Well, I was wrong about having little sleep on Tuesday night. The sculptor slept through the alarm. Although that still meant only 5 hours sleep. A sudden sitting bolt upright, duvet off the bed and expletives woke us both up an hour later than expected. Unfortunately, this had a knock on effect of meeting rush hour on the motorway. Added to that road blocks and diversions around London they arrived at destination- Double Tree Hilton almost 2 hours later than schedule.
Having moved from Cartwright Hall where I have worked, ‘The Bench’ is now sat opposite Canary Wharf where quite by coincidence I did a work experience placement when I was 14 at The Sunday Mirror Magazine. Anyway that isn’t the point. The photographs as I thought, look amazing. The sculpture filling our studio now looks dwarfed by the booming business buildings behind. The sculptures colours are stunning and make it stand out against the city backdrop. Like colourful buildings themselves with the curve simply suggesting a head resting on shoulder. a reminder of how important it is to rest, be with the ones we love and sit and reflect. Most poignantly placed opposite London’s major business district and financial centre.
The story of the journey doesn’t end there but for now, enjoy the pictures ….
This week is a challenge in more ways than one. To speak of the sculptural challenge the sculptor has an almost marathon like day tomorrow, a culmination of several weeks of preparation.
If the sculptor is not sculpting, or taking sculptures to sites then there is also removing, repairing and re-spraying. It is none stop. The size, shape and volume of the sculptures means large wagon hire and time on the road. (With huge thanks to Anthony Hartley)
‘installing sculptures on site -Tarpey Gallery’
This afternoon the wagon needs to collected, sculptures need to have final polish and loading on the wagon in a particular jigsaw like way. A ridiculously early start might mean the sculptor has no sleep tonight to arrive in London tomorrow to install ‘The Bench’ in an exciting location but I almost won’t believe it until I see the pictures. However, it doesn’t end there they then have to make their way across to Henley-on-Thames to install 2 new pieces which have just been finished for ‘The Henley Festival’. The sculptor is listed along with Damien Hirst and Marc Quinn. Again…..I can’t wait to see the pictures.
This is all following a busy June which involved picking up sculptures from venues, inspecting others for suitably and taking sculptures to the ‘Tarpey Gallery (77 High Street, DE74 2PQ Castle Donington)
‘Evolution’ as well as other works are outside amongst an amazing collection of sculptures. The opening is this saturday July 11th from 2pm -6pm.
I typed ‘Departed’ and just saw ‘dead’ written next to it. Very final. I had been thinking more along the lines of ’embarking on a journey’ or ‘leaving the station’ – that kind of departed. The film, ‘The Departed’ perhaps. The lamb I saw in the road today, very much alive and annoying the farmer had departed from the field. Hadn’t it? It wasn’t dead, anyway – not yet.
Last week I ‘departed’ facebook for a month. Now I am wondering whether to completely come off it or will I slip back into the addictive social scrolling. Perhaps my internet persona on facebook is dead? In a world where we increasingly spend more time in a virtual reality, what becomes real and not real, what is seen and unseen? I won’t know how many facebook hits I get on this post. Will that bother me? Does it make it less real that people could potentially be reading my little blog post. Does it even matter if anyone is reading it. Not really, I guess.
Departing social media really is a tenuous link to this piece and doesn’t do it justice. What matters in the end is the good we leave behind in the world after we have departed. And when we have departed, where are you going? So ponder these ideas whilst you look at the shape, the line, the curve, the balance, the colour and particularly the shadows. Abstraction can be based on reality, just broken down to the very minimal and it is up to the viewer to see beyond. To visualise the deeper meaning of what is in front of you and find the unseen.
Collection of work at Newby Hall ready for installing
“The intelligent want self-control: children want candy” Rumi.
My husband took the work to Newby Hall ready for installation (Exhibition now open). A member of staff commented that the sculptures looked like sweets. They do look like candy canes. Lick-able, as though each colour would taste different. Eating sweets has been a bit of a topic of discussion recently with our boys having, had lots of parties and sweet handouts at school. So candy has been on my mind…but now it is time to start focusing on more aspirational things as we approach our month of retreat, guarding of our lower beings and those animal instincts!
‘Awaken’ and ‘Reaching’ outside the studio
My husband did an interview for Candid magazine once which brought the word ‘Candid’ into my vocabulary a bit more. It was a great discovery. I not only like the word which sounds like candy. I like the meaning. Truthful, straightforward; frank, because I think most of the time we skirt around honesty in preference for politeness. We ‘English’ like politeness and whilst we value honesty I am not sure we can handle candid comments very well. We want things sugar-coated and sweet. Makes me think of the line “some people can’t handle the truth” which I don’t think many of us can. We don’t want that raw reality preferring the hazy safety of polite untruths and staying within our comfort ones. Rather than thinking of our own faults we like to judge others faults before seeing their virtues. It makes us feel better about ourselves but before we do that we need to call ourselves to account. The capacity for self blame is a heathy soul and it humbles us. The importance of scrutinising ourselves and being brutally honest can often lead to an awakening.
‘Awaken’ by Sam Shendi
Awakening of a realisation of our own actions, behaviours, habits. In a secular context self-awareness has now become mindfulness which although is good practice has no moral dimensions. As Immanual Kant said: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence.” The moral dimension of self-awareness includes nobleness. In the battery farm of the modern capitalist system which aim is producing eggs regularly, getting along with the other chickens and then ultimately you die and get made into cat food. The process goes on and there is no higher aspiration. So preoccupied with all the other chickens, even mindful chickens, we are left at the level of the zoological. Yet, we were made for something higher than the lower self ‘zoo’. Nobility is what happens when we leave behind the animal desires. The thing that makes us human and not animal. Our higher being, one of virtuosity is nobel.
If we awaken to reality in this world we need to consider what we do, what we have been doing.
Forget the sweets, be honest and look at the day that is to come and hope for an awakening.
‘Awaken’ by Sam Shendi currently showing at Newby Hall, Ripon
I have been slow to upload these art swaps. I am trying to keep on top of it. This is the beautiful work of Carlos Martyn Burgos, you can see his work at http://www.memakestuff.com. I have liked his work ever since we saw it at The Other Art Fair a couple of years ago. We actually got some prints I still have in a pile of things to frame. So I am pleased we have this original framed and hanging in the living room.
‘Put your helmet on…
the stars look very different today…
sitting in a tin can, far above the world..
can you hear me Major Tom…
‘Poison’ by Sam Shendi
…not even knowing the title I thought of David Bowie singing ‘Ground control to Major Tom’. Obviously the space helmet, the astro-girl, outer space feel to the paining all some cues. I love the use of tea, drips and splashes and even evidence of a tea-cup in the left corner here. The detail is also amazing and in this the unusual angle. The boys find it a bit eery, it is unusual but I love it. In my search about the artist I found a fellow word press article and the words that the work is “Fusing elements of the classical, the expressive, the surreal, beauty, darkness and his love of the human form”. This is an interesting link to my husband’s work which is focused on the human form. Like the previous swaps, it seemed such a good connection, perhaps it’s the symbol on this little keyhole man that makes me think of space aliens or darth vader. So for this art swap we sent ‘Poison’ in exchange for ‘In Search of Major Tom’.
As I write the title I suddenly realise many people may be reaching for the end of the working week, the bottle, the next bar of chocolate, the next holiday. We do all reach for that comfort but what are we blocking out.
I have been a bit pre occupied these last couple of weeks not blocked with writer’s block but literally with ‘block’ blocks in researching minecraft parties. I am going all out this year with a Minecraft themed home party for our soon to be 8-year-old. Family birthdays, lots of sculpture events happening and a very busy sculptor means I find it harder to sit and write. Perhaps, just an excuse really however as this next week is half term I am trying to get this written before having the boys and really no time for writing.
‘Reaching’ by Sam Shendi outside the studio
I have had a few conversations recently about ambition. What it means and why some of us have it and some of us seem to lack it. In conversations with my husband I reach for the dictionary. I must have had the foresight to know it would be useful to request it from a dear friend when we got married and she wanted gift suggestions. The definition of ambition is ‘an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honour, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment’.
My husband thinks he wasn’t ambitious as a child. He didn’t aim to achieve what he has achieved thus far more a determination to better his situation perhaps. In my mind he is definitely ambitious to fulfil a dream but more crucially has the unbelievable determination to strive for its attainment. Meanwhile, I like being in the presence of that ambition and almost make it become my own in many ways but power, honour, fame, wealth have very little interest for me. I don’t have the drive to reach further or the ability to sustain any determination not for things materialistically. I have a very circular way of thinking. Say like taking a further step my writing into writing a book then I wonder why? for what reason? My mind goes into a spiral of being able to talk myself out of it.
‘Reaching’ can be seen at Newby Hall, Ripon. June-September ’15
We live in a world where success is often measured in material wealth and possessions. Although we do need those to a certain extent in this western world, aiming to achieve your dreams is something quite different. I guess it is all about purpose. What is our purpose in life. I am too much of a day-dreamer, my personal ambition is reaching into the realms of spiritualism, for something beyond this world…. but I guess it is ok to have these lofty ambitions when your husband is working hard on the ground!! So this Friday thought is. What are we reaching for? Why are we reaching for it?
Yesterday the sculptor took this piece along with several others in a new collection to Newby Hall, Ripon. N.Yorkshire. So if you are looking for some inspiration, a wander in the grounds of an 18th century house, something to do over the summer the exhibition will run from the 1st June ’15 until the end of the season – 27th September ’15.
“You are back” my youngest son beamed on Saturday morning. Despite explaining to him several times what was happening, he still hadn’t quite grasped the concept that Mama and Baba were going out and coming back on Friday night. I guess it is that age where waiting and the concept of time haven’t quite formulated yet. I can’t believe that in his whole 4 years we haven’t done this before but anyway I had managed to get the sculptor out. The incentive of course was sculpture related.
‘I think this looks like it was designed for Ironman’
Sometime last year my husband had excitedly taken 4 sculptures down to Shepperton Studios to put them on set for the new MARVEL film. We weren’t allowed to advertise this but I am certain I wrote somewhere about how he nearly ran back, he was so excited. The whole experience of being on set, walking in amongst Ironman and Hulk’s lab was like being a kid in a candy store. Can’t seem to find it on any of last years post and I have done enough trawling. The other thing it made my husband realise was how far he had come, from a small village in Northern Egypt to a multi-million pound blockbuster movie set. I think something sunk in.
So after what seemed like an ‘age’ of waiting. We finally went to see Avengers: The Age of Ultron on Friday all ready to spot Shendi sculptures on set. As the film began my husband whispered “what’s your gut feeling, do you think they will be in”? To be honest I grimaced, I don’t think so. I had been so excited and told so many people despite my usual ability to secrecy that I felt we weren’t going to see anything. The film was so fast and the screen so dark I saw nothing. We left a little disappointed, both at the film and lack of sculpture spotting, without seeing the credits role.
Advertising it on his facebook page anyway, the sculptor got a response from a friend who went to see it saying they saw his name in the credits. Really??? I think they might be joking. I still can’t believe it, and there is no chance I am going back to the cinema. So now we will have to wait again till the DVD comes out and we can physically stop start and pause the screen to see possible geometric shapes in the background and freeze frame his name. Seeing is believing in this case though I think.
This is not another art swap (unfortunately..more of that coming soon) but I had to share this. We just got an email through with an image of a painting produced by the most incredibly talented Luca Indraccolo. It is the one which my husband stood for last summer. It is a massive painting, oil on canvas 250 X 140 cm.
For me, this initial view looks mysterious and dark, Italian Mafia meet Turner. It also reminds me when I first met my husband and he said something along the lines of, follow and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Perhaps this is what he is saying here, though there is more of a sense of foreboding in the painting which wasn’t true in our life. The contrast between the dark depths of the pit below his feet and the white misty landscape behind is stunning. The likeness to my husband is remarkable it looks like a photograph of him. I want to take a closer look so I really hope I can see it in the flesh on day.
If you would like to, it will be on display at ‘Le Dame’ gallery in London from July 9th to the 30th.
Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden
Black and White Cottage,
Standon Lane, Ockley,
Surrey RH5 5QR
Opening times
May to end of October:
Fridays and Saturdays 11am-6pm.
Sundays and Bank Holidays 2pm-5pm.
When my husband was installing these pieces he met HANNAH PESCHAR herself in person. Unfortunately this is the last year that this exhibition will run. so we are privileged to be part of it. She asked my husband what his inspiration was. My husband answered, ” it is enough just to have your eyes open and look around”. She said she had only ever heard one other person say that; Henry Moore.
Nestled in amongst the trees the summer house, like a Hansel and Gretel hideawayThe sculptural bird perched on ‘The Branch’.‘The Branch’ by Sam Shendi at Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden‘The Branch’
THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE 