Soul searching – Page 7 – THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE

Staying Local

‘Part of the Mill space' — ‘Part of the mill space, Haworth’

On a Sunday we usually spend the day at home, after a busy 6 day week for my husband, Sunday becomes a day to mellow at home. Sometimes for the boys and I, that is also just what is needed, I have started to make Saturdays busy and with the school run during the week, actually it is nice to stay at home for the day. However, that said we went on a little adventure yesterday to Haworth. One of the contacts my husband made The Other Art Fair is a local furniture designer Anthony Hartley who happens to have a fantastic mill space. So last week, the works we have here in Yorkshire went along to join the show ready for the Haworth Festival this week. It’s an inspiring place. We met some lovely people and had delicious home-made cakes and tea. It was great to be able to see my husbands work in a space locally and take the boys. Haworth is really picturesque spot as we discovered on our way back taking a rather long route home.

I am having to stay local again today as the car is in the garage but we managed the long walk back from school up hill passing various breeds of sheep, cows and horses on the way. It made me think again about country living and how reliant we are on using the car. I am very aware that we could be a little ‘greener’ in the way we shop too. We do get milk delivered to our door by the local farmer, and I have been collecting eggs from local small holdings who leave their eggs in a large tub full of egg boxes at their door with an honesty box for your £1 (again using the car!). But there are other things that we could buy more locally – it is often just that little bit more expensive. Anyway I digress a little. If you are local and can get to Haworth…by car or public transport then do take the opportunity to call in on the open studio at Damside Mill.

Only Human

It was a rare moment last night when I slipped into the living room undisturbed and switched the television on and happened upon the last set of the Nadal v Rosol match. I was almost biting my nails. Could Rosol keep his cool? Could Nadal be any hotter and drip any more sweat into his towel to delay his devastating defeat? It was one of those moments when you knew history was in the making.

Rosol certainly could keep his cool. Composed he was serving a series of aces and returning down the line like he was merely on a practice of shooting targets. The 100 ranked Czech didn’t seemed phased by the centre court limelight or the ‘winner’ opposing him. We can often put barriers in front of us, be it other people or other ideas that prevent us from being able to overcome our own hurdles and reach the dream. We can all control our emotions if we put our mind to it. We can keep our cool under pressure and we can temper our ‘hot headed-ness’ when we need to. We can so easily put ourselves down thinking that ‘other’s are better’ but we are all only human. Rosol is that proof that even in adversity one can rise to the challenge of a great opponent and steal the show. Rosol so aptly put it in his post play interview, that his opponent was, after all, ‘only human’.

Being Egyptian

“Being Egyptian, I can never quite shake the legacy of my country’s history. Durability and beauty are very important to me.”

When you see my husband’s work and make the connection he is Egyptian you can see the Egyptian influence in his work. The obilisque ideas, the geometric shapes, the pyramids! The strength and power behind the works. One of the reasons why the ancient Egyptian artefacts have lasted perhaps better than their Roman counterparts is because the Egyptian ones are solid. Solid in that there are no gaps, between the bodies and the arms, for example. There is no space for the elements to radically erode the stone. This technique is very visible in my husbands’ work. This use of old techniques and method and recognition of the past is the philosophy behind the Young Master’s prize’s. Next week my husband is off on his travels to London again to put two pieces, this one above, in an exhibition and auction to raise money for this prize.

(On 18 June to 4 July, the Young Masters initiative is hosting a fundraising auction and exhibition at Rupert Cavendish Antiques, 610 King’s Road, London SW6. On 21st June, from 6.30 to 9.30pm they are hosting a fundraising reception and auction of selected works from the exhibition, to be hosted by Kate McKenzie, one of the Christie’s auctioneering team.)

I, on the other hand am not Egyptian. I am quintessentially English. However I do feel Egypt is in my blood. My first taste of it was when I was a student and had gathered my pennies and worked millennium Eve to afford the flight and travel around Egypt. excited and independent my journey there was an adventure in itself. I chose to be ‘bumped off’ the plane from Amsterdam to Egypt to gain a little more cash and naively failed to tell anyone what I was doing. After being put up in a hotel in Amsterdam and then due to fog, having to fly back to London followed by delays at Heathrow, I was, therefore,rather late arriving in Egypt. Perhaps all would have been fine, except I was being met by a fellow student and when I didn’t show at the airport phone my worried parents who couldn’t track me as I had boarded and flown out of Leeds successfully. So I almost filed as ‘a missing person’. Lesson learnt; always phone home.

However, the rest of my travel around Egypt was successful and once I had floated on a felucca on the Nile, there was no stopping my return. I remember the dusk dusty departure, weeping for no apparent reason other than I had fallen in love with the land. Little did I know then that I would fall in love with an Egyptian in my small yorkshire village, marry and have two sons. We have since had a few trips there and back. With my eldest I had a substantial stay for six weeks with my Sister in Law and a ‘real egyptian experience’…that’s another story.

For me, there are no borders and boundaries on the world. We can find a place so foreign that somehow feels like home. On a day-to-day level now we have little taste of Egypt when we listen to arabic music, when we cook Egyptian food, a few weeks ago when we had a blast of heat. In the evening it would smell a little like Egypt. These are the things that are missed, the smells, the sights, the sound and the sisters.

So, there is a little flavour for now. When we will physically return there who knows.. a country currently in change.

On the edge

This work was the pre-cursor work I mentioned in a recent blog using plinth and figure which has now grown into the new work of abstract figure and plinth blended together. The philosophy of the work has also taken on a more abstract but more cheerful approach.

Perhaps this is visually a little depressing but it doesn’t have to be viewed that way. Sometimes we need to take that plunge into the unknown for a glorious ‘after plunge’. Being deep in thought can be lonesome but it can also be uplifting. We sometimes need that time to rebalance ourselves. Gather our thoughts and re-address. I’ve backtracked a little by putting this image up but it seemed very appropriate to our current situation. My husband is ‘waiting’ which requires a calm, a patience and serenity. These are not his forte but he is so far managing well with it. He is so busy juggling business and the art world and making a large body of new work. There are two or three exciting projects happening from next week but it is whether something will come from these that gives him the next boost. Again, he is sitting on the edge of ‘something’. In any pursuit of a goal, though, there is a constant reaching a peak and therefore always being on the edge. It is unfortunately the nature of clambering after a dream. If this is my husband then, I am stood just a little to the side, looking out to what is ahead hopefully reassuring that the next mountain is not so high. There is, or can be someone behind us, to the side of us or indeed above us to support, guide and encourage.

The Keyhole Family

This sculpture of five pieces present five different emotions we all share, we all go through. Sometimes, we pass through them; sometimes we get stuck in them. Beyond our differences of shapes, colour, education we all share the similarity of emotion and experiences. The focus behind this collection is to highlight the similarity between all of us; whatever we try to hide or expose, admit or deny. The ‘keyhole’ symbolises our vulnerability and if someone manages to find the right key then they find our weakness.

I haven’t sat and written for a while as it has been so hot, too hot to do much! These five little men making up The Keyhole family has been bought and now live in someone’s house. So I thought I had better write a little about them before the next generation are born. I had an image of these little men half buried in a desert like landscape being discovered after thousands of years and a new age of people or alien beings discovering them in the midst of desolation. Like archeologist discovering Egypt’s ancient treasures. What would ‘they’ understand about ‘us’. Cheerful, happy faces vibrant colours on the surface everything is alright. The individual design shows a deeper level of thought displaying some of the issues of humanity we face.

Confused???

We get confused from time to time….

Sweet Kiss

All of us sometimes relies upon the sweeter person within us and this person deserves a kiss!….

Philosopher

Nations and cultures have built themselves on some words of wisdom and some of us chose it as a path….

Mr Hot & Mr Cold

Represents our sexuality level and how this changes and how some people can control it like a tap….

The Journey to The Other Art Fair

I had been anxious about taking my two small boys on the train to London by myself. Armed with a number of activity books, crayons and pencils and a picnic lunch to feed the train I was more than prepared. Catching the train back was a little more dramatic with 55 minutes to get a bus ride to Brixton and then an 18 minute tube journey to Kings Cross. Needless to say, with large rucksack on my back, pushchair with toddler in front and small boy holding my hand, we ran like we have never run before. As we jumped on the train the doors shut behind us and pulled off from the station. My face was beetroot. Red (like my last blog entry).

As I took my eldest to school on Monday morning in the car, I contemplated how we would get to school without it. In rural yorkshire I am so dependant on my car. Public transport in London was an adventure all by itself. Journeys take us to the destination and we see it as a means to an end but the adventure is often as much in the travel. It made me reflect on my husbands long journey to get to the point he was at, at The Other Art Fair this weekend. It has taken him almost 12 years to get the body of work he now has together.

With the insistence on using high quality material and with no external funding the financial side has taken a while. Along side, the development in his practice has also been a journey. Starting mostly with clay he manipulated this material to form his pieces. It was always costly to cast them one night many perished in an almighty crash when the table they were on collapsed under the weight and shattered probably near on 50 clay works. This prompted a move into wooden shapes with small figures ( see earlier blog entries) and took a direction that made his works larger. Looking back these works were precursors to the pieces we have now, which almost mould together abstract shape and figure into one. Linking both the clay work and larger work together. With the final splash of colour we have the body of work which was shown at The Other Art Fair, London. What a success. The journey still continues with lots of exciting propositions and projects ahead.

Like in life the adventure is the journey you just have to focus on the present to make the most of it.

Three or Four P’s

Is planning and organisation better than spontaneity? I can never decide, in my indecisive nature, I don’t think I am much of a planner but having children requires you to have some sense of routine. I believe as humans we do require some order and daily rituals. The negative side is when things don’t go to plan. Expectation is a heavy load. Read ‘Outside Air‘ about expectation.. I think I tend to procrastinate a lot, which is not great for organisation. I recently read that procrastination is associated with perfectionism. Is that good or bad? As in all things, balance is key. My husband does everything in the moment, now. He doesn’t procrastinate but it most probably a perfectionist.

As an artist my husband has a dual personality towards planning. In making his sculptures there is a sort of plan. He sketches, almost constantly. Then revises and choses to develop a certain piece. After it’s made the colour is then chosen. We currently have two new pieces sitting in our hallway. One of which was designed to be something but has since become something else. So there is always room for manoeuvre. We are having to be a bit more organised at the moment with his regular trips to London. He is on his way down again today. Since being selected as an artist with Debut Contemporary (currently curator’s pick if you go through to the link) he has featured in Candid Magazine, also been selected for The Other Art Fair and is having his work showcased on a large board outside BOXPARK in London. This Saturday he is back down in London again for his Debut and Debut with his workshop. So it is a busy time.

In preparation for his workshop it has been interesting seeing how he has approached the planning side of things. Various email exchanged have happened to organise the curatorial side of his sculptures in the gallery. When he was first thinking about organising it, the worrier in him kicked in, he really started planning, went out and bought all the various equipment for what he was thinking of doing, had some great ideas. Then it went on hold. Now the spontaneous artist has appeared and what will happen on Saturday, who knows. Why not plan a visit to Debut Contemporary to find out …..

poster — Saturday 21st April 2012 12-6pm

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy

Crazy Day. Crazy Good Day. Took the boys out on a relatively big trip for us. So, exhausted on the way back in the car, they both fell asleep. So much for my

good plan of wearing them out so that they will sleep well at night! We came back in the house which was still looking like a bomb site from the mornings antics and my husband in the living room with a new sculpture sticking small question marks all over it ????? I waded through the kitchen to make a quick tea and tried to tidy up whilst the boys ran around the table with various kitchen utensils and my husbands asking me for various spellings whilst he ‘twittered’ away on his laptop. It all seemed a bit crazy in my head. The development with his art work has been going a bit crazy over the last few weeks.

Easter Holidays has meant having both boys at home for two weeks and before that my eldest was off school so I have failed to keep up with blogging. I am now into the third week of trying to keeping my sanity levels stable. Consequently, perhaps, my eczema has gone crazy. And, in all honestly I was going a bit crazy in this blogging world. Checking up on stats. and reading others blogs was not helping me to be creative. I was comparing my writing skill and style to others and becoming negative about my own and then constantly checking to see if anyone had read or remarked on what I had written. So the break has been good. The fresh air today has given us all a new energy.. and the sleep on the way back a later night than I had hoped for the boys.

Six years ago it was also a crazy night, It was the eve of my wedding day. We didn’t have a traditional English wedding nor did we have a traditional Egyptian one. We did it our way! A week before I cut my hair very short and dyed it bleach blond. Crazy! Maybe, but it looked great with little red roses in and set off my black and white spotted dress! We drove back from the registry office listening to the very current track by Gnarles Barkley ‘Crazy’ and the words kind of summed up that time. Now the words do have an echo, and they do take me back to that time and place. It has been an amazing 6 years, bought a house, bought a business had two boys and started to establish a name in the art world. Crazy busy.

Getting down to the art work then, I will have to blog more about that next week when I have a little more time to myself. The image here, is not a great one to show the quality of these works, and I ironically made some odd remark about just that, to my husband after he put them on Facebook. We’ve had some great quality images recently but can’t keep the imagery to the frequent entries in the social media! Anyway, they have been repainted and renamed Adam and Eve, seems appropriate to be mentioning them at the time of our wedding anniversary and also when there has been so much in the media recently about marriage. I don’t often have black and white views more like shades of grey indecision but with the discussion about marriage and civil ceremonies of late I am very clear. In relation to our marriage, the fact that these fantastic stainless steel sculptures have been given a facelift making them even more vibrant and exciting symbolises well, our relationship. We are very different personalities and characters, (will have to go into more depth about ‘My husband, The Sculptor’ another time) so together we are like ying and yang. I guess that is how it works for most couples and it just seems crazy to me! Crazy Day, Crazy life, Crazy Love!

If you are interested, I just looked up the definition of Crazy;

1.mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way

2.extremely enthusiastic

3(of an angle) appearing absurdly out of place or in an unlikely position

I am not sure I meant any of these for any of the times I wrote the word in this blog. That’s the English Language, or perhaps I need to start reading a thesaurus. Crazy!

Alone

This sculpture, from this angle looks like a Japanese mask. Warrior like. Powerful. Strong. Alone.

In 1997 I spent 6 months in Japan. It was the first time I left home and I was on the other side of the world. Although I made lots of friends and worked there, so was settled in a routine, it was the first real experience of being alone. I definitely experienced loneliness rather than homesickness. On my days off work I would sometimes go to the local shrines or the ‘apple cafe’ to draw. I remember on a walk up a mountain, and on resting, lying down on my back and seeing a circle made from the tall trees above me. Then watching a single swallow flying across the sky. Like a Haiku poem. I realised I was alone.

As a teenager, I do think I dwelled upon the world ‘alone’ being a lonely place. Now in adulthood, being literally on my own is almost a luxury. So when I do have the time to myself I relish it. I find strength in it. There is peace and contentment to be found in being with yourself. Which leads me to my next question, are we ever really alone?

Whether we are the only planet which inhabits life is one big question of being ‘alone’ or ‘not alone. For me, another more profound reason as to why I am not alone is my belief in God. We watched something last night that resonated with me. The idea that those who don’t believe in a higher being or struggle with the concept, need to have an absolute proof, a certainty that there is something ‘greater’, ‘a creator’. For myself, having had almost, a before and after experience. I feel that believing in something is not just simply a comfort, as it then brings up so many more struggles and challenges.

Yesterday, our eldest boy was having a conversation with a friend of ours.

“Alien’s don’t exist” our boy said.

“How do you know? Asked the friend.

“Because in my dreams about space I don’t see any aliens”

I was amused and intrigued by this exchange. He had logically thought through, that if he didn’t see them (in his dreams) then they didn’t exist. Proof of children’s ever-changing states of mind, the number of drawings we have of aliens almost disproves his own argument. (I think he has seen them in his dreams!)

It made me think about the arguments:

Do we really need to see things clearly to know they exist?

Does finding comfort in the idea of a creator just stop us from thinking we are alone?

Or, do we struggle with the idea of being alone because when we are, we are forced to think more deeply about whether we really are?

The Art of Listening

Contemplating the difference between networking and friendship, I wonder if, listening is a fundamental difference. I am not one for blowing my own trumpet but I would put listening high on my list of skills. Although, being silent whilst another person speaks does not always mean ‘good listening’.

I have become increasingly aware that having three male voices to listen to in my house, quite often all at the same time, I may add; I have developed an art of appearing to be listening whilst often thinking a million and one other things at the same time. Isn’t that what most of us do, really, if we are honest ?

It is quite rare I think for a man to be verbally descriptive about what happens in their day. However, even in his second language my husband vividly describes every detail of what happens in his eventful days. Which is fantastic. I can almost imagine I am was there with him. So, on his return from London the story he told me of the Debut Contemporary Exhibition opening was as colourful as his sculptures. It can be hard to concentrate and to properly listen, something I am not doing too well at the moment, but if we do we can reap the benefit.

Joel Kramer, “The Passionate Mind” describes ‘the art of listening’ brilliantly. I have often looked at this to remind me of how to take on board new information.

“Ordinarily what we do when we think we are listening is to take in the words, translate them into something we know or are familiar with,and then agree or disagree.

If the words fit our structures, our beliefs, the things we feel comfortable with, the things we know then the speaker is a wise man and we agree.

If the words do not please us, do not fit our structures and beliefs, do not give us pleasure, then the speaker is a fool and we disagree.

That is what most of us do and call it listening.

But if we are either agreeing or disagreeing, then we are not listening.

For to listen there must be an openness, an innocence, a putting away of old ideas, so that possible the fresh can come in.

If you are busily involved in either agreeing or disagreeing, and you can watch yourself doing this by the way you nod your head as you listen, then what you are doing is not listening at all,

and the new, which is the fount of growth and learning, does not come in.

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