May
The bluebells were magnificent. We raised £1,100.00 for the N.G.S.
Thank you to everyone who came - it was very heartwarming.
The Next Open Days are the first three weekends in September.
See my latest bronze foal, the delectable 'Sugar Babe'
in London at The Chelsea Flower Show
with Marshall Murray.
The last twelve months have been something of a roller coaster, it has also been one of the busiest times of my life; four of the largest life-size horses I have made started to reach completion at around the same time, it was very interesting to see how the problems encountered in one would be solved by working on another.
Sadly what you won't see on the sculpture trail or in the garden any longer are these two beauties. They are gone from here having finally set out on their separate journneys across the Atlantic. Work on them was delayed and made harder than usual by the prolonged bitter cold. For weeks on end we shivered in the teeth of the east wind which cruelly prevented us from getting the sculptures from the workshops to the garden. My dreams of photographing four life-size horses together here remained just dreams. Here is what I managed on the last morning as they waited for the lorry to come from the shippers.
They were not the only ones I was working on overwinter and you will not be disappointed, there are plenty of others to take your attention.
A caution: the copyright of any artwork belongs to the artist. People may take photos of my work for their own enjoyment but not for commercial gain. We have recently found people attempting to sell postcards and prints online in contravention of international copyright law. Thank you to my followers who alerted me and for their concern that my equine work was being copied.
Now to much more interesting things..............
Some time ago I was visited by the wonderful warm-hearted and enthusiastic Lise Cormier.
Lise is the Chief Executive of Montréal International Mosaïculture and she made me a very interesting proposal.......
She came with the Director of Montréal Botanical Garden, Gilles Vincent and Ginette Marotte, the Vice Mayor to commission a contemporary horse sculpture for Mosaïculture 2013. www.mosaiculture.ca
They chose to have an oak life-size mare and foal. I was very proud to receive from them the Freedom of the City and will be going out there in June to see the pair safely installed.
At the end of October my Dutch photojournalist friends Pieter Paul Koster and Inga Oostenrijk came for a few days break.
Surely they will photograph the thoroughbred horse under the oak tree in the sculpture
garden, it caused a sensation at Darley Stud's stallion parade last summer at Newmarket.
What horse?
The new bronze is being coloured, moments not to be missed.
And here she is finished. To see more go to the driftwood bronze page.
'Cherry Pie' a bronze edition of five, is proving popular. Two are now sold.
This the originalb driftwood 'Sugar Babe' meeting the bronze. Can you tell them apart? She is almost a mirror image of the original Sugar Plum which stole stole more hearts than any at The Darley stud's stallion parade last summer.
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Integrating a wider range of materials with driftwood and oak into the life-size work has resulted in some stunning new pieces. It has been a fascinating experience; there is more variety of texture and I have been able to escape the limitations imposed by a steel armature which has allowed a greater fluidity in the work. I seem not to be alone in finding them compelling. More and more pieces are pouring forth, we are rapidly running out of space in the workshop and it is becoming difficult to turn round in the yard.
We are bursting at the seams.
"I am starting to look for a larger property, somewhere with serious barns, birdsong, clear air and water where I can keep my horses close, have open country to ride through and make a new sculpture garden."
Part one of the move is into a workshop/gallery in the centre of Ashburton. Number Twelve, East Street.
NUMBER TWELVE is an amazing building, it is something of a TARDIS bang in the town centre, we are busy with renovations both inside and out and my feet have hardly touched the ground. It is intoxicating and tiring, I am grown a trifle mad. After the success of the latest fish pond project at my sculpture garden I found I could not live without fish in town, so last month we built a new pond in the yard. There are wood stores too so my driftwood stash is safe for the winter. The whole thing is evolving into another sculptural project.
For me one of the most thrilling things to have witnessed is my son Kieron spectacularly busting back to full-time creativity as a film-maker. I can't wait for him to bring his cameras here.
He has made a number of short films inspired by his love of kites and kite making but is now engaged in what sounds like a really exciting short film project, his first narrative film, a macabre fairytale set on Wimbledon Common, which was successfully funded by kickstarter.
Read about the project here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jansch/common-a-chilling-short-film-set-in-sw19-0
Jump on board and see where it takes you
For a bit of sheer delight and amazing jewellery visit gorgeous Kate Higham.
POST SCRIPT.
This is not the first time that Kieron has unwittingly propelled me back into creativity from the depths. His generous offer to write my newsletter when he heard how low I was feeling gave me the strength to agree to the interview with him. It unlocked something in me and I was able then to look again at my memoirs of life with Bert. So it is that the second offering from Olchard Press will be my memoirs of our life together and my personal tribute to him.
It will be published in 2013 under the title:
Living with the Legend - Bert Jansch.
A personal tribute by Heather Jansch.
Like my Diary it will be a visually rich hardback with many different textures.
This is not a dry litany of tour dates nor a sad sentimental recollection of times past, but a vital, funny, and essentially tongue in cheek glimpse into the domestic life of two creatives with very different approaches who were closely bound together for seven unforgettable years, remaining friends to the end of their days.
It is a love story: a story about two artists who recognised each other and were destined to forge their own unique paths to international acclaim.