In 1958 to 1959 I travelled the world, writing and drawing.
On my
return I set about building a house on the cinders of a tumbledown, medieval
cottage that I had bought for around £400 in order to have roots in England .
When the
half of the house that I could afford to build was finished, it needed a
weathervane.
So I bought
a sheet of copper to form a double-sided, sculptural depiction of a P-R rose.
On installation, it was out of proportion to the house – too large. So it was
abandoned, found years later in a hedge, and now resides somewhere in the
country.
At that
time I was having difficulty in returning to painting after so long away
drawing. It occupied my mind.
As it was
so difficult once more to use paint and canvas, my plan was to make coloured
paper collages so that I could distil landscape into simple shapes.
There was
copper sheet left over from making the weathervane, so I cut it, painted it,
and pinned the painted metal to a wooden framework – a sort of
three-dimensional collage/sculpture. I think I did three of them. They were
quite small. One was lost, and two I somehow managed to retain intact over the
years.
One of the
three was of a cut-out woman cavorting over the painted copper White Horse
Downs, at Uffington, now Oxfordshire.
A large
German neighbour in London
also cavorted over an obstacle in that part of the world, fell, and broke her
leg. In sympathy, I gave her the copper and wood sculpture of the leaping
woman.
She lived
next door and, before leaving to go elsewhere, I noticed this sculpture lying
among builders’ rubble in her garden. How could it be recovered?
I asked her
if I might photograph it for my records. She gave it back to me.
The copper
part of the leaping woman was just as I had cut and painted it – green downs
and whitish figure. The white horse, painted on the green grass, had also stood
the test of time.
But now the
timber frame had been much eaten by woodworm, and had to be dealt with by the
application of killer liquid.
Then the
wooden dowel rods holding the sides together had to be replaced, and the
worm-eaten sides filled and generally made good.
Because the
killer fluid affected the paintwork, a new coat of green grass had to be
applied.
When
completed, the sculpture had the mellow feel of an antique.
It, and the
other one of the three pieces, resided on top of a wall of books in my house.
I must have
taken the sculptures down at some time to show them, for, one day, a collector
telephoned and offered to buy the leaping woman.
What was I
to charge?
My advisor
in artistic matters was on his way to Singapore by aeroplane. I
telephoned him on his mobile number. ”Call me back in ten minutes,” he said
over a crackling line. In ten minutes I might have been speaking with him as if
he were in the next street.
His advice
took into consideration auction estimates and commission costs.
I now had a
price to work with. The sum decided upon was accepted.
The
sculptural weathervane, like the leaping woman, had both been thrown away and
later found. The theme of each had been mobility. Now they were also quite well
travelled.
