THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE

Strange Sensations and Slow art

The first week of the holiday ended and I had felt smug at how well I had managed the days with the relentless rain and keeping busy. Yoga, breathing and letting it all flow working with me well. However by the second week with less yoga practice and illness I felt personal tested because the weather was so good. I had had several ideas for active boys but I have had the most odd and strange fever. It sounds dramatic but when you have an infection it is as though an alien has taken over your body. However, it makes you grateful for your health and appreciate that for some people who can be their state of being on a more permanent basis.

So for the last weekend of the holidays, feeling a little bit more normal I planned to take the boys to a local museum where I had seen a little advert for ‘slow art day’ with a child friendly image of a tortoise. I thought that would suit us all as it was about the pace I was working at – tortoise pace. When I looked into a bit more I realised it wasn’t a kids holiday making activity but an annual event celebrated around the world with the idea of taking time to look and appreciate 5 pieces of art work and then discussing it. I think this is a fab idea but I couldn’t envisage not feeling hundred percent with two boys on the run, more at a hare’s pace, in a gallery space.

This was the general theme of the holidays, having plans and then them not quite happening, always a good lesson to learn. So here are some images of our own slow art the boys did at home and over the holidays on the rainy days.

Having a first day to myself yesterday after the two-week holiday with the boys, I went for a walk and realised walking helps me to think through ideas. It enables me to hear my voice in the peaceful sounds of nature. My husband has been busy working through an idea in clay, a preparation for a larger piece. He was telling me how he has realised he carves the whole thing in his mind before hand almost like watching himself do it in his mind’s eye.

On my walk, I took a moment to sit on a bench in a field with a large oak tree and a stream running through it eat. I noticed something I hadn’t seen before, a plaque with a poem by William Henry Davis:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

So I sat, ate my apples and reflected. I am conscious I am always hurrying the boys and think about articles about ‘The hurried child’. It is important to slow down and do things at a pace that makes us appreciate. My husband is driving with loyal driver and designer Anthony Hartley to Surrey to put these pieces (images below) in the wonderful Hannah Peschar sculpture garden. So if you are in that neck of the woods (odd expression but seemed appropriate) then take a slow wander around the beautiful surroundings amongst stunning sculptures and works of art.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.Henry David Thoreau

Bird now orange — ‘The Branch’ by Sam Shendi

Ride now purple — ‘The Ride’ by Sam Shendi

Art Swap: ‘Choose London’ for ‘Only Human’ featuring John Clare

So the second of our Art Swap pieces by John Clare has been here a little while but after a little re shuffle we have it now hanging in our living room side by side to another piece which I will post later. The two together make a good combination and compliment each other nicely. Many people do choose to go to London, the pull of the bright lights the big city. My husband stayed in London when he first arrived in UK and quickly left. Only now returning for exhibitions or meetings. I went to London after University with the intention of Rowing. Fate intervened and I left after just short of a year. My sister lived there for 7 years.

The piece hanging in our living room, by John Clare

This framed almost poster like piece came the furthest and survived the post. It appeals more to the three males in our household. I don’t know why skulls do that? The colours are great though and again a link with my husband’s sculpture. Bright, bold and vibrant. I am quite interested in the psychology of the artist and the piece itself. The Keyhole man we swapped it with was ‘Only Human’ which like the last art exchange, seems an appropriate swap. Almost an answer to the question in Choose London?

'Only Human' by Sam Shendi — ‘Only Human’ by Sam Shendi

Memories are made of this

So many things to write about from the past

Perhaps though best

to sit and look and reflect

with prompts of words
like
Form, Figure, Shadows, Style,

Signatures, interpretation, Calligraphy,

Titles, human, movement, body and more

viewing from different angles to explore

memories 8 — ‘MEMORIES’ by Sam Shendi, 2015

Language for the mind in recalling

Thoughts for the soul in remembering

Knowledge for the brain in retaining

Ideas for the spirit in recollection

Prayer for the body in remembrance

Memories are made of this

‘Big Questions’ for ‘I’ll Call you’. Art Swap featuring Sal Jones

For the first time in four years of blogging I have lost a post I started. Must mean I didn’t save it which is odd because it usually does it automatically, doesn’t it? But even if it doesn’t I can’t believe I closed it without a reminder for me to save it, or that I even forgot to click the save draft button. Must have been the pre-cursor to the way I felt last night and this morning, not good. So I have had time to write today from my bedroom, feeling a little under the weather but happy that the sun is starting to shine and it is teasing us with spring. The view from my window a painting in itself. But I digress….

All of this has nothing to do with what I want to write about today which is our first successful art swap. We successfully exchanged ‘The Big Question’:

with ‘I’ll Call you’ by artist Sal Jones .

So today I am going to write a little bit about her work. It is interesting to see the links and comparisons between painting and sculpture and of course the obvious differences.

I'll Call you by Sal Jones, Oil on canvas — I’ll Call you by Sal Jones, Oil on canvas

Sal Jones focuses on exploring colour and form expressively, aiming to engage the viewer with visually exciting work. Many of her paintings use bold and vibrant colours as my husband’s sculpture usually does. However, The Big Question, above is simple monochrome. I think you can tell when as artist is thinking about the way a viewer might interact with their finished work. It gives a more complete piece of work somehow.

The heightened use of colour adds emotional and expressive dynamic to the work. Many of her pieces have a vivacious quality to them. This one a little more muted, with moody blue tones adds to the story and the suggestion of a dark tunnel ahead. For me having had a little experience in painting I love the gestural brush marks and the layers of colours. I also am fascinated by the way the suggestive marks give rise to the folds and forms of the fabric. So the light and dark make this piece.

Here is the painting hanging in our hallway, like it was painted to be there. The first things I see when I come out of my room.

As the figure is walking away you can almost put yourself in the painting. “By taking an isolated image out of context and using the dialogue as the images title – I’m hoping to create a friction or ambiguity in the reading of the image interpreted in different ways by different viewers depending on their personality and viewpoints and what they bring to their understanding of the subject”. I really appreciate this factor.

Interpretation is everything and an important part of my husband’s work too. Much of Sal Jones’ work features portraits which although I like and she describes more as ‘character studies’, in our small terrace house I don’t think hanging the face of someone would really work. Where as this piece has an abstraction to it because the figure can be anyone, I also like that it is a full figure as many of my husband’s pieces are the female form so there is lovely link there.

Indeed, both the sculpture and the painting tell a story. Like a pictorial book we are invited to create our own words for the images we see. Jones herself states that she is “interested in capturing moments of expression that portray the human psyche, of blurring the boundary between fact and fiction; also in the relationship between the title and image.” Titles are everything, as I said in my last entry about my husband’s laconic titles very different from some of the long-winded titles of many modern minimalist pieces. Sal Jones’ titles are the stories themselves, inspirational points for an aspiring writer.

So we are privileged to have a unique and precious painting on our landing and if you want to see her work you can do from next week at Espacio Gallery . Click the link to another blog entry about the gallery, as my husband has also exhibited there.

Sal Jones exhibits in:

Y Not?
31 March – 5 April 2015
Private View: Thursday 2 April 6-9pm
An exhibition in aid of International Women’s Day.

An answer to Moore’s Daughter; ‘all is not lost, there is form in Shendi’

Mother and child ouline 1 — ‘Mother and Child’ by Sam Shendi 2015

Two people very independently but both very close and beautiful souls sent me the article in The Guardian which Mary Moore (Henry Moore’s Daughter) states that Hirst has sent art back by 100 years. Perhaps they could see that the article would interest me on a number of levels.

Mother and child ouline 5 — Mother and Child, from the back

Mother and child outline 3 — ‘Mother and child’

Exploring the human figure, shape and ‘finding freedom within form’ are the focus of much of both sculptor’s pieces. Observing the human condition, using the human figure, reclining or mothers and child a link of the source of inspiration. In fact some of the earlier work of my husband’s has a very Moore like quality to it. But, dare I say I believe my husband’s work continues the line of work that Moore started.

It is all about seeing things within that form and from different angles. Looking at the images of this piece every angle in a digital images looks like a different image. Like Mary says about her father’s work, about ‘exploring the invented object’ in front of you.’ In a modern 21st century contemporary setting with the addition of colour and focus on outline in an attempt of abandoning form as a mass, my husband’s work takes it to the next stage in development, thought process or idea. Yes artists like Damien Hirst may be relying on the title and have put the form back in the frame. However, there is always a reaction and response within the art world. Laconic titles such as ‘Mother and Child’ which my husband uses harps back to old masters such as Moore, giving you an indication to the form but allowing you to use your own imagination and interpretation for the rest.

Mother and child outline 6 — Mother – in yellow and pink, Child – red and blue

Mother and child ouline 7 — ‘Mother and Child’

We have become a two-dimensional digital age , a world of flat screens and it is why education is increasingly important about shape and form. Otherwise these skills will be lost. It was so interesting reading what Moore’s Daughter said about her childhood with her father as a sculptor, playing with clay, thinking about thees qualities of light, shape and space. I observe the boys interaction and how they relate to their father, the sculptor in similar ways. Although this winter the studio has been a little out-of-bounds, we are all looking forward to the sunnier warmer days of playing round the studio. In the article which was highlighting the new exhibition of Henry Moore’s work at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Moore said she hoped the show would encourage people “to explore what is in front of them with an open mind and in a fresh way, so that they might re-evaluate or see things that they have never seen, understand things they have never understood. I hope it generates excitement about sculpture.” I think my husband’s work is creating small slow ripple of excitement in the art world and I really hope one day we will be able to get his work into Yorkshire Sculpture park. Seeing Shendi alongside Moore, what a spectacular way of seeing sculpture that would be.

mother and child outline 2 — The shadows create additional images

Mother and child 4 outline — ‘Section of Mother and Child’

‘Toy’ to a new home

Another blogger /writer, a mother, wrote about how she put all the children’s toys in black bin liner and hid them in the studio. She left just one or two toys out and if the child asked for something particular she resurrected it. She noticed however that her child was playing more imaginatively and productively. I quite regularly re-home toys in an effort to make more space especially in the boys shared room. They are sometimes good at giving things to charity. We recently split a large basket of animals into piles of which we would keep and ones we would give away. This was a little harder as the eldest loves animals, so some that were originally for charity crept back into the basket. I wish I could be as ruthless and bag everything up and start with a blank slate again, introducing just a few toys. Even I find it difficult though to let go, a hoarder by heart. I will pick something up and think ‘ah but they played so nicely with that last month!’ We attach ourselves to things unnecessarily. We place value on them to much.

Yesterday, on returning from the studio finishing off getting ‘The Toy’ ready my husband likened creating a sculpture to being a mother. I understood the analogy but I don’t agree (that’s the mother speaking). However, I totally understood that he felt a little saddened in saying goodbye to ‘The Toy’ which he is taking today to a new home. It was a piece that started on our kitchen table with ‘Blood, sweat and tears’. For this piece is in some ways so more than a sculpture, it is a concept, an idea, a philosophy. One day it would be fantastic to produce it in bronze. It is a piece which often produces a negative reaction. Unlike most of the other works it holds a dark, disturbing image but sometimes it is those harder to swallow ideas that have the strongest message.

This piece is different from the majority of the work but my husband couldn’t find any better way to present his thoughts. With these mediums and this design, it speaks about the 21st century, the society that we live in. The fact the most people work hard and yet don’t go anywhere, like a rocking horse. However long it rocks it stays in the same place. The skeleton is black to show the time that we are in, when fuel has become more important than human life or any living creature, think oil spills and images of birds and sea creatures coated in petrol. The horse-tail, is real horse hair represents the focus on our bodies, going to the gym, looking good, good diet etc. Similar to he technique for a horse race, constantly looked after, good diet, great exercise trained for the ‘race’. Wins only to make the owner very rich. We have become a ‘toy’ to our bosses, to our society and to our media. Played with and manipulated somehow. We believe that this is the normal life the life we are supposed to have. Work 9 till 5, 6 days a week, sleep 8 hours, have three-course meal and wish to live longer..when we could end up being in a nursing home, sitting down on a rocking chair thinking that you lived the life in full. This is an observation of the way our society has become obsessed with material aspects of life, of being in the spotlight not thinking beyond.

toy home — ‘The Toy’ by Sam Shendi. 2012

Art can be aesthetically pleasing and beautiful but sometimes we need to stop and think and the ‘shock value’ in this piece is intended for that. ‘The Toy’ spent the last six months at Cartwright art Gallery and Museum being viewed by the public and we were given a copy of the fantastic and intriguing comments. Now it moves to a private collection. We have to let go.

(…..yes the’ Frozen’ lyric does spring to mind but immediately wipe it out your mind. I looked up synonyms but nothing else fit )

Symbolic sculpture forms signature

Signature 1 — ‘Signature’ by Sam Shendi, 2014

Language is symbolic. Words are symbols. Even our own signature becomes a symbol of ourselves. This new piece entitle ‘Signature’ is one of a collection in which my husband is focusing on the outline of the human figure, it is almost the abstraction of form. His own work becoming progressively more ‘abstracted’. Following a contour of the body producing a language of its own rather than creating a solid object. It is as I have mentioned before like a cursive writing style, a sculptural calligraphy. I have started reading around the subjects I am writing about in an endeavour to improve my writing and think about what direction to take my writing in.

So I have finished ‘Notes from an Exhibition’ by Patrick Gale I borrowed from the library alongside reading ‘The inspired heart’ by Jerry Wennstrom. On the subject of libraries we are lucky to have a library pull up practically in our back yard which means we visit every two weeks and drag a bag piled high with children’s books back up the path. We have done this since my eldest was a baby and consequently they both enjoy sitting and turning the pages, looking at the pictures absorbing the details. It is one of few things I am proud of instilling in them, if it lasts! I enjoyed taking along my long list of books I had researched that might assist in my own creativity. However, they only had the one for now. The library is under threat though with ideas of community led ones. Why funding for libraries and librarians should be pulled makes no sense at all. We still need real books and real spaces.

Signaturye 6 — ‘Signature’ the shadows playing part of the art

Abstract art a way forward or a dead-end? was my first art essay title I wrote during A-levels (many years ago) I loaned it to a student I worked with once and never got back which is a shame, it was before the digital days and so I no longer have any record of it. Perhaps it is no bad thing, it would just be sat in a plastic tub in the attic. Although there were some photos of my visits to galleries including my 17-year-old self stood proudly next to large Rothko. Currently ‘Whitechapel’ has an exhibition entitled ‘The adventures of the black square” a journey of abstraction, which if I could get to I probably would go and visit, but I got a nice flavour of from the ‘misadventures’ blog link above and also listening to the director’s introduction. The exhibition follows four themes, utopia, architectonic, communication and the everyday. I definitely used to see abstract art as contemporary and new, as a progression “a springboard for the imagining of new tomorrows” and “freeing art from the dead weight of the real word”. As the director, Iwona Blazwick introduces, “Geometric abstraction influenced around the world and was crucially linked with politics and society,”

‘Abstraction’, whatever the word means has certainly influenced and is increasingly used in this ‘dehumanized digital age’ we live in. Now I wonder how far this abstraction has led us. For me, I feel I am going in a full circle with it, on a journey as I learn more about art and sculpture. My husband’s work offers a simple solution. Although the work is rarely as simple as it seems. It is the abstraction but with the humanity. It has the modernity in colour and the spirituality in meaning. I have started to think even more about words, the meaning and the choice of words. “Language is marvelous powerful tool” I heard this recently on the radio 4 programme ‘Life in Suburbia’. It is an important addition to abstract art, many people needing the addition of words to hang along side the ‘black square’ or the large canvases of pure colour.

Signature 4 — Part of the ‘Body Language’ collection

So to add some words to this piece. To many it may still seem completely abstract, a wavy whirl of colour. Even if that is what you see, it is visually appealing, there is a harmony and a high aesthetic quality to the piece. It is still however, the contour of the human form. In this image above the ‘green’ forms the head and arm. The ‘red’ the back and leg. Sit and stare at this one a while and you may start to see it. The fact that each image above creates its own unique shadow and picture in itself is an art. Seeing it in reality in its true three-dimensional form adds to the experience. The image below shows it in situ and the realisation of the scale of it is perhaps enlightening, smaller than the blank white back drop suggests. My husband’s sculptures all have the will to grow and they would look so amazing on a huge scale in the centre of a town square or in the fields of a sculpture park. This is the next dream. In a world where we text and tweet and use words often devoid of meaning. This sculpture embodies meaning of living in the dystopian present.

Signature at 88 wood street — On display at 88 Wood Street, London

‘Art Swap’

Sat at our kitchen table an evening after he returned from London we were catching up and chatting, we spontaneously posted the idea ‘ART SWAP’ on the sculptor’s Facebook page. I wasn’t too sure if it should be ART SWOP – does it depend where you come from? Anyway, we made the suggestion that artists could offer a piece of their work in exchange for a piece of ‘The Keyhole Man’ collection.

Nibbling dried fruit and dark chocolate I suggested that it would be interesting how long the process would take. By Midnight, fuelled by the 85% cocoa consumption we were still receiving messages, seeing which design other artists were interested in was intriguing and by the following day all 11 little men had new homes. It was wonderful being flooded with choices of works to pick from. Excitingly we realised we will potentially have 11 new art works. We need to build that modern shendi house!

It seems like a novel idea, and its a great idea at that, f or so many reasons. However, it is not a completely unique idea artists in the past were always intermingling, interchanging ideas and works. Picasso and Braque worked together, Monet and Renoir, Pissarro and Degas set up their own exhibition, Jan Lievens shared a studio with Rembrandt, Ben Nicholson introduced Barbara Hepworth to artists in Paris such as Brancusi, Arp, Mondrian and Naum Gabo. Together they became involved in a new international crusade for abstract art. Artists have always worked together.

In today’s modern world twitter, Facebook, pinterest and all the other forms of social networking all influence a digital exchange of ideas and connection globally. But generally Artists aren’t as friendly as they used to be there is more competition and backbiting.

To swap the actual art work is a fabulous way of making the world a bit more physical and real and for artists to appreciate each others work, to be able to receive pieces within a means they can afford.

Hopefully ART SWAP makes the connection and relationship between artists better, less competitive and more about a shared sense of camaraderie.

Keyhole family — ‘The Keyhole Men Collection’

In a state of flux

Last week was half term, so I had no time to write, to think or to breathe. Obviously that last action is not true – I was blatantly breathing. However I am really aware that I don’t stop for breath when running after two boys and I am often in a “state of flux” when situations in life may go one way or another. Both boys wanted to do different things at a busy museum on day one, so my ranting started and I was struggling for air. I suddenly felt the whole week could be a disaster. Luckily friends during the remainder of the holiday week meant we were all much calmer and passed enjoyably. I realised the importance of meeting up with others when you have children in tow. For myself though I need alone time to clear my head for words to flow. Half term meant there was no space in my head for thinking past what and who was going where and what we were all eating.

Added into the hectic holiday was the fact that the sculptor had a 4 day exhibition in London entitled ‘Flux‘ showcased 70 quality artists. This meant that mid-week he got up at 3am to take a wagon full of sculptures on the road. Unfortunately I didn’t go back to sleep after the shrill of the alarm, so I had a coffee fuelled day in the showroom with both boys. The sculptor however had an even crazier day of then journeying down to London, setting up the exhibition and then attending the private view which was packed with people. Madly they decided to drive back home directly after arriving at 5am. So the lack of sleep award wasn’t going to me. To compound that, two days later rose early again to go back down to London to pack up whilst his heroic companion Anthony Hartley drove across to Gatwick to deliver pieces going to Germany in March. It is all getting very logistical, with unloading to do at this end they didn’t get in until Monday morning. But no time to rest as the exhibition at Cartwright Hall needed taking time. I am not sure if you are keeping track of the time here but the point is a lot of moving and lifting and travelling on very little sleep.

Stop. Take a deep breath.

Life is a constant change, ‘ in flux’. Nothing is permanent. Everything is shifting continually but for the most part we try to order, constrain and control things. At the moment our daily lives; managing showroom, sculptures, exhibitions, delivery and collection of art works, emails, boys and school means that I, particularly need to be more fluid. My husband seems to manage these ‘states of flux’ much better. The art of decisive quick thinking.

flux exhibition — FLUX at The Rag Factory before the 500 plus people arrived.

Creativity and the every day

Imagine a bird trying to find flight in the wind, constantly flapping until it finds a pocket of smooth space where it can glide. That’s what I feel motherhood is like at the moment. I occasionally spot other mothers in the same flap and know that we are all in this together flying around trying to spread our wings. I have a few frenzied hours in the morning from waking until I drop the boys at school and then when I pick them up until bedtime.

Last week the sculptor took this freshly painted and slightly changed ‘Mother and Child’ piece down to Hay Hill Gallery, London. The other two in the collection both sold and sent to new homes.

mOTHER AND CHILD IN HAYHILL — ‘Mother and Child’ by Sam Shendi. Hay Hill Gallery, London.

mother and child in hayhill 2 — ‘Mother and Child’ by Sam Shendi. Hay Hill Gallery London

These trips away mean I am managing the showroom and boys, school and home. Juggling the ball(s) and balancing them- aren’t we all. Last week the van broke down on the motorway (not really the fault of the van I might add) it was freezing snowy cold weather on the return journey so the pieces had arrived safely and thankfully he made it home with not too much delay.

With a renewed sense of calm after my weekend without the boys, yesterday after looking after the showroom I took the boys home and started making a healing chicken soup for the boys full of coughs and colds whilst they painted and created in the space around me. This prompting me to pull out all the craft books and papers which were looking a hideous mess in one of the kitchen cupboards out on to the floor. All this seemed manageable knowing the sculptor wouldn’t come back in and trip over it. However, in the middle of this organised chaos the sculptor calls having settled into his hotel room after a train journey which has taken him quite literally all day to get there. As he starts going into detail about the state of the wall papered ceiling and berating the interior decor, my youngest is sprinkling the glitter on the floor, the eldest making yet another animal from card and glue dribbling it all over the kitchen table (desperate measures to have a pet). I am trying to put the rice on the stove and I can feel my newly topped up patience from the weekend child free starting to boil over along with the soup.

After abandoning the kitchen for stories and bedtime I decide not to go back down and stay in the clam of my room. I read too late into the night, get disturbed by endless coughing and get up to see if child is ok, administer cough syrup and kisses. We all wake a little later than usual having had little sleep. I descending to the kitchen which now looks a little like my impression of the studio the day before and I wonder if we all are a little naturally inclined to be messy. Creativity and everyday life in such opposition to the fine finished forms of the sculptures now situated in this clinically neat business entrance where they were delivered last week.

the bow 88 wood st — ‘The Bow’ by Sam Shendi. 88 Wood Street.London

body language in 88 wood st — ‘Body Language’ by Sam Shendi. 88 Wood Street, London.

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