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Serena de la Hey
The U.K’s largest known willow figure, positioned by the side of the M5 near Bridgewater, is firmly established as one of the best known landmarks in
the South West. Out of the flat landscape of the Somerset levels rises the figure of a running man, huge in proportion, poised like a dancer about to
perform a pirouette; sometimes silhouetted against the setting sun, sometimes ethereal, shrouded in mist.
Serena imagines a figure that suggests otherworldliness, a sense of the universal, a figure that can conjure a multitude of associations. She is one of
the leading artists in the region, best known for her animal and figure sculptures. Based in Somerset, she prefers traditional working processes and
materials naturally available in the area. She has produced sculpture for the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, the Glastonbury Music Festival, and a
series of running figures placed in the Nevada Desert.
We were naturally delighted that she took up Sally Nuttall’s offer to work with a group of Yr 5 pupils, dealing with a theme based on horses in art. The
pupils had been expertly prepared for her visit, having attempted to understand the structure and anatomy of horses through appraisal of old master
drawings, by making first-hand observations of wooden articulated models (kindly lent by ‘Harold Hockey’ ), and by viewing the real thing with the
impressive arrival in the playground of a mounted policewoman on a chestnut gelding. They had also, at this point, created ceramic models of horses based
on images of Chinese archaeological finds many thousands of years old.
Come the day of the workshop, Serena arrived with a large steel substructure and several bundles of green, pliable willow canes. She began the process
of giving the skeletal substructure volume, by instructing the pupils to create willow rings like hoola-hoops, stringing them together to create a ‘skin’
over which the withys were further woven. The horse quickly assumed its form, and began to grow subtly in character.
Two days of intense, focused practical work from all the groups concerned has at last resulted in the most marvellously dynamic sculpture possessing a
palpable energy, its turning head, erect ears and flowing tail suggesting the alertness of a highly strung thoroughbred. A good sculpture therefore to
place in the rose garden as the first in a series of noteworthy pieces designed to enhance the school surroundings.
2005
© 2006 Clifton College
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