96 SIDELINES OCTOBER 2012
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
e
European Connection
By Maria Wynne
Sidelines’ Writer from across the Pond
Heather Jansch is a UK artist based in Devon. From the
beginning, her twin passions were drawing and horses. She was
a pony mad country girl; but her hero was Leonardo da Vinci and
her dreams were of becoming an international artist who lived
among wooded foothills with clear fowing water at the door and
horses grazing all around.
Heather went to Walthamstow College to study visual art.
There, drawing was regarded as the frst essential. Heather
was enthralled and excelled then went on to the now famous
Goldsmiths College in London where the tutors did not share her
vision and after a year she left. With her confdence shattered
Heather sought the advice of Arthur Giadelli, who encouraged her
to continue painting.
He told Heather to go and look at a hedge and draw not what
she saw but draw what made a thorn a thorn and to never stop
working with horses but fnd a way to make them hers. Heather
says, “I am forever in his debt.”
Heather continued to experiment whilst painting commissioned
oils. Then out of the blue ‘it’ came in on the tide. Driftwood. It was
like a thunderbolt and fnally she was ready to show her work to
the world. It was driftwood horses. In 2000 Heather was invited to
take part in ‘The Shape of The Century’ - 100 years of sculpture
in Britain alongside such luminaries as Henry Moore, Barbara
Hepworth, Elizabeth Frink, Anish Kapoor, Anthony Gormley and
David Nash.
The rest is history and for a fuller account you will have to wait
for her autobiography. If you can’t wait for that try the frst book:
Heather Jansch
“Boys on the Beach” –
a driftwood sculpture
by Heather Jansch
Heather Jansch’s Diary: A Life in the Year of...an artist’s diary.
You can buy it online from her site: www.heatherjansch.com.
You describe your frst thunderbolt moment as occurring
when you were walking along the beach and saw some
driftwood. This gave you the inspiration to pursue your art in
this format. What is it about wood specifcally? Is it because
it was once a living breathing thing?
Wood, even when it is long dead, retains a sense of life, people
talk about the living breathing quality of ‘real wood.’ Driftwood has
something extra, it has come across the ocean, there is an added
life to it, a journey that we can only guess at, a mystery therefore.
I was working on a small horse using copper wire and it lacked
the power I was looking for. My son Kieron chopped up a piece of
ivy that had grown round a long since decomposed fence post, to
use as kindling to light our woodburner. This left behind a section
that to me resembled and reminded me of the torso of a horse
and it was the right size to ft into the sculpture. That was the
true ‘Eureka’ moment. My work had suddenly gained a force, an
authenticity that I had never seen before. Where could I get more?
Where had I seen shapes like this before? Those questions led
me to the beach and to driftwood.
Do you gather the wood randomly, or does a particular
piece of wood, it’s shape, its contours prompt an idea for a
sculpture?
I no longer gather wood myself, I have a small army of people
who help. Some are paid and some are volunteers who give time
because they are passionate about collecting it but have no idea
of how to use it and end up with bulging garages and threats from
Driftwood Sculptor Extraordinaire