The summer has really felt like a summer this year, dry and sunny days, picnics and playing in the river, riding bikes and long evenings. The shift into a new season will be a noticeable change. My youngest is starting nursery preschool and so we are having a change in our daily pattern after the holidays and return to school routine. I feel nostaligc but a sense of renewed energy to come and a chance to refocus. Change is a necessary part of life.
The new work needs considering,more time to prepare the words alongside them. We need to do the writings now in preperation for the exhibition at the end of October. The sculptures had their photoshoot and we have a set of fantastic images to use.
I am reshowing one of the ‘Souls’ here. The idea of a ‘sculpture within’.
I will leave it with you to sit and stare at the image and let me know what you can see within it.
Some people change, some remain the same, unwilling or unable. As we head into autumn we need to start reflecting on how to improve our characters, to be a little kinder, be a little calmer, draw a little closer to the depths of our soul. Think about our attitudes, our belief systems. There are some disturbing things happening globally. Behaviour which need to change.
The studio is full, not much space to move around. Whilst those around us have taken vacations we have stayed put and created, flown kites and played on the bikes.
I had a rare day today, I went to our business and my husband had the boys, ‘Freaky Friday’ I was calling it, like the film but it wasn’t at all Freaky. It was great. I did some lovely peaceful things and then returned home and took the boys to the park and it was such a different experience with fresh eyes. (I wonder what I would be like after a week!)
It made me think about something I listened to recently about, the importance of seeing the forest before going in and deciphering the conifers, the elms, the oaks…. I don’t think it is entirely possible to do that in parenting but having a little ‘break away’ meant today I came back with renewed patience and could somehow deal with both boys individually rather than ‘the boys’. I enjoyed them in the moment as children.
In parallel and more to the point the studio is full with all the pieces ready for a photo shoot tomorrow. The decision process about what goes in and stays out of the solo exhibition will then begin. My husband was saying yesterday that he can visualise the exhibition space, he can see the sculptures in it. He just can’t see which ones they are. Some how he needs to be able to break away from it, to stand back and see the ‘wood from the trees’.
PS. Just literally had a very ‘freaky’ moment, where after explaining to my husband the meaning of my ‘post title’ as I am finishing up writing this the film in the background my husband is watching I just heard the line, “forest from the trees, forest from the trees’.
It feels a while since I have written but the past few weeks have been a detoxification of so much that I haven’t had the desire to sit and write so much. I had even prepared much of this post to quickly slip a post in in anticipation of lack of time to write.
For me, this is one of the best pieces of my husband’s work. It is more museum worthy than public art, most of the other work is ‘willing to grow’. This could be outside if cast in bronze but I do think this is one for a large indoor space. Yes, it is sinister, disturbing, intriguing… but in today’s modern contemporary art world where almost anything goes, sometimes you have to make a statement that will make the viewer stop. Look. Think.
The journey of this piece started last year and has continued to be one of ‘blood, sweat and tears’ . It was selected for the Hot one hundred so was in exhibition in London when it got pre-selected for the Threadneedle prize, which we were very excited about. So, we had a little bit of logistics and negotiation to get it from A to B. Having applied for the Threadneedle for the last two years and not been successful we were feeling fairly hopeful that this was a good sign. The piece seemed to fit the requirements, for example; “Work that possesses a life force of its own… work that has ‘that something’ which stops the viewer in their tracks.” Tim Shaw. Having got it to the Mall galleries and putting it amongst the other pre selected work my husband was still pretty optimistic about the next stage. So we waited for the Thursday announcement. On the Wednesday my husband got a call from them and though it could only be good news. It wasn’t. The reason for the early call was because it did need to be collected and the collection days were the same as the rather large cycle event happening in the London on the same day, could he go earlier to collect it. Needless to say, living so far away from London we couldn’t really go any other day and we also needed to drop some other work off at the Cork street gallery (just round the corner). So, my husband and his man with a van headed into London to the Mall galleries and Cork Street, to deliver work and to collect a rather hefty piece of art, at the same time as some 16,500 cyclist needed the very same road. I printed out maps of the gallery and the cycle routes, the roads which were closed and the roads which would be restricted. I didn’t think it looked possible.However, there was not a lot of choice off they went. I was rather expecting a call to say they hadn’t been able to get it.
Here is what happened; after successfully managing to deliver work at The Cork Street Gallery at 10am (not quite sure how they got there in such good time!) they circled around and realised they just couldn’t get the van to the entrance of the Mall Gallery. Pulling into a lay-by as the driver needed to go to the toilet, on finding a toilet my husband realised that they could see the entrance of the Mall gallery. They decided to walk to it to see how far it was but rather than being able to go straight across the road they were diverted because of the preparations for the crowds supporting the cyclists. On getting to the gallery the driver insisted that as they were there they ‘may as well’ carry the piece back. The images here do not show the glass box which my husband decided to exhibit it in. So, each carrying an edge of the box they walked the mile back to the van. Crowds now gathering, had to shift quickly once they realised two men were carry a glass box and not in fact just pushing their way through. Apparently, they got comments about ‘where the camera was’. I am not sure whether they did that before or after the actual ‘Toy’ which must have then caused another commotion, as though two art thieves were stealing in broad daylight. One way to advertise your work. They did it, they got the piece out but unfortunately not in the shortlisted Threadneedle.
The piece speaks about the 21st century, the society that we live in. It is representing the idea that you work hard and are not going anywhere, like a rocking horse. However long it rocks, it is simply moving back and forth, not moving forward. The black for the skeleton (it is not a real skeleton) shows that we are in a time when petrol has become more important than human life. As for the horse-tail, (it is real horse hair) this represents the way society keeps pushing you constantly to look after your health, going to the gym, good diet etc etc, and this is a similar technique for a horse race. It seems the horse that has constantly been looked after, good diet, great exercise goes to the race and wins makes the owner very rich. Hence the title, ‘The Toy’ for this concept presents us as having become a toy to our boss, to our society, to our media and to our routine, played with and somehow we believe that this is the normal life that we are supposed to have. People work 9 till 5, six days a week, sleep eight hours, have three-course meal, wish to live longer and will end up being in a nursing home, sitting down on a chair rocking thinking that you lived the life in full. This is an observation of the world through my husband’s art. When words can’t describe what he sees.
Front View‘The Toy’‘The Toy’‘The head’‘The Toy in shadow’‘The Toy’ side on‘The Toy’ – in spotlight‘The Toy’
I squealed with delight when I saw these last week. First in their bare metal, the folds and obvious faces and figures. Very appropriate for this month where we strengthen our souls and lower our desires for worldly gains and test our strength of spirit.
“The older I get I realize people are not always as they seem. I realize the true meaning of humanity. However hard I try I am always sucked in with the society and from time to time the routine of life drains me. In these new pieces there is a hidden sculpture within each one. Each is different and will be presented in its own individual colour. They somehow hold a secret hidden within. The viewer needs to see it, decide what it used to be before. Like souls, somehow you know they belong to something, to shapes and it feels like these pieces are souls of sculptures. They used to be the form of a sculpture, but the soul of the sculpture is what I am trying to represent and for the viewer to decide how it should look. I agree, you might see a lump of crushed steel, heavy and maybe not up to health and safety standards. However. Like a sentence you are trying to read between the lines of, or looking deeper into the shape rather than the outline. These pieces are under the theme of the expression ‘Don’t judge the book by its cover’. Sam Shendi”
I doubted how they would be any better in colour. For me they are a fantastic mixture of abstract, figurative, colour, minimalism but they are also symbolic of the state we are in. There are so many more words I could write about these but will save for when we have some professional pictures. See for yourself for now;
This morning the wet damp clouds hung heavy over the hills here in Yorkshire, creating an almost hazy fog interrupted with lush green trees popping through the grey like thought bubbles. Made me think of my husband’s mind! The sun broke out this afternoon and turned into a lovely summer solstice, and the sundown will be around 9.30ish here. It’s amazing how the longer days really shift the rhythm internally and externally.
I am very much ‘The Sculptor’s wife’ at the moment, as the sculptures for the solo exhibition and the large-scale sculpture which will go outside the Royal British Society of Sculptors are all in various stages of progress, and taking up my Husband’s time. The lighter evenings giving an extra momentous for working in the studio.
‘The base complete with holes’
The ‘Evolution’ piece has now been welded and has been moved to the studio. Where they congregated like a family;
‘Evolution’ waiting in the studio
The surface is polished and smoothed before the painting, at least he is wearing gloves this time!
preparing the surface for spraying
The first to be sprayed was the fist stage in the series of ‘transmission’ the infant. Tonight, my husband has got back from painting the last in the series death’. When he came in he immediately starting telling me that the results had been announced for The Cork Street Gallery summer exhibition, shaking his head and looking all disappointed.I tried to quickly remember what this was all about and he told me the pieces and then said “when I scrolled down to ‘S’ these were the three pieces they had chosen! (I think we entered 6) So it was exciting to find out we have been shortlisted, but now some more form filling and delivery of works and the process starts again.
We often want to see the end product of something, get to our destination, get the result, but most often it is the journey, the process, the ‘evolution’ and evolving of ourselves through the process that is the most important thing.
A little capsule of culture entered my life yesterday which already seems like a dream, as it felt like a dream itself. Boxes like coffins or bathtubs, ships or tower blocks used in numerous imaginative ways. Effective lighting and manipulated shadows made for sculptural inspiration. A sound world of single cello, violin and piano made you lose all thoughts within a captivating display of movement from the monk marshal arts dancers. The opening of this show began with two figures like a Father and Son, Puppeteer and puppet or Creator and Man; sat on a box playing a game that becomes the performance, Sutra Dance Consortium. Have a little glimpse of it;
My mind, hypnotised couldn’t go past the minimalistic figure, the human form, the individual verses society. Conforming, confronting, obeying, order and uniformity. Isolated. As though it was all inspired by my husband’s piece;
‘Isolated’‘Isolated 2013’
After the show my friends opened up another dimension of ideas, flowers, the world, creation, the creator, the pilgrimage. Endless possibilities. I wanted to hear the thoughts of all the audience, to tap into the fireworks of isolated ideas that bounced off this futuristic space and around our minds. I felt as though I had been thrown into a different world for a brief moment, the setting at The Lowry in Salford so different from my usual environment. The architecture, the light, the metal, the water reflecting a futuristic modern world polors apart from my green hills and muddy puddles, and daily life without wellies. We become isolated in our own world and forget there are others around us. It was a moment of inspiration a time to refresh, recharge and re-energize. Taken into another world of ideas and imagination.
‘The mother, ready for paint’‘head in colour’‘in colour’‘from the side’‘The child’‘In colour’‘Mother and child’ ready for polishing‘Mother and child’‘Mother an Child’ in the studio
‘From Donald Winnicott to the naughty step’ was broadcasting as I drove home last night from meeting up with a group of friends I hadn’t seen in a while. The night sky was still light so it was a lovely spring evening drive back and I found this fascinating and felt in total agreement with what was being discussed. “Seventy years ago the psychoanalyst and parenting expert Donald Winnicott first broadcast his idea of the ‘good-enough mother’; the mother who wasn’t perfect and was free, to some extent, to fail. From 1943-1962 he gave some 50 BBC broadcasts. Aimed directly at mothers, they had a profound impact on popular ideas about motherhood.”
In tandem I was thinking about writing about the progress that was being made for the pieces for the solo exhibition as part of the FIRST@108 award. Up until now I have mostly written about finished works and only occasionally the process but actually now there is a need to document the process running up to the exhibition in October. The first piece for the solo exhibition is a reoccurring theme both in colour and subject, as are the discussions like the one I was hearing on the radio about;
Mother and Child
Winnicott’s ideas seemed to fit perfectly with this piece, “the idea of the body as important and needing to be taking seriously in bodily complaint but also the part the mind has to play in organising those or influencing them or producing them.” In the sculpture we see the mother in pink but if we look closer there is a subtle difference between the ‘body’ and the ‘mind’. The mother is facing the child, the indicators of eyes from the tiny holes suggest visual contact. So important in seeing the child from a psychological point of view as well as a bodily and physiological one.
It is one of the reasons I find it so easy to write about the sculptures my husband makes, in that they visual pictorial observations of human society, the human condition. Winntcott observed and was alert to the tiny signals, observation and listening to mothers and he documented this. It was almost mesmerizing listening to his strange dictation played back and it connects so well with this sculpture.
He spoke of the child being separated from the mother, “you are always an isolate, by the time he is born he has had experience both pleasant and unpleasant” which is visualised in this sculpture. The baby separated visually, literally from the mother yet fitting like a puzzle into one shape.. I can see this but I also think in the first three years there is a slow physical and mental detachment from the mother in to the ‘world’. The child in this piece also looks like a step, the naughty step we so often here spoken of today. Winnicott tells mothers to trust their instincts and I think in general I do. In some ways it is the only thing I am fully impassioned and feel confident about. It irritates me when that is thrown off-balance. That can so easily happen in today’s society where we have all kinds of information and view points being bombarded at us. The questions are the same now as to the time he was speaking, and we seem to be in a constant battle between those very strict methods and ideology a pose to more gentle approaches which I would class his as.
There are lots of mothers out there writing about motherhood and here are three I picked out of a bunch;
I do think we live in a society which down plays the importance of the role of the mother. We seem to focus on the wrong aspects. I would highly recommend listening to the programme and see what you think. Either way, it is one of those subjects which is going to be endlessly discussed and analysed. Some people write about it, some people analyse it and some people depict it. This one is to be polish and put aside ready for exhibition in October.
I was listening to the radio whilst driving the other day and caught a snippet of discussion about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which was a visual map about what motivates people. It was said that if undergraduates of psychology recall anything they remember the pyramid diagram of the stage model of five motivational needs. I smiled because, indeed as my psychology degree lies somewhere hidden underneath the blankets of motherhood and I could visualise the pyramid and it’s five stages , well I could remember the first being food and shelter and the last being self actualisation, what ever that meant.
The radio programme went on to discuss that Maslow, only listed 18 people who had reached self actualisation, including Einstein and himself I think. When looking at the characteristics of self-actualizers to write this, I think my husband ticks most of the list. He is so unbelievably motivated. On the programme they discussed that Maslow’s conception was someone who had a “heightened sense of awareness and reality” or “completely absorbed in an activity and don’t know time passing”. I would say this is totally my husband and could give countless examples. The thinking is all about “Possibilities not restraints” and the possibilities of change and of the human being.
There are so many flaws with Maslow’s theory especially if looking at artists. Van Gogh lived most his life in poverty and probably didn’t have the middle stages but arguments have said he was self actualised. However, I would perhaps argue Van Gogh wasn’t, he was exploring his creativity and pursuing inner talent but without the support of the base of the pyramidal needs he wasn’t able to reach self actualisation. My instinct is to think that in order to reach self actualisation you must have worked through the pyramidal needs. To have actually experienced what it is like to not have had. If we are from a privileged background where the basic needs of food and shelter are not tested and we become complacent that they are a given, then reaching our potential is hindered. The drive the ambition is not likely to be as great.
I am so unmotivated, far from being self actualised, however I do think in my role as ‘Sculptors wife’ could be classified totally as ‘helping others to achieve self s’. Which could put me at the peak of the pyramid in ‘Transcendence needs’ in the revised version and eight stage model. Not that it’s a competition or anything! Unfortunately that puts my whole theory on its head. I rather like the idea of being transcendent though I could get motivated about that 🙂
I have just trawled through my entries to see if I have put images of this piece up before. I was convinced I had but it wasn’t where I thought it was and looking very different in my past entry. It had a face lift after the fire, it is still bronze but somehow giving it this cover links with the ‘branding’ of my husband’s work. It sort of symbolises motivation. You do have to take that leap of faith and take the step forward in reaching your aims. I think Maslow would be happy with this;
‘The Big Step Forward’‘The Big Step Forward’‘The Big Step Forward’
It struck me whilst walking in the park that it wasn’t long since a thick blanket of snow lay across the land, out of the depths of winter new life burst through. How quickly things can change. Like our mood, like the highs and lows of daily life. The rhythm of nature mirroring our own inner worlds. The flowers are finally starting to appear and little burst of sun shine pierces through the april showers. We have to ride the storms of life with patience and wait and hope for those joyful moments that makes us appreciate all we have. Happy Friday, enjoy this blessed day.
I have an almost insatiable appetite for chocolate at the moment…(always!). I am not sure if there is any proof that chocolate warms you up. There is just something soothing about it when you are cold. We have been in, what feels like arctic conditions and last week-end we were literally snowed in. The boys and myself that is. My husband had gone to Switzerland to meet a gallery owner and spend time with a friend. Switzerland conjures up images of snow, however it was warm. He didn’t bring back the sun but bars of gorgeous swiss chocolate. A lovely friend also gave me some chocolate, probably for the whole family but I am quickly working my way through it and in the shops it is the season for chocolate eggs. although the weather is not helping the ‘spring’ feel. My son had an ‘inventive’ egg decorating competition in school this week, it was a big thing for him especially as he was very aware of his Father winning a competition. So we had to have the ‘winning isn’t everything’ chat and that it is the taking part that counts. He constrained himself to the ‘egg idea’, drew a fantastic hen and made a magical nest which had six decorated eggs in. I failed in taking a picture of it as it was a mission to get to school in the blizzard. His teacher humorously asked him, ‘Which came first? the chicken or the egg’? He very promptly replied ‘The Egg’.
‘The Egg’
This Egg is the wooden under layer for the coloured painted eggs like the one I blogged about in ???? entry . Some people can remain the same old egg. Some people change. The grains in the wood make it look like an onion. Some say that this personal transformation work is like peeling layers of an onion. Interestingly, there are 7 layers of an egg which parallels the 7 stages of transmission in my husbands First@108 public art work which is in the early stages of being made large-scale for the Royal British Sculptor Society. Rather than the idea of birth or rebirth it makes this egg more about the layers within us. We can shed the layers of our past, the insecurities and doubts of youth and as we grow in age and wisdom but physically diminish. The smoothness of our outer shell reformed into a new shape. I personally don’t believe in the idea that we can be reborn but more that we are ever-changing, adapting, growing. We can change.
THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE 