From the beginning my twin passions were drawing and horses. I was a pony mad country girl but my hero was Leonardo da Vinci and my dreams were of becoming an international artist who lived among wooded foothills with clear flowing water at my door and horses grazing all around.
I was a wild young thing and hated the confines of school especially in the summer and was a disruptive student except during art classes. I took A level art two years early and failed all my O levels except English language but miraculously that got me to Walthamstow College to study visual art. There, drawing was regarded as the first essential. I was enthralled and excelled. I went on to the now famous Goldsmiths College in London where sadly, at the time, figurative work was unfashionable. There was a life room, and models too, but no tutors ventured near. They liked and encouraged (typically) 6ft square green canvases with triangles and circles in bold clashing colours and sculptures using planks and blocks of polystyrene.
At the end of the first year I was asked to leave the course. I was told that I did not have the stuff that painters were made from and, if lucky, I might scrape a place somewhere to do graphics. My confidence was shattered. I was not interested in graphics. I liked the country, painting and constructing things from what lay around.
But that was then, and I went on to achieve my dream by virtue of fate, the generosity of others, luck and determination. I went my own way, not always wisely and not always to accolade from the establishment. The accuracy of my drawings enabled me to command high prices for painting equestrian commissions but ultimately I found it restricting and sorely felt the lack of a degree. I was lost and without a style of my own.
I sought advice from Arthur Giadelli, an artist of international standing with a well-deserved reputation for also being a gifted teacher. He told me to go and look at a hedge and draw not what I saw but draw what made a thorn a thorn. And never stop working with horses but find a way to make them mine. I am forever in his debt.
I knew that to exhibit prematurely would be unwise; I had to wait until I had unequivocably found what I was seeking. So I continued with commissioned work in oils while also experimenting. Then out of the blue it came in on the tide. Driftwood. It was like a thunderbolt and I was finally ready to show my work to the world. It was driftwood horses.
For several years they remained on a small scale but I then was offered a solo exhibition at Saltram House. It's beautiful stable courtyard cried out for a life-sized horse and when I sat on my first big mare I knew she would carry me anywhere I wanted to go. This happened very fast, the press loved them and so did the public, in 2000 I 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. Pretty soon I needed to move to a place big enough to accommodate them.
That was the start of another phase in my life. I found a very small house high on the hill above a wild wooded valley with a stream running through it. The land had been untouched for forty years and was virtually impenetrable, creating a garden in it became another of my passions and easily my biggest sculptural project. Ten years on, the house is much bigger and the valley is still a place of wonder to me, rich in wild-life it has become a sculpture garden and is open for charity twice a year. I also open my house and studios each autumn as part of Devon Open Studios.
The rest is history and for a fuller account you will have to wait for my autobiography. If you can't wait for that try my first book Heather Jansch's Diary a life in the year of... an artists diary, you can buy it online from this site. Go to buy the book.
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January 2012. Nearly time for the next Spring Newsletter. i shall have to stop work on my current book and get on with it.
Exhibitions
2011 Open Studio and Open gardens.
2010 TAMED. The SPANISH BARN, Torre Abbey, Devon with Damien Hirst and Richard long. July and August. Three major new pieces of equine art in driftwood and in bronze.
2009
Goodwood.
Open Studio and Sculpture Gardens.
2008
Love London Recycled, London Zoo. Full size horse in oak.
Open Studio.
Sculpture garden features in NGS Open Gardens Yellow Book.
2007
Open Studio.
Artist in residence solo installation Arte Sella Borgo Valsugana. Italy www.artesella.it
2006
Open Studio developing sculpture garden and trail.
Artist in residence Arte Sella Italy.
2005
Open studio.
Newby Hall Yorkshire life-size works mixed show.
2004
Open Studio.
London Contemporary Arts Fair.
Paris. Jardin du Luxembourg Life-size works.
2003
First Open Studio at my place, Sedgewell Coach House. Devon.
Mixed show The Garden House, Wrexham Life-size works.
Eastnor Castle Mixed show Life-size driftwood works.
The Royal Albert Museum Exeter.
2002
Dartington Cider Press October/November small bronzes.
Solo show Courcoux and Courcoux Stockbridge .
Open Studio. Development of woodland trail and gardens, sound installations, temporary and permanent site-specific installations.
Mixed show The Foal Yard. Cambridge. June small bronzes.
Salisbury Cathedral. 'In Praise of Trees'. Mixed show.
Art Parks International Sausmarez Manor Guernsey.
London Contemporary Arts Fair.
South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, mixed show.
2001
London Contemporary Arts Fair.
Solo exhibition Saltram House NT Plymouth.
Solo show Dartington Cider Press. Bronzes.
Artist in residence. The Eden Project. Cornwall. Driftwood sculptures for the Warm Temperate Biome and ongoing research and development.
2000
Solo show Courcoux and Courcoux Stockbridge.
Sculpture in the Gardens Cotehele NT Cornwall. Life sized works.
1999
Mixed show 'The Shape of The Century-One Hundred Years of British Sculpture'. Canary Wharf London.
Artist in Residence Newbury Spring Festival.
Artist in Residence Appledore Arts Fair.
1998
Artist in Residence Appledore Arts Fair.
Solo show Saltram House NT Plymouth.
Solo show Courcoux and Courcoux Stockbridge.
Mixed show 'Procession' Devon Guild of Craftsmen.
1995
London Contemporary Arts Fair.
1993
Solo show Seymour Gallery Totnes paintings and sculpture.
1991
Solo show Dartington.
1990
Solo show Theatre Mwldan Cardigan.
1989
Solo show Courcoux and Courcoux Salisbury.
Bath Arts Fair.
London Contemporary Arts Fair.
1987
Solo show Devon Guild of Craftsmen Driftwood Sculptures.
1986
Solo show Classics Gallery Devon.
1984
Solo show Plough Theatre Torrington, painting and sculpture.
1981
Moved to Devon. One-Year Sabbatical.
1970
Moved to Wales. Traditional equestrian portraits in oils and watercolours to commission only.
1968
Various illustrative work, album covers and books etc.
Trained in Fine Arts at Walthamstow and Goldsmiths College London.
Born a Leo. Essex 3.8.1948.