Jiří Černický: Notes on Pincushions

Texts for Pincushions

1.- The Lady

Mrs. Vejdová. I don’t know her personally but she’s a real favorite of mine. I usually see quite a bit of her as she lives in the same set of flats. Although she lives alone, people say she’s got quite a big flat. She doesn’t have a husband, probably no boyfriend either, which might be why she radiates a peculiar aura of independence and grandeur, typical of more mature women who have reconciled themselves to the fact that they can’t have a family. She might be around fifty but she is an extraordinarily elegant lady. Her independence, for example, shows in the fact that she puts a great deal of money into her appearance. She is always meticulously smart and has her hair done in sophisticated styles, most often as chignons with ringlets. She wears expensive sunglasses and, in particular, chic designer clothes.

I’m especially lucky in one way – every two years or so she disposes of most of her worn-out clothes to keep up with the fashions; she dumps them in the rubbish bin outside the house and buys something a touch cooler. These “rags” are a source of material for me to do really posh details in my pincushions. I’m especially grateful for some up-market labels (Prada, Vivienne Westwood, Sisley, Versace…), which I would otherwise have problems getting hold of.

But what is more important is that the pincushion created as a tribute to her is all made of her worn-out lingerie. In this way, I pay homage to her, at the same time as hoping that my “Pincushion Queen” will forgive me for capturing her in such an undignified fashion.

2.- Pop

This pincushion is by way of being a sympathy piece for all the shrubs that have fallen victim to the long-term urinary needs of both dogs and people. This laburnum is fighting for its life in a spot known as “Shit Island”, a small grassy patch in the midst of the densely built-up suburb of Libeň that is unfortunately too convenient for dogs eager to relieve themselves. Unhappily, “Shit Island” is situated between a supermarket and a pub, and as it features a handy cluster of shrubs where one can slip out of sight relatively easily, it’s not hard to imagine what it looks like.

Mr. Průcha always knows everything best inside the pub, but far too often finds himself embarrassed when caught short outside it, a condition inappropriate to his age, and he’s forced to peer about like a meerkat to make sure he’s not being spied on, so as not to shame himself.

3.- The Slimming Belt

This awkward situation is a synthesis of two photos: a figure from an advertising flyer (someone continually floods our letterbox with these, for all my protests and attempts to ban it) offering a discount on a slimming belt, and a neighbor who, prompted by the advert, has purchased the belt. Her “action” image was shot in her flat; in a way, I caught her out.

4.- The Siblings

Perhaps the most important thing about this image is the special tension that evolves between siblings separated by a generation gap. Evidently, the brother is already a member of a group shaping his thinking and appearance, and is a bit embarrassed by a little sister still under his parents’ influence – something with which the brother would very much hate to identify. He has to take sis for a walk, and the more she looks up to him, the less comfortable he feels.

5.- The Heavy Metal Freak

This is my friend Bedříšek. He’s fifty-five and I worked with him in the mine in Předlice before the Velvet Revolution. At that time, he seemed to be the only non-conforming person in the whole “Big Excavator” who talked any sense. In the workers’ environment, he appeared almost an intellectual, as he was the only one to listen to music, even if it was just heavy metal. The mine went broke a few years after the revolution and just by chance Bedříšek moved to Prague, to Libeň. I walked in on him in this situation in his living room.

6.- Bulgaria

Needless to say, this does not take place exactly in Libeň; it’s modulated. I found it on a flyer for a small travel agency, trying to lure the good citizens of Libeň to go on a cheap trip to Bulgaria. The flyer was a black-and-white Xerox copy, and I have to admit that I took a great deal of delight in coloring it in optimistic, advertising-hot and holiday fashion, so that the image could lose its depressing air.

7.- The Vietnamese Woman

This Vietnamese woman from Libeň market is a known “weirdo”. For years, we have been playing a consciously unconscious game. The system is always the same. When you as much as approach within striking distance of her stall, you’d think that she would eat you alive with interest and pretended warmth. When you show no interest in the “treasures” on offer, she cools right off to freezing point and you have a feeling she’s going to slag you off to the other market-folk. Every time I buy something from her she grins from ear to ear until my money’s in her hand. Then she immediately cools off and loses interest in further conversation. Every time I strike up a new conversation, after even a little while I have a feeling that she’s seeing me for the first time. She looks at her funniest if I complain. She denies point-blank that I bought the goods from her and fails to understand even the most elementary Czech. She usually fetches a short muscular colleague who is supposed to have a good grasp of Czech (and probably of Asian martial arts as well, I feel). Every time I pay for her dubious wares with a large banknote, she never has enough change ready... She disappears with my banknote and manages to leave me with the feeling that I am about to lift something from her stall if I don’t see her again soon...

I have watched her on the quiet a couple of times, behind her stall, feasting in peace on her everyday Chinese noodle soup. By the way, one could probably never buy such excellent soup from any Asian in the market. I would like to know what is really on her mind at these moments.

8.- Shame

9.- Dirty Laundry

10.- The Homeless Man

When it’s warm, this man lives on the street in Libeň. He often lolls about outside the supermarket. He doesn’t beg; he just lives. I have never seen him get anything from anyone. I don’t know how he keeps himself alive, but he certainly is alive as he moves from time to time. People on their way to shop at the supermarket mostly find him disgusting, but neither they nor the police are able to get him out of there because he doesn’t respond to reason and stinks so much that everyone loathes the idea of touching him. The fact is that by doing nothing at all he doesn’t break the law, and therefore there exists no pressure heavy enough to make the cops get their hands dirty.

11.- Probably a Ukrainian Granny

She lived for a while, probably with her granddaughter, in a place for all the world a slum, by the River Vltava, under the Libeň Bridge. We tried a couple of times to get through there on a path running along the river. I’ve had the thought that it would be a nice walk. But I have never actually set out there because I had the strange feeling that I might be intruding into their living room.

12.- Grey Granny

13.- Waiting

This is a typical situation. I experience it nearly every day when, dragging myself back from town with loads of stuff, I have to stop at the Delvita store on the way home to get groceries. There’s a heavy backpack on my back, my hands are full of overflowing plastic bags, under my left arm there’s a large folder that can only be gripped by the tips of the fingers and under my right arm there’s a roll of paper that will be ruined if I hold it too tight. The little green man comes on at the crossroads so I’m running to make it and to avoid stopping on the red loaded up like this. Of course, I fail to make the lights by a few meters. There’s no sense in putting the stuff down; before I can festoon myself again there’ll be a red light. The green takes for ever to come on.

14.- At Peace

This old man reads a lot but is troubled by the fact that he can’t remember anything, and thus has no chance of discussing it with anybody. He often goes to read to the Libeň quay bay.

15.- Massage

We both suffer from backache a lot and so we have to give each other the massages that we love getting. But we don’t like giving them and so we don’t get them.

16.- Queue

I’m in a hurry and I’ve been standing in a queue for about a quarter of an hour with pensioners paying with heaps of change they can’t see properly because they’ve left their glasses behind. The receipt roll in the till has just run out. The head cashier comes to pick up part of the daily takings. I have a feeling that the credit plastic-reader probably isn’t working today. I haven’t got any cash. My prediction’s come true. I have to leave the shopping bags with the cashier and rush to the nearest cash machine half a kilometer away. The whole queue has to wait for me to come back, and customers already well-wound-up are beginning to lose it.

17.- Mum

Mum has just found out that I have mis-loaded the washing machine with whites and coloreds together.

18 - Mum

Mum hopes that the cross-dyed laundry will look better when it dries out.

19.- Dad

In spring 1999 my parents had a serious row. It came at the end of a period of tough times that had been choking our family life for a long time. For myself, I decided to address the crisis by filching a piece of spare fabric from the pocket of my father’s jacket and making a pincushion of it, not unlike himself. I put the pincushion on the fridge in the kitchen – a place where mum spends much of her time. I asked her to make sure to use the figure as an object into which one sticks needles and pins when they’re not needed for sewing. Mum refused, saying that she had no intention of killing my father every day. I replied that she certainly wouldn’t be killing her husband by sticking pins into a silly figure when they were killing each other much more effectively by quarrelling.

20.- Before and After

21.- The Drunk

He once got out of his skull and fell down on an escalator in such an unfortunate way that he cut his forehead open on the stairs. He managed to crawl from the underground at Palmovka and, at the end of his tether, lay down on a bench outside the synagogue and fell asleep. He was streaming with blood, as you can imagine. His face was red, his coat and shirt were soaked with it and there was a pool of blood under the bench, but none of the passers-by took any notice of him. If I hadn’t called the ambulance he would probably have kicked the bucket, in embarrassing style. When, once the ambulance arrived, he was getting into it, he wouldn’t let go of my hand. I didn’t have time to go with him to the Na Bulovce Hospital, so they had to take his hand away by force. But I was delayed anyway by coppers’ questions – I had to give them all my personal details and so on.

22- The Neighbor

He isn’t allowed to smoke inside, so he goes to the balcony to stare at the dirty wall of a small yard where there’s nothing but mess. He has no intention of talking to anyone. All he wants is some peace.

23.- Mum

When she does the ironing, she finds that the cross-dyed laundry doesn’t look any better after ironing.

24.- Cleaning Lady in a Hospital

A senior consultant has recently had a right royal bollocking for clumping all over her freshly cleaned floor.

25.- Honza Mareš

He tried several times to make a phone call. When the ringing tone finally started, his mobile began to vibrate in his pocket. He answered it. There was somebody on both phones, his newspaper dropped from under his arm and spread all over the phone box. He hung up both phones.

26.- Our Electrician

27.- Joggaholic

He just has to.

28.- The Morning After

29.- The Opening of an Exhibition of Drawings for Sale

Proceeds from the sale will be put into the renovation of a regional exhibition hall at the town hall.

30.- Driver’s Mate, 20th Century

It takes him some time and he gets pretty filthy doing it, but he can take a car engine apart and put it together again with just a blunt knife.

31.- Alone on the island, and not a blade of grass anywhere

What now?

32.- In Quest of Sense (a fat woman)

33.- Break

34.- E-on Cloud

The e-on company supplies electricity and energy solutions, thus providing security and comfort, combined with regard to the environment.

35.- Red Sky with Shower

36.- Nike Cloud

37.- Traveling Quilted Cloud

38.- 1970’s Cloud

39.- Cloud with Sky Blue