Mini-sculptures on show, Halesworth Gallery

I’ve already written several times about collecting the material for my mini-sculptures, about making them, and about the attention they attracted at the PV for the ‘Viewing Change’ exhibition. When I went to spend a morning stewarding the exhibition on 2nd August, I was pleased to find that four had been ‘sold.’

Several points:

The material comes exclusively from the sea-shore since I am looking not just for rounded shapes and edges but also variety of material, surface, texture and colour.
My own self-imposed rule is that I am not allowed to change in any way the material I have collected when using it; so, if the art of sculpture is to alter physically the material to the artist’s will, then my efforts are not sculpture. I merely stick pieces together in conjunctions which occur to me as I look at a table top spread with stones and rubbish. In a few cases where the sea has already ‘modelled’ a stone or piece of wood, I just leave them alone, indicating in a caption what they have become in my imagination. Perhaps ‘model’ would be a better word than ‘mini-sculptures’ for these light-hearted creations – they are certainly not meant to be taken seriously. If they have a purpose – apart from being a displacement activity for me – then it is to amuse.
There is no price attached to the the nine pieces exhibited in Halesworth Gallery. A note merely suggests that anyone wanting one should make a donation in the range £5-25 to the Gallery. Since four pieces are now going to new owners, the Gallery has benefited by £60 already.

The nine pieces exhibited here are the first I have shown in public, not surprising since I have only come to make such ‘art’ in the last year. Here they are:

foreground: yacht (wood, tin foil)

left: inscribed stone (tile, ?lignite) see below

right: hand mirror (wooden handle, flint flake)

left background: light paperweight with handle (pumice stone, wood)

background: extinct camel bird (brick, wood, coconut ‘hairs’)