I’m sure this will seen rather fantastical, but less than a mile from my house on the edge of the village, down a secluded country lane, hidden from view and with only a small wooden sign pointing to the entrance is a sculpture park and (architecturally globally acclaimed) gallery, the sole representative of the Barbara Hepworth estate. With coach trips of wealthy buyers from London and beyond, and a constant programme of the biggest names in the artworld (Anthony Caros’ Millbank Steps, rejected for it’s central London position by the Westminster Public Art Advisory Committee, was welcomed here with open arms, and now languishes in the cow field nearby). Famous names seek out this peaceful retreat and the local vicar was once called upon to conduct a private marriage ceremony for one such artist, whose name I promised not to mention but who left a distinct line in the landscape when he went.
All this is weird -huh! When perusing the area of the country for a spot to live my husband returned excitedly rattling on about this place which I took with a pinch of salt but there it is. Strangely straddling the line between being open to the public with a strong schools education programme, while doing it’s best not to be found by visitors, it is bizzare indeed. Of course for most of the time life is too busy to remember to drop in, and the quiet comings and goings of Anthony Gormley etc don’t actually collide with my life at all but now and then I do.
Today was such a day.
The sculpture park has a kind of love/ hate relationship with children. Now I can understand that, particularly after our first visit when my Mancunian friends descended, and, distracted by our excitment at meeting up again and having access to great art we set off without realising that all our crowd of boys had found my son’s armoury of plastic guns (given recklessly at Christmas by my nieces’ swiss actor husband, known for his roles in cop movies) and had decided to play cops and robbers around the million pound sculptures.
This was a mistake. I won’t go into details.
Anyway, I think five years later, relationships have been restored and as we whizzed past today with a half hour gap in our schedule, and with just one daughter (how much harm can one curly haired girl do) with me, Maeve and I dropped in to catch the latest exhibition. The main gallery had three glorious Gary Hume paintings, hung facing the huge glass windows and visible all over the park. On closer inspection the paint pooled in it’s coloured sections, glossy liquid lakes of perfectly still and shamelessly summery pink and yellow, lapping up to the edge of the ajdacent colour, creating a plasticy ridge that was, like the paintings as a whole, somehow deeply satisfying.
Anyhow, time was up and we took off again. Maeve remained mildly unimpressed but sparked up at the prospect of seeing the tree house on the way out.
