W11 in the 70s.  Chapter 4: My Environment and Ajax

As well as teaching, looking after my child and being involved with women’s politics, I continued painting and making environments, and most of these environments had to do with the political ideas in W11. I decided that I would make an environment of a woman and a man having a bath together. In all appearance it would look heterosexual but the man and the woman would be gay, thus challenging fixed stereotypes. Nicki Ray said he would take part, but he was also appearing in a film of David Hockney’s, A Bigger Splash. My environment was on a very low budget and four minutes of film were all I could afford, whereas David Hockney’s film was the other end of the scale, a commercial venture. Nicki said that after my film he would have to rush around the corner to David’s studio. Everything was set up. I had lots and lots of foam bath liquid ready and vegetable dye to colour it, the idea being that the foam would be like flowing paint on a canvas: in fact the whole environment would be like a painting coming alive in three-dimensional space. Then there was a problem: the gay woman didn’t turn up and Nicki kept saying he didn’t have much time. So I got undressed and got into the bath. We had one super-8 camera and one photographic light. Nicki kept smiling and posing for the camera, in fact he was enjoying the camera on him, but I was worried because I usually did the filming myself. Try and look as if you’re enjoying it, said Nicki, otherwise it won’t come out right. That was a sensible comment, so I smiled for the camera. Then the four minutes were over so we got out of the bath. Then Nicki screamed: look at my body! he said, and I could see what had happened: the vegetable dye had stained our bodies green and red and a dark dirty grey colour. Nicki became hysterical saying it wouldn’t come off, and he was quite right: I scrubbed my arms but the colour didn’t budge. What’s David going to say? said Nicki, I’m supposed to be in the Bigger Splash. I could see his point and I felt really guilty and quite desperate. I was responsible for this and I didn’t know what to do. Why are you putting talcum powder over me when I’m still wet? said Nicki. It’s not talcum powder, Nicki, I said, it’s Ajax. If you rub that in it may get the dye off. Ajax! shouted Nicki, it’s going to ruin my skin. You’re all mad, he said, I’ve had enough, he screamed, and he got dressed, saying: I’m never coming back here again, and he never did. Years later when I met Nicki by chance he asked me about the film and asked if he could have a copy, so at least I was forgiven. The film showed many of the ideas going on in the seventies in W11: the anarchic breaking down of fixed stereotypes, the energy, and the spontaneity.   London W11 in the 70s. 5. Men’s groups and women’s groups: cakes and beer