QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Increasingly often I am approached by students requesting information to help with their personal artist study projects; if I were to answer everyone there would be little time to sculpt so I have compiled a list of the most common questions.  Some of them could easily have been answered by the students themselves with a little thought while others are quite interesting.  If you do happen to have a question not covered below you can contact me by email.

Good luck

Heather Jansch

Q   How long do they take?

A    This is a bit like "how long is a piece of string?" I always have several different sculptures in progress at the same time.  It provides variety and if I can’t find the right bit of wood or lose inspiration I can move onto another sculpture, very often the change is as good as a rest, just changing the focus of my attention can allow me to see where I was stuck. Because of this it is hard to say how long they take, sometimes a piece will stay half worked for days, weeks or even months, on other occasions they simply seem to fly together as if by magic.

Q    Where do you find your driftwood?

A    On beaches after high tides and storms.

Q    How far do you have to travel to find enough driftwood?

A much better question!  It is becoming increasingly difficult to find enough, I need an enormous quantity to select from especially for the life-size pieces and could not possibly carry it myself so my assistant goes with a four-wheel drive pickup.

Q   Where did you get the idea to work with driftwood?

A    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 peoples 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 I while I was out my son could not 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 had left behind a short section that I immediately saw as a horses torso of the right size to fit straight into the copper 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. 

Q    How do you fix the bits of wood together?

A   By whatever method works.  I love solving problems and experimenting.  Each sculpture is different.  One needs to give a lot of thought to it and have an understanding of the stresses and strains created by different poses and some idea of the weights involved. The structure must not only be self supporting, it must also be stable enough to cope with high winds without falling over.  Further, it must be strong enough to withstand being lifted by a crane to be positioned for exhibition.  The larger sculptures require a steel frame.  This is first painted with a rust inhibitor and then coated with fibreglass to give a roughened surface which both makes it easier to hide and stops the wood from slipping on bare metal. The wood is held in position for me to see and then tied with wire until I am sure it is right.  Finally it is screwed together and the screw heads covered with filler and stain. Inevitably we miss one or two as people take great delight in proving.

Q   What are the hooves made from?

A    Copper, more specifically old immersion tanks.

Q   What are the legs made from?

A    Fibreglass resin steel and wood.

Q   Can they go outside and how long do they last?

A   Yes.  Surprisingly this question is often asked when some one is standing in front of a life-size sculpture in a park or sculpture garden. The larger sculptures are intended for external sites and are made from hard woods like oak and elm; they are then treated with preservative.  I recommend that they be sprayed each spring as one would a garden fence. I cannot say exactly how long they will last but they should certainly outlast me. All fixings are stainless steel.  For those who are seriously concerned about long term investment I suggest they think about bronzes.  Driftwood translates well into bronze, it loses nothing of the texture but ‘Driftwood bronzes’ are of course considerably more expensive.

Q   How can you make bronzes from driftwood?

A   Go to the page on bronzes for a description of the process.

Q    Do you ever make anything you don’t want to sell?

A   Yes, it is often hard to part with some pieces and there are a few that I will never sell, mostly they are the works where I overcame a barrier to understanding, others I may keep for years and then one day  find that I can let them go.

Q   Why horses?

A   They were one of my first loves and still are something about them moves me deeply.  Who can say why people fall in love? Reading Black Beauty set the seal and I never stopped pestering my parents for a pony of my own until eventually they gave way and bought me a black Welsh x Arabian filly.  After art school I moved to West Wales and bred welsh cobs, I still keep horses, currently I have a black Arabian mare and a very fat old pony companion for her.

Q   Do you make any else apart from horses?

A   Yes, all sorts both figurative and abstract but I tend to show other work separately from the horses. 

Q   What made you decide to be an artist?

A    I can’t remember making the decision; I was born into a family that encouraged creativity.  As a small child I was obsessed by drawing and painting and spent my time in a world of my own imagining that was so rich that I never wanted it to change so I knew that I would be an artist because I would never have to do anything but paint pictures.  As you can tell I was very young (pre-school age) and when I did go to school I found it difficult to attend to any lessons other than art even preferring to stay in the art room at break times.   

Q   What inspires you?

A   The most exciting experience in the world for me is the act of creativity, making something where nothing existed before, or more accurately taking disparate things and assembling them together to form something entirely new.  I am addicted to it.

Q   Do you fit the idea to the material or the material to the idea?

A   A very good question, the answer is both, they are not mutually exclusive.

Q    Do you make small models to start with or preparatory drawings?

A   Both yes and no.  Driftwood sculptures need to “grow organically” one cannot do an accurate preparatory drawing but often the sculpture inspires subsequent paintings and drawings.  A small sculpture may inspire a larger version of itself but more often is something that exists for its own sake.

Q    What was the first thing you ever made?

A   A rabbit hutch.  I wanted a pet rabbit, my father said I could have one only if I built the hutch myself, we spent time thinking about what materials we would need and drawing up the best design.  He then showed me how to use the necessary tools safely.  When I wanted to keep the sticklebacks I caught on our fishing trips he helped me dig the hole and mix the cement to make a pond.

Q   What materials do you like working with most?

A   Whatever I happen to be working with at the time. Artists are at their best when open to new possibilities and ideas.

Q   Where can I see, buy or commission your work?

A   Year round at my studio/gallery in Devon, ring for an appointment on + 44 (0) 7775 840 513, or you can for updates about other exhibitions.