It all started here...

Well, here actually. Not in the V and A where these images were taken. But with this sculpture. More than half my life ago. I saw it in a magazine by the British Crafts Council when I was a teenager. And it stayed with me. Never left. This was the reason I started to work with glass. It's called 'Lollipop Isle' and was designed by Ovia Toikka in 1969. It was just sat there, in the glass galleries in the V and A, surrounded by thousands of other pieces of glasswork, waiting for me to see it. Then I saw it. I didn't do the jig. Or gasp. I just looked. And thought. For a very long time.

 

Hernia and the Ironwork Galleries (V & A part 1)

I don't know quite how it happened. I certainly didn't intend it to happen. I remember stumbling through the V & A desperately searching for a bench. Finding one. Flopping down. And briefly closing my eyes. At that point rising from said bench did not seem an imminent possibility. Or if I'm honest. Not even a distant possibility. It's all rather a haze really. Despite the hernia-inducing exhaustion (yes at that point I really did believe I had brought on a hernia. Ask my mum. It's true. I even texted her to share my panic. In my defence, she does constantly ask to be more involved in the minutae of my life) I was happy, having a really good time. Completely and utterly on my own. In London. Exhausted and in pain. But utterly content. My bench was in the Ironwork galleries (I'm not a geek. No really) and through my half closed eyes I was able to vary my squint and bring the intricate black structures in and out of focus against the stark white walls. I actually felt quite delirious at this point and had one of those rare, electifying jolts of inspiration that shoot through the body and stop. Still. Somewhere near the heart. The wrought iron structures were so completely and utterly beautiful (I will prove it. With pictures). Usually dismissed as just gates, or barriers of various types. They took on new identities against the walls. Artworks in their own rights. Pure craftmanship. Made parallels and links to my use of defining structure in my glasswork. I realised I had been drawing and taking photographs for an hour and a half.