Friday, January 12, 2007

Driftwood Horses

The trail takes a turn to visit a place where weathered art melds with raw anatomy. The artist, Heather Jansch, fashions her magnificent life-size horses using driftwood pieces she collects from along the beaches in the beautiful Westcountry of England. Her creations are beautiful and eerie at the same time.

When asked where she got the idea to work with driftwood, she replies:

Entirely by chance and from seeking to find a unique form of creative expression that felt like my own. I was tired of following in other people's footsteps. I had been working with copper wire and the sculptures were like Da Vinci's line drawings but lacked the power I wanted. One day while I was out, my son couldn't find any kindling wood to light the wood-burner and had chopped up a piece of ivy that had grown round a fencing stake. He'd left behind a short section that I immediately saw as a horse's torso of the right size to fit straight into the coper wire piece I was working on. The next question was where could I find more or similar shapes, and the answer was of course driftwood.

Heather also works in bronze.

2 comments:

Phil Gerbyshak said...

Welcome to the trail Karen. While I love Steve's voice, it's cool to get another perspective. I look forward to learning from you about all the fun that is in the blogosphere.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the welcome! Glad to help trek the Long Tail. Lots to look forward to exploring.