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Sculpture

The Genealogy of Sculpture

The carver swapped subtraction for addition

sculpting sensuous limbs of flesh and bone, yet now

she walks through an orchard of ghosts

 

Ripped from a daughter’s heart and stolen from her grasp

incinerated on the cusp of her wedding

their presence smoulder in their absence

Rachel Hindley

Art Writer Rachel Hindley interviewed me about the sculptures I made when a student at Reading University in the sixties.

I explained how I'd shifted from the slow process of direct carving, to constructing forms out of wood that I pinned together with wooden dowels, forming rough, dynamic shapes, that I could carve into. This resulted in some large pieces of work which, luckily, my boyfriend photographed. 

 

At the end of the academic year a fellow student with a large van offered to transport the sculptures back to my parents' house, for £5. It was a good deal, enabling me to get the sculptures installed in the garden in rural Wiltshire, in time for my wedding party in September. 

 

I spaced them out under the three apple trees, then hitch-hiked to Scotland to work as an assistant matron in a school for maladjusted children for the rest of the summer.

 

When I returned in September, all the sculptures had disappeared. I never once spoke about this to anyone, not until it came up in conversation with Rachel, fifty four years later, and in response she wrote the poem , The Genealogy of Her Sculpture. 

 

I never make any more sculpture. I turned to painting. And eventually writing. With the help of Miki Ashton of Hypatia Trust and Art Writer, Rachel Hindley, I've put together this website so that, if they wish to, my family or friends can refer to my portfolio at any old time. 

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