THE TRANSFORMATION OF MARTIN LAKE
A fresh river in a beautiful meadow
Imagined in his mind
The good Painter, who would some day paint it
— Comanimi
If I was strange, and strange was my art,
Such strangeness is a source of grace and strength;
And whoever adds strangeness here and there to his style,
Gives life, force and spirit to his paintings…
— Engraved at Lake’s request on his memorial in Trillian Square
FEW PAINTERS HAVE RISEN WITH SUCH speed from such obscurity as Martin Lake, and fewer still are so closely identified with a single painting, a single city. What remains obscure, even to those of us who knew him, is how and why Lake managed the extraordinary transformation from pleasing but facile collages and acrylics, to the luminous oils — both fantastical and dark, moody and playful — that would come to define both the artist and Ambergris.
Information aboutLake ’s childhood has a husk-like quality to it, as if someone had already scooped out the meat within the shell. At the age of six he contracted a rare bone disease in his left leg that, exacerbated by a hit-and-run accident with a Manzikert motored vehicle at age 12, made it necessary for him to use a cane. We have no other information about his childhood except for a quick glimpse of his parents: Theodore andCatherineLake. His father worked as an insect catcher outside of the town of Stockton, where the family lived in a simple rented apartment. There is some evidence, from comments Lake made to me prior to his fame, and from hints in subsequent interviews, that a tension existed between Lake and his father, created by Lake’s desire to pursue art and his father’s desire that the boy take up the profession of insect catcher.
Of Lake’s mother there is no record, andLake never spoke of her in any of his few interviews. The mock-historian Samuel Gorge has put forth the theory that Lake’s mother was a folk artist of considerable talent and also a fierce proponent of Truffi dianism — that she instilled inLake an appreciation for mysticism. Gorge believes the magnificent murals that line the walls of the Truffidian cathedral inStockton are the anonymous work ofLake ’s mother. No one has yet confirmed Gorge’s theory, but if true it might account for the streak of the occult, the macabre, that runs throughLake ’s art — stripped, of course, of the underlying religious aspect.
Lake’s mother almost certainly gave him his first art lesson, and urged him to pursue lessons at the local school, under the tutelage of a Mr. Shores, who unfortunately passed away without ever being asked to recall the work of his most famous (indeed, only famous) student. Lake also took several anatomy classes when young; even in his most surreal paintings the figures often seem hyper-real — as if there are layers of paint unseen, beneath which exist veins, arteries, muscles, nerves, tendons. This hyper-reality creates tension by playing againstLake ’s assertion that the “great artist swallows up the world that surrounds him until his whole environment has been absorbed in his own self.”
We may think of the Lake who arrived in Ambergris fromStockton as a contradictory creature: steeped in the technical world of anatomy and yet well-versed in the miraculous and ur-rational by his mother — a contradiction further enriched by his guilt over not following his father into the family trade. These are theelementsLake brought to Ambergris. In return, Ambergris gaveLake the freedom to be an artist while also opening his eyes to the possibilities of color.
Of the three yearsLake lived in Ambergris prior to the startling change in his work, we know only that he befriended a number of artists whom he would champion, with mixed results, once he became famous.
Chief among these artists was Jonathan Merrimount, a life-long friend. He also met Raffe Constance, who many believe was his life-long ro mantic companion. Together, Lake, Merrimount, andConstance would prove to be the most visible and influential artists of their genera tion. Unfortunately, neither Merrimount nor Constance has been willing to shed any illumination on the subject ofLake ’s life — his inspiration, his disappointments, his triumphs. Or, more importantly, how such a middle class individual could have created such sorrowful, nightmarish art.
Thus, I must attempt to fill in details from my own experience ofLake. It is with some hesitancy that I revealLake first showed his work at my own Gallery of Hidden Fascinations, prior to his transformation into an artist of the first rank. Although I cannot personally bear witness to that transformation, I can at least give the reader a pre-fame portrait of a very private artist who was rarely seen in public.
Lakewas a tall man who appeared to be of average height because, in using his cane, he had become stooped — an aspect that always gave him the impression of listening intently to you, although in reality he was a terrible listener and never hesitated to rudely interrupt when bored by what I said to him.
His face had a severe quality to it, offset by a firm chin, a perfect set of lips, and eyes that seemed to change color but which were, at base, a fierce, arresting green. In either anger or humor, his face was a weapon — for the narrowness became even more narrow in his anger and the eyes lanced you, while in laughter his face widened and the eyes admitted you to their compelling company. Mostly, though, he remained in a mode between laughter and anger, a mood which aped that of the “tortured artist” while at the same time keeping a distance between him self and any such passion. He was shy and clever, sly and arrogant — in other words, no different from many of the other artists I handled at my gallery. — From Janice Shriek’s A Short Overview of The Art of Martin Lake and His Invitation to a Beheading, for the Hoegbotton Guide to Ambergris, 5th edition.
One blustery spring day in the legendary metropolis of Ambergris, the artistMartinLake received an invitation to a beheading.
It was not an auspicious day to receive such an invitation andLake was nursing several grudges as he made his way to the post office. First and foremost, the Reds and Greens were at war; already, a number of nasty skirmishes had spread disease-like up and down the streets, even infecting portions ofAlbumuth Boulevard itself.
The Reds and Greens as a phenomenon simultaneously fascinated and repulsedLake. In short, the Greens saw the recent death of the (great) composer Voss Bender as a tragedy while the Reds thought the recent death of the (despotic) composer Voss Bender a blessing. They had taken their names from Bender’s favorite and least favorite colors: the green of a youth spent in the forests of Morrow; the red flags of the indigenous mushroom dwellers who he believed had abducted his cousin.
No doubt these two political factions would vanish as quickly as they had appeared, but in the meantimeLake kept a Green flag in his right pocket and a Red flag in his left pocket, the better to express the correct patriotic fervor. (On a purely aural level,Lake sympathized with the Reds, if only because the Greens polluted the air with a thousand Bender tunes morning, noon, and night.Lake had hardly listened to Bender while the man was alive; he resented having to change his habits now the man was dead.) Confronted by such dogma,Lake suspected his commitment to his weekly walk to the post office indicated a fatal character flaw, a fatal artistic curiosity. For he knew he would pull the wrong flag from the right pocket before the day was done. And yet, he thought, as he limped down Truff Avenue — even the blood-clot clusters of dog lilies, in their neat sidewalk rows, reminding him of the conflict— how else was he to exercise his crippled left leg? Besides, no vehicle for hire would deliver him through the disputed areas to his objective.