a theoretical scaffolding to hold Cox up; through seventy years of
activity he had fashioned his own corpus which would self-animate if only given
the chance to present itself. While the possibility for me to add my take on
his work certainly existed, the immediate need, as I saw it, was to simply
encounter as much of the material as I could with a sincere desire to
understand it on its own terms. The result of this method was the FlashPoint exhibition, which sought mainly to allow the
work to speak for itself, within a network of introductions and notes that
describe and document rather than argue (tho,
admittedly, arrangement of materials is in itself a subtle argument).
So, while the idea of resurrection is an important one, and one that I find
very appealing, it must be accompanied by a discrimination that determines what
can be resurrected, and what remains a stiff outside of the tomb.
Do you ever find
yourself fetishizing obscurity, or becoming a
xenophile?
No, not really.
Obscurity for its own sake means nothing - most of the people in the world live
in obscurity, after all. The idea that ‘obscurity’ protects an artist’s integrity
is an interesting notion, tho. Purity
through neglect. Perhaps this is true of Cox (Alan Tucker, one of Cox’s
long-time friends, who has been a good friend to me as well, once wrote, ‘I
just don’t want people thinking that Morris is some kind of genie to be let out
of the bottle’. I found this a remarkable notion.) But I don’t think Cox
deserves the level of obscurity he has at present.
In some ways Cox utilized his obscurity. As he became older, and began to gain
some reputation for his private press books, he pushed some people away by
making his editions SMALLER. He simply was doing as much as he could, but as
the market was expanding for his work, the production naturally (rather than
artificially) became less and less! Fame, he wrote to the collector Corrie Guyt, could hinder him if
it got out of control. What would he do, for example, with his fastidious and
time-consuming methods, should there be a call for 2000 books, rather than 100
(already a huge edition by his standards)?
I should probably mention one other thing here. When I first looked into Morris
Cox, the language used to describe his work, to distinguish it from the
strictures of traditional ‘private press’ publications, seemed to suggest an
idiosyncratic, self-taught, and possibly an ‘outsider’ artist. As I found out
soon enough, however, Cox was a formally trained artist with a thorough working
knowledge of art theory and techniques. He was a superb craftsman. His constant
experimentation led to certain innovative techniques that might lead one to
believe he was ‘naive’, but this was merely an extension of his knowledge of
artistic methods and processes.
In his case ‘obscurity’ + ‘unusual technique’ does not equal ‘outsider’. In
some ways, in our current culture, it would almost be better for Cox’s
reputation if he were a true ‘outsider’ artist. I find this somewhat ironic,
that the Alfred Wallises and the Howard Finsters of the world can command more attention than an
equally original but trained artist like Morris Cox. This mentality seems an
over-correction in reaction to the past when only ‘academy’ artists received
attention. Artists like Cox - neither ‘outsider’ or
‘established’ - get lost in the middle.
What was involved
logistically in gathering and presenting such a huge range of work?
There were a
number of stages to the exhibition. First was the gathering of texts and
images. Most were obtained during trips I made to the
The second stage involved editing the material for the computer screen. I
selected and typed texts from the books and magazines Alan had given me. Each
of the digital photos taken in
Next, all of these edited texts and images then had to be sent to the web
editors at FlashPoint - Jack Foley and Rosalie Gancie. They had the unenviable chore of receiving each
text and image in their mail boxes, and then to code the items. Jack did much
of the preliminary work. I gave him a basic idea of how I thought the
exhibition could be set up and function, and he put it
together. Rosalie then worked with me to fix colors and tags,
and to design the tables of contents - these look great largely due to her
creative eye. Rosalie would send me several variants of a design for me to look
at and comment on. Very little was left unscrutinized.
And still there are mistakes (mostly mine)! This stage of working with the web
editors took several hectic weeks, and I am extremely grateful for their help
and patience, which I know was tried. Imagine doing all this work for no pay,
on an artist virtually unknown. The fact that FlashPoint
has editors willing to do this kind of thankless work is a real blessing which
I do not take for granted.
I’m proud of the final result, which I consider a work in progress. As
mentioned before, the great thing about having a web exhibition is the ability
to add new pieces and information, and to make updates and corrections as new
material becomes available. A print catalogue would allow nothing of the sort
without real expense. The main goal - to make Cox’s work available to a
worldwide audience - has been achieved. This does not mean, however, that the
world is looking in vast numbers. People could possibly be interested in an
artist like Cox, but they still do not know to look for him on the internet.
We’re working on ways to make the exhibition better known in the coming months
- it’s just too good of an archive to let go to waste.
Despite the overall success of the production, largely due to the technology
available at a popular level to create and view this much material on-screen,
there were some annoyances caused by this same technology. For one thing, no
matter how much time was spent making the images as accurate as possible, they
were only accurate for MY SCREEN. When I viewed them on another computer, for
example, I was horrified to see that they were generally much darker with a
blue hue (evidently an anomaly of that particular computer, thank goodness)!
The reality hit that each screen is different, the settings can be different,
and therefore the images will appear differently to each viewer. Also, I work
on a Mac, which has great color capacity. Not everyone has access to a similar
machine. Beyond this, type formatting also was an issue. When setting type for
a book or hard copy document, the size and spacings
will be printed, and therefore will remain unchangeable. But those looking at FlashPoint on the internet can control the text zoom to
customize their view, thus possibly corrupting the special attention paid to
formatting texts just as they appear in printed form. I have not even begun to
consider the problem this might cause in general (in other words, not just for
Cox’s work) for the internet publication of poetry and prose texts set in
unconventional ways (scanning such poems as images is one way of dealing with
this, but not with the most satisfying results as far as image quality and
loading time).
For me, the
experience has been enlightening. The internet as a medium has limitations, but
it also has impressive advantages which more than balance the scale. Just
consider the ‘virtual facsimiles’ of Gogmagog books.
The books are nearly impossible to reproduce, even printed in hard copy. They
are art objects with a special physical presence that can only be experienced
fully when in hand. While the computer cannot reproduce the entire experience,
it can at the very least allow for attractive colorful images to be created,
and for and make them available to an unlimited audience. Cox did not limit his
work to create an elite audience. In fact, for all the craftsmanship and
artistry that went into the Gogmagog books, they
retailed for ridiculously low prices (at times as low as £1 per book!), to the
point his retailer had to convince him to raise his prices, only to be resisted
by Cox(!). The limitation has meant that books once so
humbly priced are now out of the reach of most people. Alan was very supportive
of the FlashPoint exhibition since it was in line
with Cox’s desire to make his art and writings available to anyone, and in this
case anyone with access to the internet.
Perhaps more than anything, I’ve seen what a communal effort this exhibition
has been. Without Alan and Colin, without Jack and Rosalie, without my own
curiosity and persistence, it would not have come about. But most importantly,
without Cox himself producing an impressive and vast body of work, there would
have been nothing to exhibit. In this sense, all of us who have contributed to
the exhibition are in supporting roles to the direction dictated by the the artworks and writings themselves. To be caught up in
such a wake is quite a ride.
What does the
work of Morris Cox have to offer?
Well, where to
begin? It has certainly given me a lot. But that has come with familiarity, and
I don’t mean a cursory knowledge. Cox’s work has to be digested, it has to be
‘owned’ by the viewer (but perhaps this is a general realization about the
approach to any material worthy of our attention, or as David Jones once put
it, ‘what is patient of being known and loved’). I’ve allowed it to speak to
me, to tell its story. If a viewer approaches Cox’s work with a sincere
interest, I think it will communicate quite plainly what it has to offer.
Funny, I think this is exactly what Alan Tucker told me when I first started
looking into Cox and his work. And I can see now he was right.
Do you place him
in any sort of tradition?
As Alan Tucker
has told me, Cox certainly saw himself working within a British tradition,
from Chaucer through Shakespeare to his own time. There is a wonderful story,
that Cox when he was younger visited the British Museum, only to find an
illuminated copy of THE
Cox should also be viewed in the context of British ‘poet/painters’(or more
accurately ‘composite artists’), not only the aforementioned Blake and David
Jones, but Wyndham Lewis, Mervyn Peake,
Michael Ayrton, Alasdair Gray, and Ian Hamilton Finlay, to name a few. In a group of such distinctive characters,
Cox is equally unique. Even in this company, Blake stands out as the only one
of the bunch to equate with Cox’s ability as an art printer - and ‘Great
Blake’s’ techniques are more limited in scope.
In another line of thought, Cox often utilizes ‘folk’ elements in his poems
which link to British ‘traditions’ as well: mummers’ plays, sword dances,
yuletide rituals, etcetera. Beyond this, he references fairground baroque, a
football match (seen as a modern day version of an ancient ritual), seaside fashions,
and Victoriana. These ‘common’ references are mixed with Freud, the Tao Te Ching, modernist abstraction, surrealism, and an
understanding of ritual and myth along the lines of Fraser. Cox would use these
‘common’ references (along with their ‘common’ sounds and rhythms) as other
artists would Greek and Roman mythology, political figures, and borrowed
foreign cultures. In Cox we see someone using ideas from abroad to investigate
what is his by inheritance, a real working-class inheritance, and not one that
is idealized or fabricated or adopted only for effect. In this way, tho it may not immediately be sensed looking at the work,
Cox can be classified as a ‘modernist’ of a sort, tho
appearing very different from Eliot, Pound and their ilk; closer, perhaps, to
David Jones and Joyce for their attention to the local and familiar, although
Cox’s tone and aesthetic are entirely different.
But Cox could just as easily be called a ‘postmodernist’ (admitting that
‘modernist’ is the root of ‘postmodernist’...): as I said, he used references
to ‘popular culture’ such as football matches, carnivals, bathing attire, and
revisions of Victorian pulp. As an artist in the early 1960s, Cox showed that
printing from common household items (cardboard, lace, wire, even glass, and
plants and grasses from the garden) could create art as fine and exciting as
the more traditional wood and copper plates. Never one to stop adjusting to the
times, when he was too old to work his presses, he created superb ‘Xerographs’
(photocopy prints) with a Ricoh copier given to him by his friend and patron
Colin Franklin. Yet despite his inventiveness and innate playfulness (even tho bitter at times), there is never a sense that his more
‘postmodern’ activities are acting to tear down meaning, but to build it up in
different ways.
Having said all this, to pigeonhole Cox into either ‘modernist’ or
‘postmodernist’ label misses the point. In my opinion, Cox’s work - and his
very existence as an artist - can be viewed as subversive. This may sound
silly, as there is rarely if ever an overt political stance in Cox’s work. Nor
is there usually any traditional ‘argument’ used as a means of convincing the
viewer, nor anything typically classed ‘obscene’, and in this sense there is
nothing ‘subversive’ in his artwork. What I see, however, is a different kind
of argument manifested in example. If we pay attention to Cox’s working
methods, if we notice the types of things he references (and what he doesn’t),
if we see his dedication to producing art above all worldly comforts, if we
know the miniscule prices charged for works which took immense time and labor
to produce; if we see all these things, then we can see the work as ‘exempla’,
works which show us proper focus and how it can be used, as opposed to the way
society normally works. There are those who rail against the world, and there
are those who seek to shape it through forces akin to bombs; there are those
who are content merely to consume, and take, and add nothing; and then there
are those, like Cox, who in modesty learn to accept the world, and shape it
through intimacy, recognition, and description. Cox is one of those rare
figures in the arts who shines a light on the unknown and forgotten, and
through that illumination adds to our reality. He wins the game by ignoring the
‘rules’. If more of us followed this path society would, in my opintion, be changed for the better.