Art

The first piece of art to arrive was a large black marble sculpture called “Family” by a young Zimbabwian artist called Sam Mabeu who I found at the House & Garden show at Olympia. It arrived with him, his agent and a large chunk of tree trunk to mount it on. It took all of us plus two of the Muddy Wellies team to get it up and in place. Since then the wooden stump has been destroyed (twice) by stag beetle larvae and threatened to fall through the fence into the neighbour’s garden so I have given up on the wood and the sculpture now sits on the ground amongst acers and agapanthus.

 The Family with its artist Sam Mabeu pictured 2^nd left and agent Vivienne.

The second piece of art was also from Zimbabwe, a green lady. It took me some time to find a suitable mount in a reclamation yard. She was originally put on it and placed by the silver birch at the end of the garden. She is now in the shade of the rowan tree in the pink bed.

The third piece I commissioned from an artist called Andrea Owen who I also met at a London home and garden fair. It is dandelions and insects etched into the back of a glass sheet, coloured and then protected by another glass sheet. It needs a dark background to be seen at its best so, at that point, I painted the back fence dark ivy green.

There is also a sculpture of a woman on a horse by Erica Renelt which I bought from the sculpture exhibition at the Wisley summer show in 2011. It is made of slate resin on a wire frame.

 My latest “art” is two new Vitra chairs for opposite the swing seat. I often sit there, to ponder the garden and enjoy the view, so any chairs opposite have to be “see-through” when I don’t have visitors. They also have to be comfortable of course. I have looked a long time for suitable chairs (four years) and in 2012 bought these two in a moment of extravagance, ironically following a meeting with my accountants who happen to have their office by a very expensive designer furniture shop in Euston. They are made of recycled materials, designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec with plants in mind and seem to me to be very like the intertwined leaves of the irises in the pond. They fulfil the brief and I am very pleased with them despite the outlay.

 There is also an iron heron, an iron kingfisher, a metal dragonfly and a bust of a coquettish but shy young woman by the pond.