Just noticed that SHE is the first three letters of SHENDI, which has nothing to do with the name of the exhibition. Shendi is the name of a town in northern Sudan, situated on the east bank of the Nile River 150 km northeast of Khartoum. I don’t know if the family name traces back to the town but it does have a certain ring to it. When I first met my husband my brother was only 14 and took it on as a nickname, not quite sure exactly why. I debated for a while about taking the name on, in Egypt woman don’t take the husband’s name, they keep their father’s name. All to do with lineage rather than belonging to a man, fascinating.
The exhibition is simply ‘SHE’ as in, female, woman, girl. It is a joint exhibition with the delicate painter Anu Samarüütel which nicely compliments the solid sculptures of ‘Shendi. My husband went to set up today on this sunny day after a busy day. I will upload some of the set up pictures on my new facebook page ‘The Sculptors Wife’. The colour used by both artists is uplifting and cheerful. Anu has strong links with fashion and design as does my husband’s work. I hope I can get over and see it, the exhibition will run for a month at Red Brick Mill, Batley.
‘The Keyhole man’ guarding the door for the SHE exhibition!
I am getting a cheeky last April post in, just because I am playing a game with myself about the number of entries I write in each month and also now looking back a couple of years. A couple of years! it’s only taken me that long to start to realise that another of the games of this blogging world is to read others blogs and respond. Kind of like the real world really. Give and Take and all that. I am though being a bit lazy with pictures today and so am purely advertising this which actually is this week in my realisation that it is May tomorrow. As I write me husband is yet again in London moving sculptures from last weeks exhibition to this one…
“Nancy Victor is pleased to present Vitruvius, a group show by Natasha Caleia Ramos, Sam Shendi and James Winter. This exhibition encourages a new look at the cityscape and utopian visions with artwork full of vibrant energy and intensity. In this show the city manifests itself in many guises. With media ranging from a site specific light installation to steel thematic figurative forms, it offers a direct and honest approach by merging fresh ideas with older processes. The use of fabricated materials has a startlingly individual outcome for each artist. Steel, acrylic and aluminium play a vital role in the creation of each piece, exploring the formality between construction and finished article, design and commodity, idealism and realism.”
I would like to write more about Vitruvius as I had no idea what it meant when I first saw the title. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (born c. 80–70 BC, died after c. 15 BC) was a Roman author, architect, and engineer during the1st century BC perhaps best known for his multi-volume work entitled De Architectura. There is possibly lots i could write about architecture in relation to my husbands work but I have 8 seconds left on my battery power….writing to the clock.
These are all pieces I have written about before, but newly photographed they look even more professional. They are currently in exhibition with ‘The Girl next door’ and ‘The Keyhole Man’ at The Collective show at London West Bank Gallery. The opening is tonight and the exhibition runs from 23rd -30 April at 133-137 Westbourne Grove. My husband phoned me this afternoon, to let me know he got there and that how the set up was going. He was all over the place today going on from the set up, to have a meeting at the Royal British Sculpture Society and then back to the West Bank for the opening and then back home later tonight. Another busy day. Apparently there was another artist putting up his work and getting cross that the sculptures were dominating the space. In the next scene my husband described he found this artists tools including a hammer laid on ‘The keyhole man’. I am not quite sure what happened next – I can only imagine! This happened before when another artist put their coat on ‘Mother and Child’. I don’t know why people have done that. I know from working in galleries that art work is handled with the utmost care, gloves, packaging. I understand more now, as to why this is the case. These sculptures are all steel and painted to a high gloss finish. If things are dragged or placed upon them a scratch can mark it. The money, time and energy invested into each piece also means any repairs mean set backs. I think it is rather disrespectful from fellow artists. Perhaps there is some issue between painters and sculptors. We need to make signs saying ‘Handle with care’, not sure if it they should hand on the work or the artist though ! 🙂
17.20 Interview gone well…….
17.50 Not long to wait…..
18.00 I get the boys ready for bed, we pray, we sit in bed waiting for the phone……
……waiting….
18.46 I text him….Any news?x…..I can’t settle, I can’t focus on reading stories and my plan of bedtime is not working as youngest child fell asleep on the school pick up run. My parents are coming so I can go to Pilates class with my mum and dad can put eldest to bed.
19.00 Parents arrive, too hyper boys downstairs and I receive a text….’ Not yet its too busy’
19.01 He sends another…. ‘Lets hope that I win’.
19.02 I text him, The waiting is unbearable, Inshallah x
19.03 Doesn’t look good habebe, he texts me. What does that mean. Ahahah I leave the boys with my dad and mum and I rush out. We are late.
19.25 Still no message so I go into my pilates class. Its my hour of relaxation. I can’t relax. I can’t think straight.
19.35 The room is at a local Methodist church and usually nothing else is happening. Tonight there is a local preachers meeting so the room has been split and should be self-contained. However, the microphone is switch on and linked in. We here everything. They start singing. We start laughing.Total distraction.
19.47 I hear my phone ring. I add to the distraction. I leave the room and call back. There is no reception.
19.53 I ring and it goes to answer machine grrrrrrrrr I ring again and again. I have to go and stand outside the church in the cold in my socks.
19.55 . HE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I squeal with delight. I ask him how he feels. He wants to run. I am shivering.
He tells me what happened but I am so cold and excited I can’t focus. When he couldn’t get through he rang our landline and spoke to my dad and then to our son who tells him not to worry he will tell mama. He says he has to go back in. Congratulations. So happy etectetc.
20.05 I go back into the room. I give my thumbs up to my mum who is trying to do the plank. I lie on the floor and I am so happy. I do the plank (so Pilates position that makes you feel very virtuous) I can’t focus. I lie down.
I spend the next 30 mins in a mind buzz, my body trying to be still.
20.25 I drive mum and I home, not sure how I am soooooooo excited.
20.35 Both boys are still awake. One crying because I am not there to put him to bed. Our eldest, ‘Guess what mama, Baba won’ He really won’
20.40 Boys so tired they go to sleep. I start to text everyone I know and sit down to write this……… I am still buzzing……..
21.25 What happens next……….I need to phone him. Click Publish.
‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English. I get away with not speaking good English, living with an Egyptian I don’t worry about being corrected and sometimes I wonder if we haven’t gone and created our own language. Along with spending my days understanding toddler speak I am heading down a slippery slope. A bit like Alice! My connection with Alice is that one of my husband’s courting lines to me was, “why don’t you see how deep the rabbit hole goes”! Well I am well and truly wandering in the warren.
Curiously, Curious George is the favourite cartoon my boys watch at the moment and this week the exhibition opens at ‘Curious Duke‘. This piece is one of five pieces on show in the exhibition ‘Young masters’ running from February 7th to March 7th at 207 Whitecross Street, London.
‘Sperm’
Curiosity (from Latin curious “careful, diligent, curious,”) is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning. I think my husbands approach to his art, is just that. It is an exploration and an investigation into human behaviour. He certainly makes pieces which are indeed curious. This piece was made last year and I realised I hadn’t given it a showcase in my blog but this week it will be having its first exhibition. My husband said he could have used this for his ‘Transmission’ theme. That may have raised a few eyebrows.
‘Sperm’
Housed in Curious Duke Gallery a 400 year old subterranean space on Whitecross Street in Islington. “One of the most welcoming and unique gallery spaces you will ever encounter.” You can read more about it at ‘Made in Shoreditch’ Magazine. So, if you are around in London over the next month pop in if you are curious.
It makes me smile, mainly because for ages my husband was calling it Mim, not knowing that little rule that when there is an ‘e’ the ‘i’ becomes ‘eye’. I was a bit unsure of this piece at first. I asked him.’Why make a sculpture of a mime artist?’ ‘What is the point?’. I felt that wIth most of his work I could understand the point. He explained that they had always fascinated him, the makeup, the dress code. He showed me some fantastic images you can see and I started to understand. Étienne Decroux, explored and developed the possibilities of mime and developed corporeal mime into a highly sculptural form, taking it outside of the realms of naturalism. My husband wanted to make a sculptural dedication in a way, in his style. A style which is become stronger. The geometric shapes and Egyptian style very dominate in this piece.
‘MIME’
Last week my husband’s sister stayed with us for a week for christmas. It was lovely to have the sounds and tastes of Egypt in the house. She brought lots of well liked and missed Egyptian treats and the sound of the arabic and egyptian language and laughter filled our house. It always gives me a window into another world and another dimension to my husband to hear him speak in his mother-tounge. Watching them made me think about this piece a bit more, how communication is not just with the tongue but with gestures. I often think I am understanding a conversation now, my ear is in tune and I understand some words but I have a way to go before I can grasp it completely.
It is always fascinating to learn something new, discover something new. When Art can challenge the way you think then I think that makes all the difference. This piece will be on show from February for four weeks at The Curious Duke.
I felt a little bit of traitor today, I piled the kids in the car and drove to hear sculptor Sophie Ryder do a talk about her work. My own sculptor was doing a ‘there and back in a day trip to London’ to collect the work above, really like these two images above of my husbands work, taken by Lili Phelouzat the curator of the exhibition and this comment, “they contrast to the larger and shiny pieces. These are very intimate and has lots of meanings, tongue in cheek”. So I thought I would make the most of the fair weather and enjoy the grounds of Cartwright Hall and take in the talk with the boys. There was a time pre-children that I worked at Cartwright, such a fantastic venue for a gallery and when now when I go I realise I took that opportunity for granted. I knew it was over ambitious with the boys but thought I would at least get to hear a bit.
We explored Sophie’s exhibition quite vocally. Of the older sophisticated audience perusing the exhibits of rabbits some were amused at my two loudly exclaiming ‘Bottoms’ and ‘BumBum’ although when my toddler suddenly appeared on the wrong side of the barriers I felt it was time to leave. At least he didn’t pull his trousers down, we have done that at other inappropriate venues! We ventured upstairs where a large number of people were gathering in one of my favourite rooms of Cartwright Hall Art Gallery. My eldest was fantastic, he had picked up a pine cone on the way in and then sat down with the paper and pencils provided and drew. My youngest however was in his energetic element and was thrilled by the space and his feet could be heard thundering along the beautiful wooden gallery floors. I heard 5 minutes of the talk, barely. We left and went into the glorious grounds. ( I would definitely recommend the exhibition for children though, they will Love counting how many rabbits bottoms they can see.)
It was interesting and inspiring if only for the 30 minutes spent today to see a gallery space in action and for me to think of the future. Perhaps with less rabbits, bottoms and running in the gallery.
It’s that time of year, it is cold, it is icy. We retreat inwards. Many people I have spoken to of late seem to be struggling with the tests that life brings. If we compare the seasons to the life cycle then this is the season of death. The trees have now finally lost their leaves. There has been a sparkly ice coating over everything and snow in some places. We light candles, people stay warm by the fire. Fire. The element of comfort and destruction. Last night the fire raged havoc over Damside Mill.
“Damside Mill is a furniture workshop,studio and gallery in Haworth. The last working part of the old Lees Mill, it has been brought back to life by Anthony and the Damside team as a place where high quality designer furniture is created, while upholstery and furnishing courses are run in the studio, with an evolving programme of contemporary art and design in the gallery. It is a growing marketing platform for associated artists to promote and sell their work, and just a great place to visit in Haworth.”
Anthony Hartley and his partner Nel and the rest of the team had spent vast quantities of time, effort and finances developing the Mill, finally reaching an opening earlier in the year which I blogged about. This morning it stood charred with the internal damage the heat from the fire. In stark contrast to the cool and icy hills of Haworth behind it.
Most importantly no one was inside, so no one was hurt and ultimately that is the most important thing. However, all that effort, hard work has been turned to ash. Equipment has been damaged and a large skip has already been filled with the debris. A deathly and destructive force has swept through and taken everything.
It isn’t the first time we have lost work. We moved house and successfully moved a huge amount of clay sculptures. Then one evening we heard an almighty crash and the table which we had placed them all on broke and not one of them was left in tact. Today, my husband was unable to see the full extent of the damage as it was dark and they were all tinged shades of grey. They are not totally lost.
The ice will melt, the leaves will grow back and spring follows and brings with it new hope, new creativity, new life. There is always someone else suffering, working through hardship, grieving a loss. Our perspective, attitude and outlook all greatly determine how we deal with the challenges life throws at us. I can easily go down the pessimistic, negative view-point. It is always in situations like this when I am not directly effected that I learn that others have such courage and strength. My Husband is always uncharacteristically calm and measured in these moments, he is very accepting of his fate, when situations are beyond his control. Nothing is lost. Courage and strength can overcome. Buildings, material objects, money can all be re-done, re-made, re-worked. Nobody was lost in the fire.
Espacio is Spanish for ‘space’ (as in distance between objects). It is interesting how the space a gallery has can aid the whole exhibition. My husband felt that this was one of the most successful opening events he had been to. The space literally aiding the event, people were comfortable, air conditioning,enough room to view the work. It is only on for a few more days, I had hoped to put this up still in September but the months are flying past. Back down on Wednesday again to collect the work and hey-ho we are in October already. There is not enough ‘space’ (as in intervals of time) in the day to get everything I want to do done. Yet I recall a few hours ago standing by the window, looking out wondering what to do with myself. A little bit like the ‘Mother and child’ in the window of the gallery. http://www.espaciogallery.com/
‘Black & White’‘Mother & child’‘The girl next door’
There is something so much more wholesome about speaking to another face to face. I am the worst person for having a conversation with over the telephone, it involves speaking. One can’t rely on the subtleties of facial expression for the acknowledgement that you are listening. I am also not that great in a group, I find it difficult having snatched conversations and can get distracted by the fact that others are around. So face to face is definitely my preference. So what do I think of face time? I am not quite sure I have fully grasped what it is yet. I have used Skype on occasion but still I think I prefer in the flesh.
Having advocated all the social networking media for promoting yourself as an artist, we are finding that if my husband actually goes into a physical gallery in person, or meets a gallery owner at an opening in person then he is more successful. He has a presence that is hard to convey by the written word especially as it is translated twice before it gets anywhere!
I have also changed the face of this page, I am not too sure about it yet, I felt in need of the change but it is still not quite right. Work in progress. I have had the time to play around with the setting as my husband has been in London again this week. This time with some appointments at galleries. So things are moving forward, albeit slowly.
Tonight is the preview of Face to Face at Espacio Gallery, 159 Bethnal Green. An exhibition exploring portraiture and is on until October 2nd. I could go into more depth about each piece and portraiture but I’ve faced the computer enough these last two evenings.
THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE 