Welcome everyone. We anticipated a fair amount of excitement around the exhibition, John Singer Sgt. Watercolors, and we're not being disappointed if tonight is any indication, so we're thrilled you're all here with us. By way of further introduction of Richard, I just want to say that artistic reputations are based essentially on the quality and greatness of the art, but their continuation is based on a nurturing process that can span decades and even centuries, and no one has contributed more to the sustenance of Sgt. Reputation than Richard in years of amazing research and documentation. And what you see on the screen right now are images of the first seven volumes of the catalogue Grayson A, seven, and they are not little books. They are not primarily picture books. They are amazing reference books about an amazing career. And Richard is joined in his work by a team of people here tonight, the Sgt. Catalogue people. You want to just raise your hand? Elizabeth Ustinoff, Elaine Kilmury, and Lauren Adelson. And before we start, I also want to ask my co-curator Erica to stand for a second and say hello to everyone. I think that part of what generates the enthusiasm we're experiencing tonight is a tremendous pride of ownership of this part of the Brooklyn Museum Collection, which has been here since 1909. And since that time it has been considered one of the great treasures and gems of our entire holdings. And it's absolutely remarkable to see everything out and together and merged with the contents of the second early purchase of watercolors in 1912 by the MFA Boston. I hope you visit the exhibition tonight and repeatedly and read the catalogue. But tonight we're going to chat with Richard to gain more of a sense of Sgt. the man that he has really uncovered as part of his remarkable research and owing in part as well to his personal connections. And we're going to talk about three general subjects, the first being Sgt. family and their role in his art making. Also Sgt. amazing entourage of friends who also were very much apart, particularly of the watercolors. And then finally some of Sgt. travels and the places he painted because Richard has I think virtually traced all of those pathways at this point. So welcome. Thank you. And we're going to start by considering Sgt. studio in London and the fact that at the time of his death in 1925 there were hundreds and hundreds of watercolors there. There were. And one should just say this is 31 Tide Street which is still there has been lovingly restored by its new owners and has regained its character once more. He also had a studio of 33 Tide Street. And you can see here some of the props and some of the furniture which appears in his portraits and his piano. He was a great musician and there's the sitter's stand top right with the fact you can't really see it. But there's a piece of a buzzery French 18th century paneling which he used to deploy in his portraits. And the gramophone he was used to regale his sitters often with Spanish music. And you can see here he's got on bottom left. He's preparing to do a charcoal portrait. And in the middle is the stereoscopic viewer for photographs. And I think we're going to see a photograph or two. He was very interested in the medium of photography and took the stereoscopic which when you look at through the the Vera scope gives you a 3D effect. And the furniture too all rather French and sort of empire Louis says very much the kind of things that all his clients were going in for the fashionable French Rococo 18th century style. And that was very much his kind of style he admired very much. So and of course a lot of these props appear in the portraits. And in one of the volumes we detail all the different accessories that he used. And it was full of watercolors in great portfolios because originally he wouldn't sell anything rather to the dismay of friends and collectors who said well can we buy these. And Mr. Sergeant used to say no I really do these for myself. And he said on one occasion when I'm painting somebody like Lord London for a great grandee I need to remind myself that you know I'm not a complete duffer. So these watercolors were very important to him and it was really only there was three big one-man shows in London 1993 1995 1998. Nothing was for sale and it was only when he sent them over to Brooklyn he was very reluctant to bring them over. It was too much hassle you know they weren't and he said at the time I won't sell to individual collectors but if an institution were to be interested then then I would do it and that's and Brooklyn came forward and and then Boston was terribly miffed that they'd been beaten to the post and they they put a sort of lean on him and said well next time Mr. Sergeant you jolly well going to you're going to let us have first crack of the whip. And so he was conscious I think when he was doing the Boston lot that these were going to an institution which is why then in general they are on a larger slightly larger scale they're a bit more finished bit more like presentation watercolors whereas the Brooklyn were a sort of gathering of the over a longer course of time but the house was and the same with oil paintings and in spite of these two big sales he did let he gave things away particularly his wedding presents and to friends fellow artists so he gave a lot away but at the end you know his two sisters who inherited all these things they had a big sergeant sale in 1925 and about a hundred of the watercolors were put in my grandfather wanted to persuade the sisters to put in everything because he realized that you know sergeant prices this was the moment to go and this sale which included oil paintings made about nearly half a million dollars in real terms which goodness knows what that is in today's terms so it was the moment to strike but even with that they were still left with an enormous number of things and they gave away in the 1930s to the MFA in Boston and to the fog hundreds of sheets of drawings of watercolors and they gave an even bigger my grandmother in 1950 Francis Taylor the then director of the Met sort of squirreled out of her you know another few hundred drawings and watercolors and I don't think anybody's fully and they gave to left right and center to smaller institutions anybody has realized the scale of these gifts from the two sisters and even so quite a lot came down through the family and I remember going to my grandmother's flat in Chelsea which was just covered from floor to ceiling with they framed oh they were all framed yes they got framed sergeant never bothered to frame them because they in and actually one of the things was he said but I'm you know I've got to frame these and that's a tremendous bore and I've got to go to the console to get the papers I've got to go to this people it's all too much hassle and you realize that he was having to do all this himself he didn't have a staff he didn't have a staff you know staff and he all his it's calling it's very difficult letter writer I mean he scrolls letters I mean and also it's very unbusiness like often he has rights to people to say I'm not quite sure if I've had your check or not could you could you please let me know so Richard you mentioned portfolios of watercolors were they grouped in any specific way or I don't think so no I mean I think when he chose the you know he had an idea of what was his really and when he did them for the Carfax gallery I think those were the things he really cared about and he did exhibit every year at the Royal Watercolor Society where of course his his work sort of blew everything else off the walls you know because they weren't kind of traditional English watercolors you know these big bold splashy watercolors you know were but I don't think he had I don't know that it's interesting whether he had any I mean he certainly of course he's a sequential painter you know he serial painter like Monet with the water lilies or Cezanne I mean he's a serial painter variations on and what and he certainly when he talked to them about the Brooklyn to Nerdler because he said oh well mr dear mr Boyd because it was a joint exhibition you do it all don't you know you hang it just because he didn't come over you hang it as you want and then he said oh by the way well I think the Bedouin things will be rather nice and you might think of starting with Venice or whatever and so he was kind of calling the shots from from a distance so let's talk a little bit about some of the very very important family members and perhaps most important is sergeant sister Emily oh yes we have two photos here one of Emily with her friend Eliza Wedgewood in a gondola in Venice and on the right Emily watching sergeant painting hovering one might say you could never miss aunt Emily because she's always there in black and they were brought up together in I mean it's a very odd upbringing they were both born in Europe and brought up in that kind of migrant existence moving with the seasons from the south and then as the weather improved you came north and so and you met a few other expatriates doing the same sort of routine but they were very much thrown together on their own resources and they were only a year apart and I think always sergeant had a very warm feeling and protective feeling to his sister she had a sort of dis disablement her back was not straight and I think her mother had seized on Emily as the daughter who was going to look after her and so in a certain sense has so many of daughters were sacrificial victims but sergeant always I think and she absolutely doted on him and she was a very I mean she could have been she was very musical like him there was a thought that she might go and study music in Dresden and but I'm afraid the mum put a stop to that and so you will feel she never but she was a very talented water colorist in her own right there are several hundred sheets and she really deserves to there she is but with the two nieces you can't miss her yes with the brush in her mouth with a brush so she was but she never exhibited but she was prolific and they often painted side by side what they painted side by side yes very often and she was invariably the person who went with him on his on his sketching expedition she was a familiar figure and it's a very somebody described her as the wife he never had really because you know she was and in Chelsea she lived just around the corner from him and he used to go around every day and she would entertain for him you know the friends and everything else so it was a very touching relationship really and was she prolific as well in terms of the number of watercolors she executed yes and there are some that which have on the back with sergeant's help where he would add afterwards he kind of pep them up you know so but and she she never complained she always had a she always looked on the bright side of things she had a great she's highly intelligent very sharp didn't suffer fools gladly she had a real gift for friendship and she really in spite of that you might think you know being limited and living with mother and all that but she never she made the most of life as intrepid as he was she was as intrepid as he was yes she was in her own way yes she's a remarkable character unfortunately i didn't never knew her because in my grandmother was 14 years younger and my father was her the youngest child so it's really like a double and she was knocked over by a bicycle in Zurich and died in consequence 1936 so about 10 years after him and there you see him as somebody said looking like a chicken just emerging from an egg with with with all his painting umbrellas large and stout and there he is in the act of out in the mountains sergeant also had this entourage of friends who were with him yeah he liked to be surrounded by yes by um uh his particularly in the alps his family you know the nephews and nieces and his sisters and other friends and then when he went the pattern was to start in the alps in august then he would go to Venice and meet up with fellow artists and then they would either decide to go to Mallorca Corfu southern Spain Rome Frascati whatever it might be and so there were two or three months each year um he was taking out to uh from portrait painting and mural painting um and there you see a group at the sampland um uh and the figure i want to point out is peter harrison top yeah the one seated is peter harrison who's the one lounging in the bed here i love this picture he's much too tall for the bed and he's smoking a pipe and i love this sort of intimate view of his in a several of this sort of this uh of its friends in bed in these in that with all that great um boasters you get in in uh in swiss hotels and when we were thinking about yes and they are in the middle of the bay the sergeant is on the wall behind with his hand like that and then in front of him is ambrodio raffaele who's uh uh an italian painter he met in portue came from vigivano town in northern italy and that i've just come across or been by uh somebody's writing a book a whole lot of letters from raffaele to another friend describing his experiences in um in with sergeant whom he deeply admired um in the sampland in portue and he and two other italians they they spent several seasons in the valet ester and then they followed sergeant up to the sampland so they were sort of um perennial friends what was interesting when we were thinking about some of these reclining figures was looking for other bed imagery from this looking for bed imagery oh bed imagery yes and it's actually quite rare yeah there's that fantastic oil painting here in his studio which is raffaele who's actually not painting on plein air i mean usually sergeant is paints his fellow artists in the act of painting landscape and you feel it's often a kind of autobiography because it's you know it's sergeant painting somebody else painting but um that's an incredible picture because he squashed in with this huge great picture in this very small bedroom and then there's this huge great bed and sumptuously the sheets are the most beautiful part of the picture and it's sort of you know the inner inner world of the artist and the private man you know you can imagine the every picture being put away and raffaele getting into his night shirt which is thrown over the end of the bed and climbing into that huge great bed yes i think one of the most remarkable things is how many seasons all these people spent together year after year that it was something they clearly all loved and they loved being part of the process and sergeant's work and the experience and um they were real painting expeditions he didn't go on holiday and just happened to sketch right he went on holiday or he didn't he went to other countries to paint they were painting campaigns but he also loved playing music because he was so intensely musical and he was very very widely read and i've just recently catalogued um his french library um which was several hundred volumes it's very very and french literature he really preferred to english literature voltaire and then the contemporary people like Baudelaire and and um flow band valet and so he's and then they would have a play chess and read and but daytime he's out on the you know wherever it is uh areas uh poor too yes quite interesting i when i went there i couldn't find the brook because the brook is features in numerous pictures both with the with figures and also just the brook and actually it's one of the few i mean most of the things that sergeant painted is still there because he painted tended to paint old buildings and mountains don't change and so much but this they thought they they finally said oh yes yes we diverted that a few years back so um you did your best now he's featuring um in this photo rosemary yes ormond and she is wearing one of the eastern costumes that he purchased when he did his tour of the levant well she's um she was very beautiful um the two girls were both ren and rosemary but um she was um she was um um obviously a wonderful personality um and um very selfless rather like her her aunt emily um thinking always more of other people than herself and she's really one of the presiding geniuses of the exhibition or the model because she appears numerous times and she was really his favorite alpine model and um it she's a very tragic story because um she was brought up by her french grandmother and um married a frenchman a brilliant medieval art historian uh called robert and de michel and he was killed they were married for less barely a year when he was killed on the western front and she then uh and i've got her letters to her brother the agony of his loss um and her tends to be brave and all of that and then she tended the blind blind soldiers at roye in a suburb of paris in a and then in 1918 she was in san jeve for a for a service and the one of the german shells struck it and about 80 people were killed including rosemary and they're buried in a lovely tomb um uh near where robert fell um outside soison it's a very moving monument and it's very well looked after by the uh the local commune but this i always think this sort of brilliant couple you know is one of the the things so um but she is uh absolutely and you she her sparkling personality comes across in all those lovely sumptuous pictures of her either in oriental costume or in those great big summer um rings and she you can feel her personality um and that incredible one where he's one one the cashmere shawl around her like a mummy you know i mean the shawls he could do a whole thing couldn't you on shawls and absolutely costumes here and sergeant is he's arbitrarily playing with it i mean he's creating these costumes you know um and this is um a larger group of the ormond children oh yes yeah that's all six of them the six nephews and nieces um and uh wren is on the left and um she's younger than rosemary yes she's younger wren uh and my cousin rose whose wren's daughter is in the audience tonight so um with her husband larry um so uh and her son ian and holly uh my father is the little boy in the foreground the two boys john louis who uh ran the swiss tobacco monsieur or they ran a tobacco company uh and geome who became organist at choreo cathedral in england very musical paul marguerite who was rarely uh rested development and was institutionalized and then rosemary on the right and here they are in this is the barnard dorothy barnard you probably some of you know carnation li li li li rose well dorothy was one of the little girls there and here she is uh and this is the watercolor called is it reading yeah reading um with rosemary sort of line line and um uh dorothy barnard and dorothy barnard i knew she was my brother's godmother as a very old woman still living in broadway where carnation li li li rose was painted this elderly lady um was still a sort of link right back to carnation li li li rose but it gives you a sense of how over decades these people continued to figure so pivotally yes and um mr barnard fredrich barnard was an illustrator famous for his dickens illustrations but he took to the bottle and sergeant sort of rarely kept i think felt a responsibility to mrs barnard alice barnard and they were always and a lot of these people were also part of his chelsea set you know they all lived in chelsea and so as it were they then moved out into the alps you know as a sort of on mass yeah and something that uh we we had a tour through the exhibition earlier today and someone asked about the patience of these friends and family who were models and erica responded saying that well at least they were allowed to lie down and read books so i think i think at breakfast you tried to avoid eye contact because otherwise you were in for a whole day of work sitting but it was worth it what it was worth it yes yeah so you mentioned rafaeli um on the left is a photograph of sergeant and rafaeli cleaning up a picnic in the alps and on the right one of the great watercolors in brooklyn's collections called in a hay loft uh in which sergeant has painted his two two of his italian plein air painter friends rafaeli and polonera and i just think it's an exquisite picture and it shows how close they were in their art and the days and days they spent together both working outside in oil in watercolor really relishing the setting and working in natural light it was what they sought yes i think it was a very close sort of and i think he you know the bearded figure like a sort of venerable sage i think he really liked him as a model because he appears in numerous pictures but this is i think it's absolutely wonderful because it's you know it's one of those interior scenes that sergeant handles with such sort of deafness so though it as always you don't you never sergeant loves to disorient you don't really know where you are where we are in space at all or where they are we had a very long discussion in conservation as to whose legs those are what's happening down at the bottom but it's we disagreed by the way we never decided whether you couldn't you couldn't you couldn't figure it out but it's there they are lying back on the hay and in this interior end of just the light just coming in isn't it just catching i mean i always think sergeant's really a master we talk about being a master of light but he's really a master of shadow yes i mean there's far more shadows in his picture than there are lights which is why of course when the lights do come on they're so vivid and absolutely and you said that you recently learned that he met raffaele earlier than you had expected letters these letters to this friend this friend of raffaele is it's quite clear that they met at port two in 1903 you know the sources too for this are very fragmentary i mean there are few sergeant letters there are reminiscences by various people there are a few third party letters so and sometimes there's quite a lot of correspondence jane de glen all her letters night but then she stops or she may not have stopped writing to her sisters but the archives of american arts don't have any letters after about 1907 so you get a very full and she's a very vivid letter writer and there's a one woman who may appear later eliza wood wedgwood who was always traveling with she wasn't an artist but she was a faithful companion and always sat she's always there sitting beside emily just sitting there being a sort of comforting presence but um she left a wonderful um diary and and reminiscence of her time with the sergeant so there are some but it's a bit scattered you know one year and sometimes for a bit more on some of the some of the the years you've got really all too little and there were relatively few letters in his possession when he did manning he kept nothing so there are masses of his letters hither and thither he was so fed up with having to answer and so he he hated all this correspondence and the first thing he did was to bin them all i'm sure um so anyway very frustrating very frustrating yeah very frustrating and of course no no records of his work no diaries no nothing of that kind so let's talk a little bit about your retracing of sergeant's travels and i think the alps are very fascinating in terms of um where he went where he first worked and then where he continued to work in the samplon and we have a few pictures here one is the hotel in pertu which was the the first location of choice yeah um from 1904 to eight i think is that around that yes and um you've visited the hotel is still there it's still there yes well when i first went there there was a huge building um and i there the the hotel and i thought oh goodness they've knocked down but no the gable when i really looked more closely they'd simply expanded the hotel and the central section was absolutely uh there intact so it is still the hotel where mr sergeant's uh stayed is still is still there and do you have any sense of why he first gravitated to this particular spot i don't i think probably somebody had said to him i think but i don't really know otherwise why he would have because pertu is quite off the map it's near kormayur but it's sort of up this valley and it's not somewhere that it wasn't like somewhere on the route sort of um fashionable um place yeah and i included this other photo because these were very very active people they they were out hiking and yeah this this all these images in the exhibition of these beautiful girls sort of lounging back or lying down in these oriental clothes or in those great things couldn't be further from the tree there they all are in hobnail boots out on the mountains mr sergeant is inventing so this is really what life was like in the portue or the sampland on vacation yeah uh and i did um i first went to the sampland but uh and it was i'm sure my father took us there in 1947 we went to switzerland um and through a war-torn france it was rarely dire and came to sw- and in england was in austerity we all had ration books and suddenly there in switzerland you would have everything you know it was like a land flowing with milk and honey but my father took us up for four days to the sampland where he had spent so many as a boy and i think that was a my first sort of um uh pursuit of sergeant if you like and we walked up to the calvasa glacia over all the streams that he had painted um and uh so it was a very memorable i've never forgotten it so to continue uh the karara pictures are one of the great feature of boston's holdings and he went in 1911 um well before this was a touristic stop and he really weathered the conditions there amazingly in order to paint well he lived in a hut in extremely primitive conditions um but he was all he didn't mind roughing i mean when he was out in palestine you know with the bedwin he was obviously camping and on horseback but he uh he didn't sort of physical uh rigors didn't or in the rockies i had to track him into twin falls and and um uh gosh that was a an epic of a walk and then um uh leiko hara and so he was physical and he there again he was camping out um he was uh a sort of um quite intrepid on um all that but i karara i have been to karara but of course i what i love to do you see really is to be absolutely and terry's done it as well you know to be in the spot where mr sergeant wasn't really identify you know where where you are and i of course sometimes i've skipped over walls where i shouldn't be you know and um cha cha in venice took us to uh who was our venetian waterman we spent a week identifying sergeants um venice watercolors and uh mr cha cha wonderful used to take us into places you wanted space to go at all you know in pursuit and um so we've we've had a few adventures um one way or another and was like the karara unfortunately you can't because they the quarry as they've been quarrelling for the last hundred years so the quarries don't look the same but they are marvelous abstract um and right in your that's really sergeant not letting you no relief he pushes your nose up against these great blocks and and these ant like figures and i should say these are sergeants photographs that we're looking at yes well yes i think these were we're never always quite sure because he was also with his manservant nicola uh who also took photographs and wilfred deglenn took photographs but a few of them survive through the deglenn connection um and uh uh so um here here is um a typical one with them shaping the blocks of marble uh and there are other some amazing ones and uh because these um these great blocks had to come down the mountain uh and it was a very hazardous profession these lisitori yes the quarry workers and then when you got them to the bottom you then had to shape them and all the rest of it and you had to let them down these huge ropes and of course if you you let two set pairs of ropes and if you let go you know you in dead trouble with what sort of you know your hundred ton block of marble coming down and by way of a slight advertisement for a lecture i'll be giving on may 4th if you can all come back and join us um i had the opportunity to trace through some of the italian villa gardens with my sister who's here tonight and it was remarkable not only to see what sergeant did paint but what he didn't paint and this is a set of views of the gardens at the villareale demalia outside of luca these grand axial designs including the pathway leading to the largest pool garden in italy and the beautiful assemblage of sculptures and the exedra behind it all lined with lemon trees and then one sees what sergeant chose to paint and that's the spot from which he painted it and he chooses to create this brilliant watercolor of the backside for better word lack of better word of these two river gods that are at the end of the pool garden and i think it's just so enlightening to do what you've done in terms of tracing pathways and encountering the places sergeant experienced to really understand what he chose to paint i i always wonder whether i'm the ghost looking at mr sergeant or mr sergeant is the ghost and i'm the you know because you you feel your eavesdropping on where he was um so it's sometimes rather eerie um that that experience but it is very um special when you suddenly identify something you know you come on something you've been searching for and then i remember going down in the val d'astre um and there's a famous picture of uh of the sort of mombra on my sieve and there was a particular sort of glacier and i couldn't see it and then suddenly the clouds parted as a certain point and i was just at the right angle because very often if you're not at the right angle you can miss things and there was the the picture and you just felt i you know i've got it but what he's i think also very interesting is i mean sergeant's a master of the fragment you know i mean you look at santa maria de la salute which is several pictures there which is one of the great churches at the beginning of the grand canal and um famous turner and all all the great painters are painted but does mr sergeant paint the dome and this great church no he hones in on this just this front entrance from the side chapel he doesn't show you the dome or anything and this is absolutely typical of him and if you go around venice of course he painted from a gondola everything is from the gondola and it's like a series of angles and odd perspectives um and i remember in sicily um at agregento um he painted some wonderful paintings of this rolling landscape going down to the sea and i suddenly sort of realized that if he'd moved his easel about two inches he would have got in the famous greek temples at agregento but i think he was absolutely deliberate because he wasn't interested in that he it was the flow of the landscape and this would have been a distraction you know it would he was not a painting views like santa maria de salute he's not painting um uh things as sort of icons he's he's particular things fascinate him i look at that great term wonderful great fountain you know the hercules in the gardens the villa medici the hercules is chopped off he doesn't the main point of this thing is the statue of hercules at the top it's just cropped out um and uh it wasn't what interesting it was the bowl the two great bowls and the interlinking part of the pedestal between with all those wonderful um and of course sergeant's always you you think there's an awful lot there you know we were looking at santa maria de salute and you think of the you know he's really just really got the figures and all the way when you come up close he's just a flick of paint i mean it's so uh it's a sort of illusion at how he that's much less and it's that's all part of the abbreviation and the abstraction and the modernism because i think they are intensely modern in that the way that he he flattens the space it's all about the paint it's about the material of paint how you handle paint and when you get up sometimes things seem to transmo transpose substances become quite else it's and it's almost it's a subject substance of paint quite as much as representation per se and that's what i think also is so so modern about him um and you feel his energy you know still don't they they these are scenes that absolutely that he's caught the moment and they're so um charged with his nervous energy i mean he's a difficult person to ever get in under the skin of because he's such a private reserved person but when it comes to his art you feel the energy and the passion and the all those emotions that he never displayed in life and his presence really all there you know and people used to say you know descriptions of him are of him at sort of white heat and it's the same with his when he's painting portraits demons demon he used to say as he rush back and forth and you can see in these pictures that i think he sort of um he knew what he wanted to do he in his mind once he got in his mind then he sets about it there's a wonderful essay in the catalogue which by the two conservators about the amazing range of techniques he's using and he's using whatever is to hand it's punching out he's using the back of the brush he's putting on um uh in pasto he's um uh i mean the number and nothing is quite what it seems and even some of the conservators don't really know sometimes what what mediums he's using but it's all whatever he got he got it in his head um it's painted you know al primo absolutely um and he's so so confident but he was he there's a wonderful description of him saying you know each watercolor is an emergency you know you you feel there's no comfort zone for him he he's each time he's chanceing his arm and the more complex the light effects the more complex the surfaces the more the more he seems to relish it there's no formula which is why it's all so live and well and to see so many and to have so many of them be different and distinctive well because he can do it can't he sometimes those very beautiful architectural studies so clear and lucid and beautifully done and then you get something like the gourds or the you know the all the mountains with just a whole lot of rocks thrown down and you'd think it's the most unpre-possessing subject but you know he doesn't it brings it to life and yeah yeah it's a tremendous range of subject matter and and techniques and he's doing whatever he feels is right for that for the substance for the moment yeah and it's all about arresting and that's what I think some of them you feel like the salute we did about a dozen pictures in oil and watercolour you feel there like a series of meditations of a series of of this thing seen under different conditions sometimes he's close up sometimes he's further away and you know working through a sort of succession of treatments of the same motif I think that's also very modern sort of approach so Richard can we take a few questions is that that would you be open to that of course great so does anyone have a question right here if you could stand up and you'll have to I will okay very good was money a problem for sergeant money yeah money always of course does matter but he made a lot of money as a portrait painter and as a mural painter but it is true that he gives up portrait painting in 1907 except for a few exceptions and it's clear that after 1907 he is marketing his oil paintings he's each year and increasingly from about 1910 onwards a series of pictures go to nerdler and nerdler handle them and they go to American collectors by enlarge and I think that's because of the loss of you know of of the portrait income he needs to supplement it and he's got his responsibilities for his sister and so I think that you know but he was he he and I don't think he always knew because he had very good advisors in particularly in America so that he probably worried sometimes more than he needed to but he was certainly you know very well off relatively speaking but I think that that and the fact that he I mean the watercolors he sold to Brooklyn I mean he was selling them for sort of 200 dollars a piece or whatever it was 241 there you are so so that did money did matter to him and he took on more mural commissions and he worked incredibly hard as a portraitist and I think that's part of what exhausted his connection to that and I think the thing is that you know the great thing about going to the Alps and all of that he didn't have patrons and were still their relatives leaning over his shoulder you know tutting or telling him what they wanted someone else yes right here sergeant's academic training well yes he did he studied with Carolus Dura a French portrait painter in fact if you go to the Met to that exhibition Impressionism and Fashion you'll see Carolus Dura absolutely terrific portrait of the fact the woman with the glove La femme au gant which is a sensational black portrait but the thing about Carolus Dura and where sergeant really learned his trade in a way that some somebody like Whistler you feel is much more struggles with great artists as he is struggles with the medium that Carolus Dura taught his pupils from the very beginning instead of just doing that thing you know you must draw from the cast and then you can draw from life and only after you've been through that discipline you actually learned a paintbrush Carolus Dura taught his people right from the start to paint and to paint values that was the great word the difference of lights and darks and that each stroke of the brush must define a value and it was that technical expertise that Carolus Dura passed on but sergeant also studied at the École des Beaux-Arts at the rigorous drawing regime so he Johnny will knew his drawing and in a sense the the murals which are very ambitious compositions very academic go right back to that training in the École but Carolus Dura was the one who really gave him that skill with the brush which of course in the oil painting and also in watercolor because sometimes you feel he's painting watercolors almost as an oil painter you know it's the same isn't it sort of instinctive yeah and a couple of the pairs up in the galleries you can see that one or two right here I wish I knew the answer because you sometimes feel why did he pick up the oil paint that day or rather than the watercolor I think he always I think and particularly later when he was selling things through Nerdler he knew he'd got to come back with some pictures that were saleable I mean that were good enough in his view to sell an exhibit and so I think but of course with watercolor you've much greater freedom you can I mean an oil painting is a much more of a commitment so I think he probably I don't know I sort of feel he may have rationed himself a bit you know that I can't just paint watercolors because I've got to you know produce summer corpus of I've got to come back with some oil paintings so I think there must have been some in his mind and of course the oil paintings some of them may have been finished in the studio we don't know rather like Raphael you see him there he's painting actually in the studio from all sorts of oil sketches but why he preference one over another it's a very good question and women in white maybe just a brief comment about sergeants Orientalism Orientalism yes well I think it's sort of make-believe because you're not under any illusion that there are oriental models that are clearly European models and that's in an alpine setting by alpine brooks so he's but he he did love fantasy I mean his one favorite book was the Arabian Nights the 101 Nights I mean that was the absolute and who's the Vartek Beckford William Beckford famous late 18th century Oriental fantasy and he loved flow bears salambo so he loved there is that fantasy element which I think is deeply attractive to sergeant but I don't think he's not really like true orientalist painters who paint harems and shakes and slave markets and all that stuff I mean this he's playing with it costume and but he loves to wrap these models these sensuous models in in these extraordinary cashmere shawls that he wraps around them and and it's as much about the shawls and again flattening the space and yes they're delicious pictures and and of course they're deliciously painted and the colors are so gorgeous yeah I mean they're just and you get up the impasto is so you know wonderful isn't it when sergeants really going one more I think right here madam X do you just want to say a word about sergeants feelings about the madam X portrait oh I think he knew it was his one of his great pictures and as soon as madam Gautra had died Edward Robinson who was the director at the Met put in a bid for it and I think sergeant that really appealed to him that it would come to the Metropolitan Museum and and I think he knew it was one of his and he put an enormous amount of effort into it I mean he it was painted at his request this extraordinary woman with her white skin and that's sort of incredible profile and I think he spent more time on it and it was you know a very considered masterpiece which is why it was such a shock to him you know when it was lambasted at the and in looking at it today why how could people have of I mean it's a sort of icon of high style and she's but it somehow got under everyone's net you know and it was mocked as being a sort of decadent decadent thing and and the fact that she's sort of so not a kind of conventional role model for women is it she's sexy and she couldn't give a damn I mean she's that bravado and provocativeness and of course off the shoulder and all of that and it really did because he planned it as being his real knockout blow at the salon this was really going to put him in the big time and the fact that it was you know and that's when he comes really to England but with his tail between his legs and it's a few talks of giving up art after Madame Gautreau I mean he's so depressed so it was a real disaster for him but of course it's one of the great pictures it's fantastic so I want to urge all of you to pick up the palm card outside we have a wonderful sergeant course that will include lectures by Erica Hirschler, Trevor Fairbrother, our conservator Tony Owen and myself and with that I want to thank you Richard for sharing so much


efine what those might actually be to. Many of those giving evidence asked for this, offering the view that that would really empower communities from the bottom up. That could be as demanding as it is rewarding. On the one hand, as Audit Scotland commented, we might wish to set national outcomes to assess national progress on things like health inequalities, life expectancy or educational attainment, but national indicators can often mask significant local variations in performance. As I mentioned earlier, success might look quite different from one community to another. There is a big challenge there, but it is so important to work on this to try to get that balance right. The section on community planning has certainly got some robust feedback, probably as a result of varying levels of satisfaction with the community planning process over the past decade. Some felt that hitherto the process was far too top down, where a collection of public bodies basically came together to map out a community's future for it. In some cases, that could hardly even pass as engagement. For this process to work according to the SCVO, there must be an opportunity for local people to articulate those societal changes that they want to see and for the community planning partnerships to take those up on their behalf. That, in my view, is real empowerment. It should not be a process that we shy away from. As Kay Gilmar from East Ayrshire Council said, if we have a culture of improvement, we do not get anxious if communities, individuals in the community or community groups, make suggestions about how to innovate or do things differently and better. Community empowerment is largely dependent on volunteers. Very often, the same volunteers are relied upon in communities for the provision of many facilities. It is likely that community buyouts will enlist the same volunteers, because we rely on them all the time. What consideration has been given to the capacity of volunteers and sustaining the number of volunteers that are required for community buyouts, given that only 18 per cent of adult volunteers? The member makes a good point, and there is certainly a section that I have seen in the bill that passes through the bill on building community capacity to make that process much more possible to happen. For me, there are clear signs that the Government's proposals are taking us in the right direction. Section 5 of the bill allows individuals and community bodies who would not normally be part of the formal process to be involved in shaping the local outcome improvement plans. That process does not exclude things such as community councils. They have a key part to play in that, too, but the committee made its views clear that engagement is not the same as empowerment, and John Wilson made that point earlier, and that the Government should be absolutely clear about how it intends to empower local people in this crucial community planning process. Perhaps one of the more exciting elements of the bill is the proposals that communities can seek to take control over council-owned buildings and land, not as a result of council disposals but as a proactive and positive move that helps the community to achieve its aims. That is a fundamental shift for me in how Scotland's land and building assets are managed and presents communities right across Scotland with the opportunity to lead and drive that process for themselves. There are quite a few asset transfer processes already in place in Scotland, but the difference in the bill is that communities can instigate those requests themselves, and I think that that is a welcome and positive change from the current situation and is consistent with the Christie commission findings. In the time that I have left, I think that the bill offers communities across Scotland real powers to shape and develop their local communities and to do that very much from the bottom up. It will not be an easy process for councils, officials or even elected members, but I think that if all of us embrace the principles behind the bill, Scotland will surely be the better place for it. Before I move the closing speeches, there are several members who have not been in the chamber for some time and would remind them that they should be here for the closing speeches, although they are not at this time. Alex Ferguson, up to seven minutes please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I was very tempted to start by saying that if Mike Russell's contribution represented him in hiding, as he referred to, heaven help us all if he ever decides to come out of hiding, I will resist that temptation. No one in their right minds, I do not think, could disagree with the overall aims of the bill that we have been discussing this afternoon. Some of the detail might be a different matter, as many members Alex Rowley, Rob Gibson and Tavish Scott have all highlighted as have others, but any measure, legislative or otherwise, that seeks to strengthen community participation, unlock enterprise in community development and renew our communities must be worthy of support, and we on these benches will be supporting the general principles of the bill at decision time. As a member of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, my involvement with the bill has been limited to part 4, and I will focus on one or two reservations that I have about that part shortly, but it is clear from the many briefings we have received from outside organisations that I am by no means alone in having some reservations and concerns over various aspects of the bill. One of those aspects centres on the definition of community, a topic on which we spent quite a lot of time in the committee. Now, I am personally drawn towards defining a community by place or location rather than by communities of interest. However, the concerns raised by Inclusion Scotland, which Alex Rowley referred to, which highlights what it calls a missed opportunity to give disabled, disadvantaged and marginalised people the ability to participate in community planning has made me sit up and think. If any groups deserve to be further empowered when it comes to the delivery of local services, then it must surely be those groups, and I hope that the Government will look seriously at that aspect when it comes to stage 2. I listen very carefully to the minister's comments on equalities in his opening speech, and I do think the fact that Inclusion Scotland and others have suggested that the bill as drafted runs the risk of further disempowering, disadvantaged and marginalised groups must surely ensure that this concern is looked at and taken seriously. I do not often agree with Joan McAlpine, but I am delighted to say that today is an occasion when I do, because I was also very interested in the point raised by the Scottish Woodlot Association, a body that I very much support, particularly Scotland's first woodlot, was established in my constituency. However, the Woodlot Association has stated that, for woodlot licences to reach their full potential in Scotland, they need to be established on state land as well as on private land. I agree with that wholeheartedly, Presiding Officer, and I hope that the Government will agree with the recommendation 347, which seeks a review of the legislation that currently prevents the Forestry Commission from leasing land to communities for forestry purposes. It is surely logical that, just as the Forestry Commission now plays an important role in bringing new entrants into agriculture through the development of starter farms, it could do the same with foresters. Presiding Officer, planning advice Scotland makes an important point, which is that community planning, as a local authority function that sits alongside the planning system, needs to engage more effectively with local communities. I strongly agree with that point, Presiding Officer, because I know that most of the communities that I represent view community planning as the ultimate in talking shops, something that the council does somewhat remotely without much local input or impact. Community planning is not understood by communities, it is not across the length and breadth of the country. Given the heightened role that community planning is to play in delivering the aims of this legislation, that is something that simply must be corrected. Presiding Officer, I want to talk about part 4 of the bill in the time that remains to me. Although I did not comment on the first sentence of the Racky Committee's report when we were discussing it, I am more than a little taken aback by the wording that a bill is needed to remedy the defects of the Land Reform Scotland 2003 Act. I may be being a little oversensitive about that, but as the convener of the Rural Affairs Committee, which led on the 2003 bill, I might have preferred some wording along the lines of a bill that is needed to build on the successes of the 2003 act. I was interested to hear from the evidence that we took that not many community purchases had taken place using the legislation from 2003. However, what was clear was that many communities had engaged in the right-to-buy process because of the very existence of the act. In other words, the act has acted as a catalyst to empower communities in ways that would almost certainly never have happened without the existence of the act. I think that that points to quite a successful piece of legislation rather than one that is full of defects. Nonetheless, Presiding Officer, the time is right to extend its provisions, particularly into urban areas, and we very much welcome the principle of doing so. Where I have descended from the Racky report is over the committee's recommendations on the power to extend the community right to buy where there is no willing seller. The Government's position is that this should only apply as a last resort when other measures and negotiations have failed. I could accept that, and indeed the committee accepts that. However, the majority of the committee then goes on to question the need to restrict the definition of eligible land to that which is wholly or mainly abandoned or neglected, and to ask why a definition is needed at all, believing that the tests of furthering sustainable development and of being in the public interest are capable of testing all the requirements. In my view, those criteria also require greater definition if we are really to understand where we are going with this legislation. I find myself endorsing the Government's position on this as laid out in the policy memorandum. The committee's majority recommendation would, in my view, open the door to a virtual absolute right to buy for communities. The Government has effectively ruled that out in relation to agricultural holdings, and I hope that it will hold fast to its original intentions for this bill as well. However, above all, what has been highlighted right throughout this debate by Mike Russell, Sarah Boyack and many others is the urgent need for this Government to provide clear definitions within this legislation as we move forward into stage 2. If it can do so, if it does so, I feel quite certain that this bill, which in many ways bears a welcome resemblance to the Localism Act 2011 brought in by the current UK Government, will eventually receive unanimous cross-party support. I very much hope that that will be possible because our communities deserve no less from their Parliament. Many thanks. I now call on Ken Macintosh up to nine minutes. Can I just begin by saying what an excellent debate this has been? There has been clear good will expressed from all sides across the Parliament in support of this bill. I think that Graeme Dey talked about it, described it as welcome unanimity. I am not sure that it was quite unanimity. Alison Johnstone said that we could be slightly braver. There was some friendly criticism, but we are definitely welcoming this bill, certainly the direction of travel outlined in this bill, and we will be supporting it at the decision time today. Not only does it attempt to build on the recommendations of the Christie commission, I would suggest that it builds on the whole devolution agenda and the creation of the Scottish Parliament itself. The idea of subsidiarity and of each of us at a local and personal level exercising as much control and influence as possible over the forces that affect our lives and the services that support us in that. Just as I am pleased, the Government has finally brought forward this bill because it did have a bit of a stuttering start. I am especially grateful for the work of the local government and regeneration committee and of the rural affairs, climate change and environment committee. I thank members of both committees who have highlighted the strengths, but also the many weaknesses and concerns that still exist about the bill. I am not sure that the minister deserved to have his hard work dismissed as mere gobbledygook by the normally assiduously loyal convener of the local government committee, but there are tensions and even paradoxes around community empowerment, which have to be addressed if this bill is to be effective, and which at the moment remain slightly wooly and slightly vague. I was particularly welcoming off Tavishes Scots' thoughtful but quite spiky contribution. Mr Scott warned that, if we are not careful, this could be a lawyer's charter. There are certainly some questions outstanding—how to ensure robust and democratic accountability when it comes to utilising public resources? How to reconcile local control and therefore local variation with national demands for equity and fairness? Perhaps most important of all, how to ensure that, rather than narrowing inequality in Scotland, the bill does not make it worse? That dilemma was raised repeatedly in evidence, as well as in debate. The local government committee quoted from the Poverty Alliance, who stated, that the most important aspect of the bill is about empowering Scotland's most disadvantaged communities and narrowing inequalities between those communities that are already empowered and those that require more support. However, the added, there is a danger that the bill in its current form will most benefit those communities that are already empowered and able to take advantage of the provisions in the bill. Mr MacDonald. I hear what the member is saying, however, empowerment does not naturally follow in terms of affluence. Indeed, many of the deprived communities that I represent in my constituency have flourishing community organisations and delivery of services within the community by the community. There are good examples out there in some of our more deprived areas of communities taking charge of what is going on in their area. There are indeed good examples, but, as I have also pointed out, there is a danger that participation requests could, they certainly run the risk of becoming the privilege of already empowered communities. It is a problem that, certainly, I would suggest that most of us as MSPs have encountered in our work. At its most basic, it is making sure that resources are distributed fairly and not according to those who shout the loudest. I noticed in the beginning of the debate that we had a battle of quotes between Kevin Stewart and my colleague Alex Rowley. Kevin Stewart was suggesting that we should listen to Ernest Hemingway and trust each other, whereas Alex, my colleague Alex Rowley, suggested that we should be wiser to listen to Lyndon Johnson and ask ourselves what harm would it do if those powers were to be wrongly administered. Certainly, I have no doubt whatsoever that the minister and most members in this chamber share my intention and that of my Labour colleagues to use this bill, to give a voice to the power list to enfranchise those who are most marginalised, but inadvertently or otherwise we have to be careful that the bill does not simply give more power to the middle classes. I look forward to the minister bringing forward amendments to address this genuine anxiety. There is a parallel concern, too, that, despite the new powers for communities to deliver public services or to control public assets, the processes that are established could simply reinforce the dominance of the public sector, be it council, health board or enterprise agency, a hierarchy of power and empowerment. This was a concern a top-down approach that was flagged up by the SCVO and the Royal Society. What I believe emerged very strongly from the consultation on the bill was the need to invest in building community capacity and resilience, a point that Margaret MacDougall highlighted near the end of the debate. When we speak to the third sector, it would highlight that programmes that support community capacity are the very ones under threat in the current financial climate, which brings me neatly on to finance because there are major questions, question marks over the funding for the bill or rather the lack of clear funding, something flagged up by both the LGR and the Finance Committee. For many, it is not just a question that there is a lack of reasonable estimates, it is the fact that it is not going to make any funding happen. I think that Rob Gibson, the convener of Rackay, acknowledged when he said that funding requirements will need to be kept under review. In fact, the minister himself spoke of the benefits of participatory budgeting for communities. I would suggest that, if it is good enough for local groups, surely it is good enough for the Parliament itself. I would agree entirely with Angus Hardy, quoted earlier from the Scottish Community Alliance, that we certainly should not allow this to derail the bill, but it would be wrong. In fact, it would be a failing on the Government's account if we were not to face up to this issue and offer clarity. I was also undoubtedly to be welcomed that the bill tries to update legislation on allotment. Allotments play a more vital role than ever in allowing people access to the natural environment, growing their own healthy food and contributing to a more sustainable way of life here in Scotland. The trouble seems to be that the minister does not seem to have won the confidence of the allotment holders themselves. In his opening remarks, Mr Biaisie revealed the death of his office as Pedistra. He bemoaned his predecessor, Mr Mackay's lack of green fingers. I worry that the new minister has inherited that treat. The Scottish Allotments and Garden Society have been calling for five substantial amendments to the section of the bill, but since the minister's intervention, his meetings and phone call, they are now calling for the whole section of the bill to be dropped altogether. I am not sure whether to encourage the minister or ask him to lay off. I would like to echo Claudia Beamish's possibly unintentional, but very appropriate metaphor when she said that he must avoid kicking this into the long grass. I also welcome the points that are made by Alison Johnstone and the Green Party on fan ownership of football clubs that indicate Labour's sympathy and, hopefully, when we see that amendments are practical support for those proposals. Supporters Direct has made huge progress in recent years and several clubs that Alison Johnstone listed have made the move now, but it is impossible to look at Scottish football at the moment and not recognise the problems that are created by the wrong kind of ownership model. Fans and the local community put the interests of their local club first and there has never been a better time to promote the right to buy for football supporters. Finally, if I may, I would like to turn to perhaps the most important issue of Land Reformer and welcome the many contributions that are made across the chamber. In fact, I think that it was the subject most focused on by many Mark McDonald, Bob Doris, John Wilson and many more, particularly the move to extending the powers of land reform to urban areas and trying to exercise the pitfalls and the advantages of trying to exercise control over community assets. Both Rob Gibson and Mike Russell agreed on the weakness of the proposed legislation in not defining abandoned or neglected land on the face of the bill. In fact, I am quite grateful to Mike Russell for enlightening me on the fate of my old school, Rockfield primary, which is possible to become an art gallery. I can assure you that it is certainly not based on any art contribution that I made. He was particularly forceful, I thought, in describing the enormous barrier that the lack of definition of abandon or neglected land clause could pose the bill. I am surprised, therefore, that the committee seemed to leave the door open on this issue, with only Sarah Boyack and Claudia Beamish following the logic of the evidence heard and insisting that the clause either has to be defined or has to go. John Wilson and several Labour colleagues highlighted the need for social and economic development to be taken into consideration, not just environmental issues. Sarah Boyack, in particular, reminded us of the need to learn from past experience. I would like to conclude on that very point. Nielsen Development Trust is my own area of East Renfisher—sorry, sorry, I thought I had the extra minute, but I will conclude now. It is one of the best examples that I know of a community using existing land reform legislation to take control of the asset—the former Clyde deal bank, in our case—but the legislation not just enabled it. It was almost the hurdle, the hurdle of poor definition of too many obstacles in the way, despite the good intentions. I urge the minister not to make the same mistake in this bill, but to empower Scotland's communities to take control. Much. Mr Biacchi, you have 10 minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am tempted to join in the quote exchanging, but the quote that perhaps jumped to mind is that, laws like sausages cease to inspire respect and proportion as we know how they are made, sometimes allocated attributed to Bismarck, but apparently John Godfrey sacks. That has been an experience in seeing laws made. I think that I have seen a lot of examples this afternoon of where we generally look at the same amount of evidence, the same approaches, the same opinions, the same situations, and perhaps in some cases we might do things slightly differently coming from our different political directions, our different personal experiences. That is to be expected, that is why we exist, that is why we do not simply have everything put through without debate, but ultimately we have a unity over those general principles. However, if I can go on to some of those areas where we disagree, I would just gently suggest that the flipside to that ability to look at the same evidence and come to different conclusions invites the question of what would have happened had the Government come to a different conclusion. Would the Opposition in some cases have been just as strong in highlighting the alternative in those cases? One that I would point out, which was first raised by Alex Rowley but was mentioned right through, was the issue of the finances in the bill. We continue to have a difference of view here. As we have said, we believe that the financial information that is provided to the Parliament on the bill has been the best estimate that could have been provided of the administrative compliance and other costs to which the bill could give rise. It is the best estimate of the timescales as well. We have been up front throughout the bill process. The elements of the bill—participation requests, community right to buy, asset transfer requests and allotments—will be driven by the demand from communities and that we cannot predict what that demand might be with any degree of certainty. We know that through consultation and had we attempted to pluck a figure from the air that could have been misleading, confusing, false, it would have led to just as much criticism and let us simply accept that what has been put forward is the best estimate that we can put forward. Looking ahead to another area that has had a lot of debate, there is the issue of the allotments part. The Government comes to this with a principle that we all agree on. Allotments are a good thing, and there should be more of them. That is the principle that we share and we are working with. Looking at the Scottish Allotments and Garden Society five-point proposition, going through it and defining a standard plot as normally 250m2 is something that we intend to have powers to deal with, to deal with the size and it should be compared to where we are at the moment, which is that there is essentially no restriction on a local authority. When I visited the allotment that I went to see, there were some plots that were described as full plots, there were some that were described as half plots and local authorities have that variability at the moment. The bill would actually increase the power to set minimum sizing and I have made the offer to SAGs to initiate those powers straight after the bill is enacted. Similarly, the concerns about fair rent, which I think led to Bruce Crawford's suggestion, at present there is a fair rent clause, but it is undefined and the problems that have given rise to the controversy here in Edinburgh of rents being increased substantially are happening under the current legislation. I think that looking at these sorts of concerns, we can come to some agreement that kicking this into the long grass is not going to help anyone because the additional protections that are put out here, for example, the requirement to create a waiting list that would result in nearly 1,000 new allotments being generated is something that we want to have happen now. It is important to get this done and I would rather fix it at stage 2 and continue in dialogue than remove entirely. I also think that it is interesting to note the issues that have been raised about common good, why common good has not been defined. Common good is a very interesting, very particular aspect of the Scottish public policy legal historic landscape and it is going to be addressed in oncoming land reform work. However, it was an opportunity to take some steps pretty quickly on which people could agree a common good register, ensuring that that came into effect within five years and to ensure that communities, including community councils, are consulted on the disposal of common good. The wider issue will be dealt with in future legislation, but I would just suggest to Alison Johnstone that she wants to tell councils what to do about common good land rather than the approach of the Scottish Government on ensuring consultation with communities. There is a tension there and had we taken the other route, we would have been criticised as centralists. On the wider issue of land reform, Sarah Boyack asked me if I could state when the information was coming in my closing speech. I can actually do that, but I can do that I have to say by quoting my opening speech, which was that the minister will provide draft regulations that will detail those matters, which must be considered when determining whether or not land is neglected or abandoned in advance of stage 2. The reason that it is a critical issue is because although we start taking evidence in a month's time, we also have the community right to buy, so we would like to see your response to the whole of our committee report, not just that one issue. Reports will come, but the commitment on providing the draft regulations is there. Instead of jumping to the conclusion that everybody will get it wrong, let us have a faith that those regulations may well turn out to be right. I would like to highlight to the minister that it is not a case of jumping to conclusions, it is a case of having taken a substantial amount of evidence and not being convinced. I am sure that the Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform will reflect and come to you in advance of stage 2, but one of the other issues that Claudia Beamish raised was the issue of the locality. There has been some debate here, if I can put some light on to this, the issue here is that we essentially have two similar but rather different mechanisms in asset transfer and land reform, and the approach that was taken in 2003, the approach that has been taken on land reform by-outs, has been to use an area-based approach, whereas asset transfer, which is more from the public sector to the community sector, rather than from the private sector to the community sector, there is a difference in the thresholds of justification. You need the ways of doing it, and it is appropriate there to open it up to communities of interest. We are not being prescriptive, and in that regard, community councils, when it comes to asset transfer, when it comes to participation requests, are equally able to join in, as anybody else, through asset transfer. There are many examples of community councils that have set up community development trusts, which help to ensure them against the financial risks and which allow them to play a great role. It is, however, something that I intend to return to because I recognise a lot of the concerns that have been raised, although I would draw people's attention back to the local government and reform and regeneration committee, who said that a great deal of devolved decision making can happen already. On that, community planning is an area that is going to need greater engagement. Let's just make a differentiation between the community planning partnership, covering an entire local authority, where a third sector interface is the best way to participate and what you might call genuine community planning partnerships, those sorts of groups that councils convene at local levels that can decide at local levels and can really involve the local neighbourhood associations, residents associations to make decisions. That is something that we want to see improved. The national standards on community engagement, I did when I looked them up for an appointment, I did see Malcolm Chisholm's face smiling at me out of them, but I would say that they were passed in 2005 and there was, as just one point, no such thing as social media in 2005, the ways that we have to engage with communities and allow communities to participate has changed massively. The committee was very right to notice the difference between empowerment and engagement, but I would also draw attention to the difference between participation and consultation. I'm afraid that I don't have time. I'm just concluding. That is, with a final message, to remember why we're here, remember that we came into this to empower communities and that's what this bill's general principles are for. I said in my opening that what we needed was a bit more help and a bit fewer obstacles, so let's just imagine what this will do, the principles, a Scotland where neglecting abandoned buildings that are a blight on streets and towns can be bought out by the community and renovated, where councils are empowered to help businesses to regenerate town centres, where everybody knows the common good assets and will be guaranteed in decisions about what's held in their name, where every part of Scotland has a partnership between all the bodies delivering for people with tackling inequality and participation at the heart of that, where the country as a whole, which we hardly mentioned, will have a clear mission for the kind of nation we want to create and where we have a Scotland that isn't afraid of letting public assets be owned and managed by the communities that they serve. It would be a Scotland where participation by those authentic voices of community know-how and experience were welcomed and invited to participate whenever any decision was being taken. That's the general principles of this bill, and I hope we endorse them just in a moment. That concludes the debate on the community empowerment Scotland bill. We now move to the next site of business, which is consideration of motion number 12113, in the name of John Swinney, on the financial resolution for community empowerment Scotland bill. I call John Swinney to move the motion, Deputy First Minister. The question this motion will be put at decision time to which we now come. There are two questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is at motion number 12220, in the name of Michael B.R.J., on the community empowerment Scotland bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. The next question is at motion number 12113, in the name of John Swinney, on the financial resolution for the community empowerment Scotland bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? It's not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 12113, in the name of John Swinney, is as follows. Yes, 76, no, 31. There were no abstentions. The motion is there for agreed to. That concludes decision time. We now move to members' business. Members should leave the chamber, should do so quickly and quietly.


Hello there my beautiful lovely talented and fabulous internet friends welcome back to my channel Thank you so much for joining me here today on footless Joe where I am still Joe and I am still missing a foot also We have our co-host Sophie right here if you watch real closely You might even get to see cakes the cat who is curled up right behind her today I wanted to take just a few minutes to answer for you that burning question You know the one you wake up at night thinking about you probably went to sleep last night wondering who is ever gonna answer this question for Me does anyone know and that question my dear friends is how much do amputated body parts way Specifically, how much did my foot weigh when they when they when they am permanently Relocated it to a new home that was not attached to my body that home was the incinerator So there's kind of this two-part question that I get from time to time Sometimes people ask me do you know how much your leg weighed when they cut it off? And the second question is how can you accurately calculate your weight if part of your body is missing? So we're gonna tackle both of those questions today before we dive into this fascinating and actually is pretty interesting subject I would love it if you take just a moment to hit that subscribe button Hit that like button and if you're feeling extra generous if you want to ring that notification bell So you're notified every time I upload a new video that would be fantastic. So How much do amputated body parts weigh? Let's dive in. This is a Halloween prop that I got about two years ago I used it for one other video. I figured I might as well make use of the like $8 I spent on it and put it in Another video. I also love how they like actually have bones coming out at the top of it because that's kind of gross Also side note as I was taking this out for the video today I put it on this bed and when I came back so he was like guarding it She thought it was a chew toy. It is not a chew toy and she's very sad very occasionally I will make the joke that if you want to lose weight quick I do have a surefire scheme for you that is not a scam and that is to cut off your leg because you definitely do lose Weight lose weight when you lose a body part It's actually surprising to me how much different body parts weigh like you don't think about your foot really being that heavy You don't think about your hand really being that heavy, but they weigh a little bit more than we think So like I said, let's start with a question of how much did my foot weigh when they removed it from my body So though there is a scientific way to actually calculate how much body parts from different genders might weigh I can tell you from my own personal experience I did weigh myself before the surgery and I weighed myself after the surgery to get like a general idea of How much this body part being removed for me like how much of my body they actually cut off And this is gonna vary for absolutely everybody like your height your age your weight your fitness level absolutely everything But for me, I'm not a particularly large person And so when they took my foot to its new home of the incinerator from my best guesses and calculations It weighed about seven or eight pounds. I was told that it could be up to like 15 Which is actually kind of a lot considering that like what they actually removed was like this right here I'm pretty sure there was about five percent of what I actually weighed at that time So like five percent of my body was removed now That is my not entirely scientific way of calculating that however There is mathematics that we can use to determine how much body parts weigh So let's take a look at this limb segments chart I never want limbs to be segmented. Do you I sure don't the table you see in front of you lists The weight of the human body limb segments as a weight percentage of the total human body, okay So for a woman, I am a woman It says that the foot is one point two nine percent and the leg is four point eight one But it was all of my foot and ankle and part of my legs, so we're gonna say three percent All right, let's take a look at the time of my amputation I weighed like a hundred and twenty pounds Remember basic math Joe if we're putting those two legs not legs if we're putting those two numbers together Let's say it's about three percent, so a hundred and twenty times point Oh three says it should weigh about three point six pounds. I don't think that's accurate I would like to contest your math APR PR OS comm doesn't matter that they probably know what they're talking about And I don't in my own personal experience and did weigh a little bit more than that However, it's also entirely possible that I did lose some weight like being in the hospital But I don't necessarily think so so allow me to interject just a quick story here One of the most bizarre experiences I have ever had since my amputation was the first time They let me take my cast off and I tried to lift up my leg You have no idea how adjusted you are to like what your various body parts weigh until they're gone Because lifting up my leg for the first time when there wasn't a big cast on it Which added a lot of weight it felt like what was left on my leg was just gonna like fly over my shoulder because it felt So freaking light that was definitely something that took some adjustment and like getting up or moving around Or whatever being like you are not swinging nearly as much weight on that limb as you used to now Another question that often comes up in this conversation is well Then how much does your prosthetic leg weigh like do they try to make it match the weight that you lost to my knowledge? That is not something that prosthetist actively try to do however in my case It's not that far off so my prosthetic leg here right here this little puppy Sunshine is what we call her because I'm walking on sunshine I belted a lot louder But my husband's on a work call and I don't want a nice work associate hearing his wife Belting I'm walking on sunshine for no discernible reason in the background It just got done weighing it to make sure that I was accurate on this weighs three and a half pounds exactly So with the sleeve on with all the parts and pieces where they are it is only three and a half pounds It's actually kind of surprising to me considering how many metal parts and pieces there are in this that and the actual Socket which is like carbon fiber, but look at that There's like a significant amount of metal and carbon fiber and cool stuff in here It's only three and a half pounds, which is pretty cool when I was first getting used to walking on my prosthesis I remember thinking how heavy it felt now It doesn't feel heavy at all because I've adjusted to it But it's funny how your body feels different things like the weight being on my leg of a prosthetic leg felt So much heavier than my actual foot even though it wasn't I was thinking about this the other day And I wonder if this is one of the reasons why it's a lot harder to build muscle on The amputated side of your body like for me if you take a look at my two legs like my two thighs, right? One is significantly larger and more muscley than the other one. The other one looks like it is skipped leg day permanently Even though I like to work out of both sides of my body But I have a theory that is backed up by absolutely no science that perhaps one of the reasons why My leg will basically always be smaller than my other leg along with a lot of other reasons is because I'm literally not Caring as much weight on that side of my body as I'm walking around The second half of the question that I posed at the beginning of this video is how do you really find out your true weight? Like what you actually weigh like on a body mass index chart for instance in the United States I'm not actually that sure about the rest of the world But BMI is a pretty commonly used metric to like see if you're in a healthy category for weight or something like that to be fair It is not the most accurate thing out there. However, it is one measurement that people use So if a doctor were to weigh me without my prosthetic leg like my body as it normally is and did a BMI calculation based on that It would not be accurate compared to other people in that BMI calculation because I'm missing a part of myself So I did find a site that detailed out the math of how to find my true BMI. So for this calculation Let's use the number 120 like if I weighed 120 right now without my leg. How would we make that into a proper? BMI calculation Let's find out my friends visual veggie software This seems like a very reputable source for this information Wouldn't you agree when assessing an amputee's weight the estimated weight of the limb needs to be taken into account? Absolutely one thing that's a little bit annoying about this is there aren't BMI calculators for amputees like I actually have to do the math Myself are you saying I have to use my brain? Um, I stand corrected. We don't have to use our brains today folks They do have a BMI calculated for people with limb differences on the amputee coalition.org Oh, this is so much easier than the calculation. I was about to do fantastic. Let's use English Calculations, I am five five and a half. Let's use the 120 number, which is what I was when I had my amputation right leg below knee I would have a BMI of twenty point Six one thing worth noting if you were running like BMI calculations for an amputee I'm pretty sure you'd want to do it without their prosthetic limb because that is gonna be adding weight Different prosthetics are gonna weigh different amounts obviously for instance I have a friend who has a computerized ankle meaning it like moves on its own It's really cool that is gonna weigh a lot more than my ankle, which is just carbon fiber pieces So if you're doing any kind of calculations like that make sure that you're taking your actual body weight Sam's your prosthetic leg. All right, that's pretty boring now that we know what my BMI would be through this handy-dandy little calculator Here are the steps we would have taken had I wanted to use my brain So it's basically using the same kind of percentage calculation that we saw previously When estimating how much everybody was removed so for a below knee amputation ironically they say it's three point two six percent of your total body mass my guess is three percent that was a totally random guess But I'm still gonna feel smart for guessing pretty close to it So basically what they're doing is they're gonna add back that percentage onto your current weight and then calculate your BMI It's actually pretty easy calculation. I don't know why I was intimidated of it It's been a very long time since I did math so there we have it folks If you ever wondered how much a severed foot weighs I don't know why you would but if you have you now have the answer mine weighed between like seven and eight pounds Best I could tell might have been a little bit less than that But I'm pretty sure based on my calculations and my experience and weight as I continued to heal It was right around there And if you ever need to know how to calculate the body mass index the BMI of an ABT We now know that we don't have to use math. There's a calculator for that I'm gonna make a guess that no one woke up this morning actually thinking or wondering about these things But sometimes it's pretty fun when youtube delivers to us things we never actually thought about So I hope I've answered your questions. Let me know if you have additional ones in the comment section down below I would love to hear from you gigantic Thank you goes out to all of my patrons over on patreon for continuing to support me over there I truly appreciate it if you don't know what patreon is it's basically and it's an app It's a platform It's a community where you can support the creators whose content or message you care about We have a really cool community over there and in return for supporting the footless show community and what i'm doing here You get things like early access to some videos polls on things like what we colored my running blade socket Cute videos of puppies and more so if you're interested check it out link on screen or down below But with that being said to you watching this video Thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today You could be anywhere in the world doing anything and I really appreciate you spending a few minutes out of your day Your precious time your precious day here with me today. I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video. Bye guys


I think to continue to flourish and succeed as a great human being, it's good for us to intentionally put ourselves in what we know is going to be uncomfortable. I tell you, non-growing, non-flourishing people don't do this. They park up. This is why age does not equal relevance. Age does not equal wisdom and flourishing. Many people grow old before their time, become closed-minded and narrow and judgmental and stuck in their comfort zone before their time, won't try any new food, won't try a different hairstyle, won't speak to a different group of people, won't go somewhere that is not where they normally go, won't even drive a different way home. You know, routine can be one of the biggest killers of creativity and of flourishing.