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We acquired our chickens shortly after we arrived in Hillcrest in 2000. They were initially justified as they were to be a source of eggs. It fitted our notion of a relaxed and natural farm lifestyle that we hoped to live. Hillcrest was, at that time, a rustic place as we had horses and paddocks across the road and cane fields further along. We did, in those first few months, enjoy the fresh free range eggs, marvelling at the proud and bright orange yolks. However, in recent years our village, along with our rates, and our notion of free range has exploded and we are now part of the busy metropolis that is Durban. The lifestyle we had hoped for has, like the cane fields, gone up in smoke. The paddocks have been replaced by gated estates and the quiet life substituted with shopping malls and traffic. We still have our chickens, although we are a lot wiser about them.

Chickens (and roosters) were part of my imagery long before we got them, because as a subject the chicken has a lot to offer. The images made can assume a wide variety of interpretations and anything from arrogance to timidity is possible. Often there is some measure of stupidity intended, which makes it a fitting metaphor for human beings. It is a colourful subject, has interesting lines and its compact form lends itself to a visually exciting image. As a free range and cocky student I made a linocut print titled “Cocks”. The subject has been repeated many times, but in different forms and imbued with different meanings. Recently, I have made the “Bohemian Bird” which, like all of my previous chicken sculptures, is slightly different in form and content.

The form and content of this work is linked to another new work, “Sensual Soul”, done at about the same time. It is about the poignancy of life: Sensual and beautiful but decaying; powerful but helpless; contented but sad – which all says something about the wonder and futility of life. Perhaps this work has to do with some introspection and looking back on the part of this happy artist whose hair is falling out and whose teeth are missing. One who has begun to think about the pathos of life.

The chickens are no longer a food source for us. They have become our pets and perhaps a mirror of our slightly dysfunctional world. They, like us, have traffic jams and like our ex Chief of Police have some undesirable associates. Recently, I removed a 1.3 m Mozambican Spitting Cobra from the chicken run who lived up to its name and spat at me and in the eye of my dog. Poison was our first option too when dealing with mites on the chickens. A natural alternative was not even contemplated. The traffic jams occur ever day at rush hour which is when I feed them. Each day our flock rushes ahead into the cage and when, on seeing that I am not there yet, they rush out again and into those still heading into the cage. This causes a snarl-up and exacts a lot of foul language as they get under my feet.

Our Arcadian dream is a distant memory. It was worn away by the building boom, undermined by the snakes and the mites, but the most serious damage was done by the chickens. They imploded our pastoral aspirations when my wife saw them dining on dog poop. No matter how natural you might consider this, it is not for us and we have stuck to Pick n Pay’s whole grain eggs ever since.

The DVD is, for our house, a relatively new technology and a great relief for me, as my wife and I have spent most of our married life watching videos in fast forward. My wife, being master of the house, was in charge of the remote and therefore the video machine. She would tape programmes which were intended to be watched later. However, hour upon hour and night after night, we would scroll through videos in fast forward trying to find the wretched programmes. My wife’s insistence that the programme existed and her determination to find it were exhaustive. It was a scene that belongs to Monty Python and absurdist theatre.

Now that we have a DVD player, my world has changed and I have recently watched How Art made the World. It is a BBC production that looks at the “big picture” of art’s role in society. It was one which I enjoyed and recommend (not least because I actually got to see it). It is rare that art is seen as important, a maker of our world, and not just as a bit of ornamentation. In addition the presenter, Dr Michael Spivey, in one of the post scripts bravely states that art is “representation” and “a common human activity”. This reinforces my own ideas about art.

I think that the artist should “paint” his or her experiences, the world around them. That way the art works will be of that person, of that time, of that society and of that place, and therefore be a representation. My recent works, “False Fish” (made from blue gum bark and currently at home) and “Diver” (made from wild olive wood and now at the Strydom Gallery in George), are examples of my “painting” my world.

They have something of the impending Christmas holiday about them, but fishing and diving are more than just a holiday sport or a seaside meal. They are things I have done since childhood, part of my life, and they have, in the past, been a refuge in emotionally turbulent times. These kinds of images I associate with freedom and happiness. I have enjoyed making them as I have played with the forms. Some abstraction and distortion have made them expressive and perhaps they begin to show what I feel and the kind of person I really am.

The reason (in part) why I write these letters, which I hope gives some insight into my slightly absurd life, is to point out the grounds for why I make what I do. However, you do not have to live a ludicrous life to be an artist. I believe, like Dr Spivey, that all people have a creative ability. I have met and admired some highly creative accountants and lawyers – perhaps you could describe them as artists in their own fields. And of course this list of creative people must include my wife.

We never found those missing programmes and only after several years of watching the same old programmes in fast forward was it decided that the video machine was broken. I like to think of this as my wife’s artistic endeavour and it is representative of some peoples’ lives. If it was frustrating, it was also entertaining. So much so that it had me laughing until the tears rolled down my cheeks.

PS. Greg and Kate of Stepping Stones have opened a new gallery in Cape Town and have some of my work on display. It is at No 9 Jarvis Street, which is directly behind the new Cape Quarter Centre (tel: 083 781 8170). If you are in the area pop in and take a look.

I am currently reading about Ned Kelly. He is an Australian folk hero, and the equivalent of the Englishman Robin Hood or the American Jesse James. Most societies have this kind of peoples’ hero. Since there are aspects to the story that remind me of South Africa, like the unrelenting poverty and the corrupt police, it has made me wonder who our folk hero is.

The reason I initially took an interest in Ned Kelly is because I enjoy the paintings of Sidney Nolan. He seems to have had great fun painting a diverse range of subjects that at first appear unreal. However, the work is usually rooted in real people, places and events. He has also managed to explore and express that which is beyond the tangible in his paintings. Kelly and his gang is often the subject of his work, but he was especially interested in Ned’s helmeted head as it delivers content on many levels.

Like many artists I feel compelled to make a “head” every now and again. I have heard some say that a head is a head is a head, and if they mean it is boring or has no content, I disagree. For me it is a vehicle to express oneself and if it is a known and limited form, it is also unlimited in the possible variations of that form. Familiar and yet open to interpretation and invention.

My new images, “Exhale” and “Wild Man of the Woods” (now at the Gallery on the Square) are different from one another and for now they have fulfilled that compulsion.

Perhaps it is the wrong time for me to be reading Kelly’s story, as the person who stole my car is making it difficult for me to recognise Ned’s good points and any reason for him to be a champion of the people. At present, my heroes are likely to be bounty hunters and those who impose Shariah law. I am lacking in sympathy and am tired of the redistribution of my pittance. I find myself wanting the same swift “justice” meted out to Ned Kelly for my thief. His head in a noose!

Forgive me for my bloody thoughts, but this is the 6th car that I have had stolen.

If you thought that the economic recession is a time for an artist to be subjugated and cowed into silence, you would be wrong. I am thriving. In fact I, as always, have too much on my plate and am far too busy. I would like to blame my marriage for my situation – it’s always been a convenient excuse – but that would be a lie. Apart from my addiction to work, which remains a bone of contention, my relationship has been good and getting better for many years. The truth is that I am a workaholic.

Recently there have been more excuses than usual to be working, as I have hosted a Nancy Crow tour, undertaken to re-jig my website and found my favourite charity, the African Art Centre, in need of some extra help.

Nancy Crow is America’s best known quilt artist and runs tours to various parts of the world, including South Africa. The tour’s emphasis is on art and artists and I was privileged to be one of those visited. Working hard and working weekends, I made a lot of new pieces. I also recalled some works from various galleries and, together with our collection, mounted an exhibition at home. However, our distinguished guests made me feel that my works were not enough. In order to give the exhibition variety, my wife displayed her collections (ceramics, tea cosies and embroidery) and we showed some of our children’s artworks.

Helped by our friends, Mike and Margaret and Kathryn, the day was a success. Although the real pleasure for me was to see my family function as a team. My wife took charge of the sales and had arranged a fantastic tea, my daughter successfully sold my books and my six-year-old son acted as a tour guide. He made sure that the visitors he collared had seen all there was to see and had heard the story behind each work. Too boot, my orchids were blooming and it left me with little to do but pose for photographs and admire the people I love.

In his recent book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell (who also wrote The Tipping Point) points out that successful people put in the work hours and have had support from the kinds of people that can make the difference. In my experience these have always been family and friends.

My previous website was initiated, designed and run by my friend Kai, but I could not persist with that favour for ever. It was time to thank him and change friends. (I know that sounds fickle!) Since I am singularly ignorant about anything to do with the web, I needed someone else to help me. Fortunately, I have another friend in the IT business. The new website has been redesigned by my friend Garth and his compatriots at Umlungu to bring you a fuller, bigger picture. As a technophobe I can only admire, be grateful and curry favour.

It is not surprising then that I feel the need to give back a little. Of course there is a catch, as the give-back is not to the people who helped me, but perhaps things that go around, come around. I serve at the African Art Centre. It is a non-profit, public benefit, developmental organisation that was started 50 years ago. It teaches individuals art and crafts and provides an outlet – and in so doing, helps around 2000 people earn a living. I’m not sure why I am on the board, let alone elected Vice Chair, as I have neither legal, financial nor managerial skills. However, it serves my needs, as I feel as if I am doing something useful and giving something back to the community.

I keep hoping that the busyness will come to an end and that I will have nothing to do with my time, except to go fishing. In that respect, the future looks bleak. I have already lined up a trip to Johannesburg and a part in the “Book launch and Authors day” at the Hillcrest Aids Centre. If the first wave of Americans was not pressure enough, in a few weeks’ time I have a second tour visiting my house. This time it will be the Pasadena Art Alliance.

The busyness is making me dizzy and things are not as they should be. The tea cosies were a hit and my children’s works seemed to me to be more interesting. Perhaps the rush is an illusion, one caused by age and decrepitude, but it does seem to me that as the years go by I get busier and have to work harder.

I’m sure I would feel better if I could just blame my wife.

A friend gave me a book voucher for my birthday and although I was excited by it, it turned out to be the kind of gift that caused pain and should be avoided. The voucher was generous but the art books I bought were large, nearly 500 pages each, and expensive. To boot, I was unable to choose between two books and in the end justified the purchase of both with the argument that it would ensure that I would be up to date with current trends. The price I paid was hurtful not only because the books cost three times the value of the voucher but also because my self esteem took a beating as these books made me feel like a has-been.

I have yet to finish reading the second book but I think I have the gist of them now. There are several common genres but not much overlap in the works of art chosen for inclusion. It is significant that both authors selected works by Wim Delvoye. (‘Cloaca’ and ‘Cloaca Turbo” and you can see a similar variation of the work on the web here (that means click there!). They are representative and symbolic of the works contained in these two volumes as Delvoye has made a sculpture in which you deposit a meal at one end, the machine replicates the digestive system and voila! You get a stinking pile of crap at the other end.

I have reread the authors’ arguments several times and like so much of academia it is seamless. The authors show the historical lineage which runs from Marcel Duchamp’s urinal to Mary Kelly’s soiled nappies to Piero Manzoni’s canned artist shit to this work. Pooh, it seems, is a regular medium that is used to debunk mastery and medium. In addition, the writers point out the benefits of this pooh art to society, “It makes you aware of your bodily functions”, which, of course, is true. I think it shows that you can justify just about anything.

However, this work, like all works has mastery, medium and content. One has only to look at the machine to realize that it is sophisticated, though I suspect that Delvoye’s real skill was to find the funding and person who could make it. His medium is not new nor is it without an aesthetic even if that is one of shock and horror. This is a conceptual work, a genre which places the emphasis on the idea but I have still to discover its’ intellectual merit. In the end Delvoye’s work is no different from any other artist’s work but I have no interest in this subject, nor am I fascinated by the medium and it is not the kind of art I would like in my dining room.

It did make me think that I should place a pile of choice prunes on a plate as an artwork at my next showing. I feel certain it could be next big thing in the scatological genre. It would have the same historical linage and seamless academic argument but this time there would be the added dimension of audience participation. The thought was fleeting, desperate and occurred moments before I sunk into a depression and began to think that I am not an artist.

I have, however, recovered, and have subsequently found some benefit to my expensive and demoralising present as it has helped me define my parameters.

My historical perspective is that I align myself with pre-Duchampian movements and that ‘Cloaca Turbo’ and its’ kind is an art I reject and react against. Reacting against a work or a movement has as much precedence and merit as a developing one and this negation or affirmation is the swing of the pendulum and the way in which art moves forward. The art illustrated in the two publications I bought is, I hope, the height or outer limit of conceptual art and it has made me think about and value the merits of the much maligned “precious object” that is visually exciting. It makes me appreciate the merits of well composed works, craftsmanship and enduring and exciting mediums. It makes me believe in a creative process that is hands on as opposed to one that is predetermined by concept or directed from a distance.

For a while I had been intimidated by the authority of the written word, the size of the books and the academic’s ability to rationalise. Coincidentally, through a chance meeting with the salesman for one of the books, the artworks have been put into perspective. I learned that there was only one of these books for sale in Kwa-Zulu Natal and that I had bought it. Suddenly, the king had no clothes on as it seems this kind of art has a very small following. If my friend’s gift caused some pain and bruised my self respect I still have to thank him for I have been forced to think and define myself and in a roundabout way they have shored up my self esteem.

Men from KwaZulu-Natal are sometimes referred to as a Banana Boys. The flora that is most often seen and commonly mistaken for bananas is in fact the Strelitzia Nicolai plant. However the name, Strelitzia Boy, would not have the impact that Banana Boy has, as it does not have the connection with our local rugby team nor does it suggest virility in the way a banana does.

Name changes are big part of our national debate. The change by our local rugby team from Banana Boys to Sharks has been one that moves from that of virility and potency to one that suggests predatory aggression and perhaps that is what was required. Some of our national teams changed their name and emblem from Springboks to Proteas. That seems to me to have taken the balls out of the buck and replaced the spring with a pirouette. This, I imagine, is good for the women’s teams even if the protea along with the strelitzia are the dykes of the flower world. Perhaps it is all part of a gender equality programme but it is not exactly the kind of name that will drive fear into the heart of an opponent on a rugby field unless you are allergic to pollen or fear being hit with a posy.

Names in art are important as the title of a work is a key to unlocking the meaning or meanings contained therein. It can provide a perspective and directs one’s understanding of the work. It is a point of departure from which the work of art will either build on or deconstruct its significance. It is also one of my weaknesses. Perhaps I am too close to and caught up with the making of the sculpture as all too often I neglect spending enough time thinking about and titling my work appropriately. In haste I sometimes give a working title that is poorly thought out and then occasionally, to my dismay, the title sticks.

The title ‘Banana Boy’ has been more carefully thought out. Perhaps this is because I have been working on it since we returned from our holiday in Australia a year ago and so I have had the time to think about it. The name is appropriate in part because the work is made from Strelitzia leaves, but also because I have become a Banana Boy. The title suggests that the subject is about a person living in KwaZulu-Natal and hints at the virility of this person. However the tripped/balanced composition of the figure and the boat itself suggest that there are some anxieties about living in and or leaving this place. It also puts the virility of the man in doubt.

Fortunately for sculptures that have been poorly titled their names sometimes have a life of their own. Buyers of work sometimes impose their own names, whilst galleries have changed titles as they think it will improve sales and even artists rename their works. An example of an artwork that has had its title changed is the ‘Night Watch’ by Rembrandt. It was first called ‘The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch’ and no matter how instructive and informative the original title was, it is a bit of a mouthful.

I have not always been a Banana Boy as I have lived in many places. Before I moved to Durban, I was a Boet, or should that be a Swaer, from the Eastern Cape. Since I was born in England I may at one time be considered a Soutie, Limey or Pommy but I realised that was false when I sat next to a black man on the Tube in London who spoke with a Cockney accent. It was then that I understood that he was English and despite my pale complexion I was African.

I think that along the way I have learnt something about the fluctuating nature of identity especially as prior to an adoption by my third father, Mr Roberts, I was a Rautenbach. By the same token I am aware “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Whilst there is an inherent quality to the “rose” it is often the title that can make us think about associations and inferences that make for a richer comprehension.

I like being a Banana Boy. It lacks the rustic Arcadianness of the swaer from the Eastern Cape and the gender neutrality of a strelitzia but for a man of my age it has, what is needed, the insinuation of virility.

I have never understood why some people have no regrets as I have lived a life full of regrets. That is not to say I am unhappy or dissatisfied with my current lot, but we all make mistakes. In fact, I like to think that is how I have learned a few things that have enabled me to find happiness.

In my last letter I referred to Toledo Worm when in fact it should have been Toredo Worm. I apologise for my mistake and if you want more and accurate information click on the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipworm.

I was reminded of some of my past mistakes by an email received from Moiré, a girlfriend from my university days. The email was titled “Blast from the Past” and indeed it was. It elicited a multitude of emotions and a bagful of sorrows that had been buried by time.

The memories resulted in a sculpture, ‘Travels to the Interior’, as I was taken back both in time and into myself. The sculpture consists of a boat containing figures and animals made from various wood collected from the beach. Boats are an image I like to use as they were part of my youth and express many things that I feel about life. In my experience, life, like a boat, has an uncertain path and is vulnerable to the many storms that might sink it or set it on a new course. Also life for me, like ships that pass in the night, is a brief, intense and fragile few moments in time.

The name and the shape of this boat remind me of the early explorers. The title is from early Afrikaner literature and the boat reminds me of the ships in which Van Riebeeck sailed to the Cape. The vessel is a natural form that suggests both the boat and the waves upon which it rides. Here and there the waves boil out of the form and express something of the emotional maelstrom that I felt.

Aboard the boat are figures and animals each representing either persons involved or symbolising the surrounding events. The owl is a symbol of death and or wisdom and it lords over all. The dog is symbolic of domesticity and or infidelity and the swan represents sex and sensuality.

What happened? That is, of course, none of your beeswax and any case I can only tell a part of it and my version of that story. Suffice to say that mistakes were made and I feel remorse for mine. To subvert that other cliché associated with regrets: Had I my time all over again, I would do it all differently. Hopefully, I would do it better.

Milton, who penned his Areopagitica in defence of the freedom of the press in 1644, wrote “That which purifies us is trial and trial is by what is contrary”. I am not saying that I am now pure although I may be a little less black hearted than I was. Milton’s point is that in order to understand good you need to know about evil. (He does not say you have to do evil.) What I am saying is I have learnt a little from my mistakes and being wiser I am a happier man.

May 2009

A drought makes my wife happy as it gives her a reason to stick a brick in the cistern, to insist that we only flush the toilet when absolutely necessary and to recycle the bath water. She will snap at anyone who lets a tap drip and beware of her sharp tongue if you do not put the plug in the sink. All her efforts to save water are noble and good in a country that has a shortage of water but in Durban it has rained non stop for 3 months.

Rain drumming down on my roof puts a toothy grin on my face. It is not because I like to spite my wife or because my wife and I spent a long time in that dry part of the world, Grahamstown, but because I am hoping for a deluge. If that sounds as odd as my wife saving water when it is raining there is a reason. The power of a flood is exciting and productive. It jerks me out my humdrum existence, reminds me of just how small and powerless I am and the river brings me wood in abundance.

My new works are all made of wood that have washed onto the beach with the recent summer rains.

‘From the Navel to the Nest’ (now at The Art Room) is made from a piece of wood that I found at Port Shepstone. It has been eaten by shipworm, also known as Toledo worm or gribble. The holes create a random organic texture that is different and complimentary to the natural dark stained cracks and adds to the variety of marks on the surfaces. The darkness, mattness and shapes of the cracks and holes contrast with the polished surface and rich colour of the wood. Its form is loosely based on a bird and one of Henry Moore’s sculptures. (‘Animal Head’, 1951.) Like Moore’s work the emphasis is on the internal dynamics of the sculpture or as he said “Form for its own sake and a truth to materials”.

‘Wolf’ (sold) is a piece of Wild Plum. Where the wood is revealed it is satin smooth and a beautiful rich red colour that contrasts with the dark corroded exterior. As is so often the case, the wood that survives these rivers is special. This piece is a part in a tree that moved while it was growing and as result the grain has been compressed into ‘ripples’. When the compression marks are polished they appear as darker and lighter bands of colour. The work is an interesting combination of contrasts and complimentary elements of colour, texture, line and form which make the work visually exciting.

The distinctiveness of the wood reminds me of a story I was told by an engineer whom I met when I lectured at University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. He had worked on one of the bridges over the Umgeni River. Part of the process of the construction required core samples from the riverbed to be sent to Japan for testing and dating. Out of one of the cores came a piece of wood which the engineer washed and placed in his office. He told me that the next morning he could smell that the wood was tamboti and when the core was tested it was dated at ten thousand years old.

I have made a number of works with wood that has spent a long time in the mud, akin to what the engineer found and similar to bogwood. They are dark, sometimes throughout and sometimes revealing their original colour when deeply cut, and sometimes the wood is carbonised and charcoal like.

Three small works ‘Sleeping Bird’, ‘Feeling of Floating’ and ‘Cloaked Angel’ are from the “bog” and illustrate these attributes. These works are sketches as they are quickly done to pursue an idea, explore the material or to exploit the natural forms. They, to use Moore’s maxim, are “guided by the spirit of the material”. I consider these pieces of wood, like the bones I use, to be uniquely African materials but there are links with the Europeans. Bog wood and bones have been used for sculpture since man lived in the caves and more recently Henry Moore used bones as a starting point for many of his works.

I used to get a few of these pieces of wood by wading thigh deep into the water on the mud flats and feeling for them with my toes. The same floods that bring me my wood have brought less desirable things like polystyrene, plastic bottles, carcasses of animals, e-coli and flesh eating bacteria. However, of all those undesirable things the most feared has, like me, a toothy grin and like the snapper at home loves water and even though I have not seen it, I will respect it. The sign on the bank of my favourite river says: “Beware of the Crocodile” and now in order to get my bits of wood I, like my wife, look forward to a drought.

I miss pie, gravy and chips. It is now a distant and delicious memory from my childhood. I know that change is not only necessary but also desirable and so things move on. Perhaps this is easier to see in art and fashion than in politics but all need to be reinvigorated from time to time by new people and new ideas. The new regime, (as SA government is so often called) when it is elected in April, will hopefully be able to fulfil their election promises and artfully redirect South Africa to more noble and fertile grounds and bring a better life to all. Perhaps that way I will get some of the gravy.

My new work ‘Stand Up’ in cast bronze (Now at Strydom Gallery, George) is a socio-political work and as such is a fairly rare thing for me. I am not inclined to works of art that make such obvious statements, perhaps because I have very limited understanding of politics and even less understanding of politicians. However, every now and again I get swept up with the excitement and the possibility of political and social change and consequently make a work that is related. This work is inspired by the new optimism in America, the recent political events and the possibility of change in the looming election at home.

‘Stand Up’ owes something to the painting ‘Liberty Leading the People’ by Eugène Delacroix and contemplates an earlier revolution, a moment of hope and action in history, which was the civil uprising by the French in July 1830. The work of Eugène Delacroix inspired many subsequent works of art such as the ‘Statue of Liberty’ by the architect Frederic Bartholdi, (‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ – its official name). Sentiments surrounding these works may be romantic but they are also noble, patriotic and a call to action. If you, like I, have a suffrage and have somehow missed the gravy, stand up and vote!

Change has also come to my sense of haute couture. I have not been on the cutting edge of fashion for nearly 20 years. However, in 1992 fashion embraced me. Washed out and torn jeans and baggy jerseys became stylish and popular. I was, for once, ahead of my time as that was my mode. This style, known as Grunge, suited my student pocket more than my aesthetic values. Professor Robert Brooks, my mentor, friend and fellow grunger encapsulated much of our fashion sensibilities when he commented on an art work put up for a critique at Rhodes University by saying that it, a shoe sole print on white paper, was “the presence of an absence of a presence”.

This comment may have had educational value in that it got the students thinking, but like so many statements made by the politicians, it also demonstrated to us that you can justify just about anything, including bad art. Generally, I am in the camp of voters who think that people who want to become politicians should be banned from public office as that is evidence enough that they are unfit to hold office. I am not thinking about the politicians’ justifications and I am not expecting them to fulfil their promises. I merely hope that a stronger opposition will be a motivating force for the general good.

Although I will be not be at the opening I will have a presence at the Strydom Gallery in George from 5-30 April in the Nothing New Exhibition which is designed to run in tandem with the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (Klein Karoo National Arts Festival).

The title of the exhibition makes me think that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps for politics this is the case, but not so for my style as fashion has once again adopted me. On the weekends, at least, you will see me wearing my favourite brand of designer clothing. This has little to do with my wife’s ambition to change me. She was trained as a clothing designer and does have a sense of fashion and may have seen her role in our marriage as a style redeemer and me as a suitable candidate for her Pol Pot type of fashion re-education programme.

That re-education plan failed as I get my clothes from my cupboard and get dressed in the dark. The fashion for the day depends on which T-shirt is on the top of the pile. It tends to be the day before yesterday’s one as that was washed and put back on top of the pile. Occasionally someone else’s clothes have turned up in my pile and I have worn my daughter’s T-shirt and my wife’s panties. I would not have noticed except that they were both most uncomfortable.

Change has been foisted upon me by a combination of my wife throwing away the likes of my prized twenty year old Hendrix T-shirt and generous donations from my mate who works for the trendy clothing line, Volcom. The new clothing regime is a victory for my wife and she reminds me of how happy my grandmother was when she persuaded me to wear a safari suit. She told me that I looked very smart which like the politicians promise was a lie as I looked ridiculous. Part of that shopping excursion was a treat at the café where I chose pie, gravy and chips. Like that distant and delicious memory the new apparel gets my vote as it is a change I like.

My wife, like my dogs, is a loyal, faithful and dear companion but unlike my dogs she does not have the capacity for a cuddle, the ability to forgive when I neglect her and does not respond to any of my commands.

Bingo, our small SPCA special, almost terrier type of dog, is slavishly devoted and lavishly affectionate and generally obeys my commands. She is happiest when close to me. She hops on to the chair wherever I sit and tucks in behind or next to me. Even when I go to the toilet she follows and waits patiently outside the door. She is jealous of my children, their pet rats or anyone to whom I might show some attention. She is only too willing to shower me with kisses at every opportunity and whilst I enjoy most of this attention, I do try and dodge the septic breath kisses.

Bingo was named before he was found at SPCA and then he turned out to be a she. This was the start of a process that was corruptive and one which was egged on by Bingo’s own lack of personal hygiene and her penchant for chicken poop. Her name was eroded from Bingo to Bingarella and then corroded to the Really Smelly Relly and now she is known as the Smellish Relish. Notwithstanding all the issues of name, sexual identity and personal hygiene, the Smellish Relish, like my wife, has a heart of gold.

Perhaps I should not compare my wife to our little bitch but she started this by the remark that the dog was a wife substitute. I prefer to think of my wife as a porcupine. She appears sweet and docile but a good distance is required so that one is not speared by her barbs. Her breath, however, is a lot sweeter than Bingo’s but I rarely get a kiss from her. When I do, for my own safety, I kiss with one eye open, lips pursed and puckered to ensure as much distance as is possible and a course of retreat carefully preplanned.

The conversation we had has resulted in a new sculpture, the ‘Wife Substitute’, which celebrates my relationship with the dog and is symbolic of our marriage. Historically, a dog in art is often used as images of domesticity and sometimes used to convey attributes of men or women. I began to make dog sculptures shortly after I met my wife and the progression is revealing. Perhaps most telling was a work I made at the time of our marriage which was titled ‘Marriage: Is This An Old Duck Or A Chick On My Back’ and which conveys a certain ambivalence.

The ‘Sub Prime Shark’ is also a new and an unusual work. In some way this is a fun work made from a piece of wood that I found whilst on holiday at Shelly Beach. Its exaggerated features bring about a cartoon like quality that is playful. It recalls the shark I caught fishing and has the fluid movement of the fish. However at the same time it is a political and social work as it reflects the predatory, voracious and anxious aspects of the financial and social crises that are affecting our world.

I would be less concerned with the world affairs if I could find that sensual, sweet breathed and safe kiss. Then again, so would most of the politicians and at least I am not that ugly and I don’t have to lie for a living. Perhaps before I turn to alcohol and the kiss of the Tsar’s hop to drown my sorrows I must count my blessing. After all, I have a wife and two dogs that are loyal, faithful and dear to me.