What does one do with a piece of art that you have finished, but don’t really like and you certainly don’t want to have shown?Jane Alexander once told me that in the very early stages of her career, the Butcher Boys period of the 80s, she was so concerned that a reject sculpture might be found frightening by rubbish collectors if dumped in the bin that she cut the sculpture up and took the pieces to the municipal dump herself.
I once took some poorly printed etchings to the local charity shop in Observatory, thinking at least they could be sold anonymously and raise a few bucks for a good cause, only to have Peet Pienaar gleefully announce a few weeks later that he had found a cache of my work and bought it in. One print must have been signed after all. My heart sank as I imagined the titters as Peet showed them around.
This week, like a unwanted body resurfacing, a steel book piece I made 20 years ago and never liked and finally threw into the recycling bin several months ago was carried back into my studio by our cleaner. Even the recyclers didn’t want it, it seemed. But strangely, when I opened up the plastic wrapping for the first time in ten years and had another look, time had softened by poor opinion of the work, and I think with a few changes ….
And on the social side, the Stevenson Gallery hosted a highly convivial dinner at Anatoli for visiting artists Frohawk Two Feathers and Angela Ferreira, following the opening of their excellent show at the gallery.
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