I have a feeling of foreboding or a sense that something isn’t quite right at the moment and I can’t seem to shake it. Yesterday, whilst dropping off my eldest son another Mum said I looked pained. I decided to go for a quick run despite my little boy oddly saying to me that he didn’t want me to go for a run whilst he was at nursery. I was feeling a bit slow and lethargic when suddenly I had a stab in my arm, looked down and saw a wasp fly off my jumper. It had pierced its venom through two reasonably thick layers. Oh the agony! Now I was pained. I ran home and searched for an antidote. vinegar. Sugar. Ice.
I then had 18 cupcakes to make for my father. After quickly making, I dashed off to pick my little boy up to then drop him at our shop with my husband before driving to foggy Bradford for paint for sculptures. Returning in the pouring rain to pick up three boys and take them home. I finished decorating the cupcakes with coloured sugar butterflies amongst keeping the boys entertained with Lego, bashing on overturned pans as a drum set, printing out delivery notes for sculpture to Wells, phone calls from my husband to ask whether it was worth taking the sculpture to Wells at all. I feel I am zipping around like a stunned angry wasp and can’t get an aura of calmness. So this is more about me and less about sculpture. All in a day as a sculptors wife.This morning, however we found out that ‘The Toy’ has been selected for an exhibition in London at the beginning of next month but more logistics to sort out.
I am also plenty aware that so many more women out there including my mother, my sister, my friends have much busier mornings, more frantic structures to the day, frenetic exchanges and impending deadline. “I just don’t know how they do it”. I am finding ‘my rush hour’ in the morning makes my day feel like I am trying to catch the calmness of the floating butterfly for the rest of the day. So this sculpture is to forget the angry wasp and send out a smile to all those having busy days and to finding a moment to catch a butterfly.
My husband and I had a rare moment both together and also going to an opening at a local exhibition. Most exciting that it was to see his work in it and at a place where I have worked. His pieces looked fantastic in the space and it is amazing how the space around them makes them more impressive.
‘Adam and Eve at Cartwright Hall’‘The sperm’ and ‘The girl next door’ in Cartwright Hall
The work covered two long exhibition spaces on the first floor at Cartwright Hall Museum and there was a high standard and variety of prints and paintings, one of which my husband spontaneously bought, a very blue oil landscape of Bradford with an industrial look and fantastic details and use of light. Apparently we are re-painting the living room for it to go on the chimney wall. Only then did it dawn on my husband that the work is in exhibition till January so we wouldn’t be taking it home with us there and then. Will give us time to get painting then!? Anyway plenty of time if you are local to go and take a look at the exhibition. I would definitely recommend taking a trip into Lister Park and visiting Bradford Open 2013. Well worth a look.
Children sketching the sculptures
There were few sculptures though, so my husband’s work took the floor space focus. I was really happy to see several children enjoying the work and sitting down in front of the sculptures sketching them. One of the boys who has been sketching came to see my husband and he gave him on of his brightly coloured cards with a sculpture on the front. When we stood next to ‘Adam and Eve’ another boy came up to look at them, particularly liking the holes and said ” Have you seen the other one in the other room, it is like a ball and it’s got this shape (he pointed to the diamonds in ‘Adam’) going this way and he made lines from his ears. Then the boy said “Did you make it” and it felt like a rare moment of observing child interacting and meeting with an Artist.
I feel there is so much I could write with this post. We are constantly asking questions. This piece is the human question but from one angle is an exclamation, which I love, I always over use exclamation marks!!!!
Already this morning I have the question in my mind of whether the boys are ok at school and preschool as I felt I literally dropped them there in mid air rushing off to the next drop off and to the shop. I was asked the question at pre school of how to spell the name of the Egyptian bread I went in to make . So I have text my sister-in-law to ask for the spelling. I wondered if the milk is off, when I got to the shop this morning as with no fridge the milk has been left on the side. The question of whether my husband will get the train to London and have his meeting ok.
My eldest is at that questionable age, ‘Do all pengiuns look the same?’ ‘Do animals look the same in the next world?’ and so many more just in the car on the way to school. Or the fact that our little boys keeps asking my husband “Can I tell you a question, Baba?! He is copying his older brother who is constantly saying, ‘Can I tell you a joke’ or ‘asking a question’, in a cute little voice he morphs the two. My deeply philosohical husband this morning was observing that our youngest is no longer a baby and and we are not going to be around when he is old. That means we are dying, he said, not literally but yes depressing as it is on this misty mid week morning we are all a little closer to death. That is the ultimate question.
We have had a flurry of ‘You have been selected’. All the pieces got selected for the Bradford Open (28 September – 19 January ) Yipee! The mad dash panic last week was worth it. My husband came in the other night and said, ‘How far away is Wales’? I’ve just applied for something there. Let’s have a look I said. WELLS not WALES (roll of the eyes yet again) in October, like we need anything else to do. A ‘soul’ piece got selected for the Wells Open. Followed by an email asking if we were interested in a solo exhibition next year in the North West. Also, selected to be an associate member of The Royal British Sculpture Society, so can now put ARBS after his name. So a pretty good week in terms of ‘selection’.
This piece above, simply titled ‘Sperm’ has been selected for the Bradford, Cartwright Hall. I think how ‘Selected’ links with this piece is pretty obvious, well, it puts a smile on your face, right? Enough said!
To make the most of my morning, after dropping eldest child and at school and youngest at preschool, then taking the car to the garage, filling in exhibition forms for my husband, I decided to go for a run to the monuments behind our house. It felt symbolic as I went there shortly after the birth of my first child and had a very emotional kind of cathartic outpouring at being detached from him for the first time. Now six years later I am without the children for the mornings and its been a rather strange mix of emotions and experiences. So to go for, what I decided was ‘rulking’ felt the right thing to do.
I had to take my phone with me as I knew I would be having to discuss what pieces to submit in the Bradford Open, which due to my distraction with the ‘school run’ missed the yesterday deadline for the local drop off. I then made use of the phone taking some rather nice photos of the monuments to draw parallel with the pieces ‘Adam and Eve’ but for some odd reason the computer will not let me upload them. Perhaps it know they are not ‘Sculptures’. So the whole point of my Landscape and Symbolism is not quite working with the lack of landscape images. I did ponder on Friday thoughts…..but it is more like an over tired rambling.
Anyway, my husband had to drive to Haworth to collect the pieces he had decided to put in as they were in the newly re-finshed Damside Mill.
To try to end on a more meaningful Friday philosophy; the landscape and lighting is changing and it was that which made me see the monuments in a different way. It is, indeed always changing, through seasons and generations. Made me ponder about the past and people who have gone before us. Sometimes we think we are alone in a quest to get somewhere when thousands like us both now and from the past have the same challenges. As human beings we are all searching for some kind of peace and contentment both externally and internally. I personally feel the world has strayed far from what gives us just that. We’ve created a whole load of distractions from wholesome natural living.
With the cleverly re-used gym floor on the wall as the backdrop ‘Adam and Eve’ are symbols, a sculptural language of the simplicity that life is. A simple symbol in a landscape of chaos.
Earlier in the year, in March we found out my husband had won the Public Art Award, FIRST@108, then began the process of making the maquette a reality from a scale of 1:6. Finally right on time, the photo was taken and sent for the publicity at the end of August. This impressive piece will be installed outside The Royal British Sculptor Society in anticipation of the private view on October 30th 6.30pm. We now need to arrange a trip down to London for the event.
The piece is a reminder about how we evolve through our lifespan from infancy to ultimately death and how the energy within us changes us physically. Each minimal figure represents a time span and the colour symbolises that. The subject given for the competition was ‘Transmission’ and this large-scale now looks like a transmission wave, representing the mysterious transmission within us that we either acknowledge, abuse, neglect or take for granted. Still to be polished, transported and placed in situ, it has a journey to go but it has come along way from the start, as an idea in a sketch book long ago to a maquette on our kitchen table. Now evolved into a piece of public art.
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 love this tag line, used by a dear friend and fellow blogger who writes at ‘Life in Marrakesh’ and would highly recommend reading it. I have borrowed the ‘Laugh, cry or roll your eyes’ as it was so appropriate for many reasons. A few weeks ago, in the school playground when I was talking to a mum and friend as we were collecting children, I was speaking about how busy my husband was and I apparently did a meaningful, ‘roll of the eyes’. My friend said this definitely had to go in the blog. I thought it was a great idea but then kept forgetting to put it in. How ever, since then my ‘roll of the eyes’ has got ever so more heart felt and so it needed its own post.
Today the boys and I are at our business, ‘Arabesque’, whilst my husband is down in London again (roll of eyes). No, I don’t mean it in a begrudging way at all (honest). It has to be done and it’s an exciting trip as a piece has been pre selected for The Threadneedle prize, we just have to pray it gets selected to the next stage on Thursday. I also have no grumbles about being in the shop but with two young boys, one in the middle of potty training it is a bit testing. And tested I have been with three messy accidents and only two pairs of shorts. I really wasn’t planning for so many ‘caca’s’ this morning. So my only solution was to cut the netting out of the swim shorts which happened to be my spare pair of shorts, in order to use them again and to prevent a half-naked child( like those in the East end in the 1950’s) running around the shop. I just hope the delivery guys and customers in today don’t get a strong odour passing under their nose. Not a good business look. I have sprayed the air freshener continually but I think I can permanently smell it (Laugh or cry?)
After a testing couple of hours with the youngest I somehow managed to rock him to sleep and lie him on a table-cloth I had brought for picnic lunch, lunch for the boys I may add. I am doing this on a fasting day with 3 hours sleep. Not that I am complaining at all. Actually I think I have had many blessings in making it an easy day considering. We are also one week into the six-week summer holiday and we have managed a few small outings so far but with the sculptor working all hours it is hard to find a little time to sit and write.
Last week saw another trip to London to deliver pieces to an art consultant and at the end of the month another trip for the Cork Street summer exhibition. This is all at the same time as continually making pieces for the FIRST@108 exhibition in October. The work in progress are the images here;
‘The Question’‘The Ride’
I have come to the conclusion my husband is some sort of bionic man working all ours, though he does get exhausted and is finding getting the balance of work and life and faith a test, especially in this month. I am hopeful that this week and in the coming weeks we will start to see the hard work pay off a little. Can’t decide if I will laugh, cry or roll my eyes if it doesn’t!
THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE 
