One Small Thing: Patrick Gale
This is a sculpture by my husband, Aidan Hicks. It’s a
little under eighteen inches tall and made from a single slab of Chinese slate
left over from when we refloored the farmhouse. I purloined it from his studio
across the garden a couple of years ago when I could tell he wasn’t happy with
it, and it has sat on my desk ever since, apparently striding out into the
garden scattering seeds with one hand.
It gives me enormous pleasure partly for the apparently
simple artistry with which it suggests a three dimensional figure while being
almost a flat piece of slate – a drawing in stone, really. And I love its
purposefulness. My writing days are so often spent in staring out of the window
or at my pages of inky scribble with no sense of direction, so his
purposefulness and motion is inspiring.
But I like, too, the fact that he’s an interesting failure.
He failed to please his creator for some reason – odd proportions, perhaps or
too close a reliance on an Ancient Greek model – and he’s quite unlike most of
Aidan’s sculptures since so perhaps also represents a road not taken. The best
of creativity is born from these false starts and changes of direction – those
lurching three point turns in your writing which so often happen when you’ve
only ten minutes left before needing to leave your desk to walk the dogs or
cook or get to an appointment.
And I also love that he has no name. Like most artists,
Aidan hates the necessity of naming his pieces for exhibition catalogues so of
course the work that never makes it to the Penwith Gallery in St Ives or even
to an open studio show is never saddled with a title.
He is also a daily reminder that I am lucky enough to share
my life with an equally creative person, the workings of whose mind continue to
fascinate, baffle and delight me.
Discover more about Patrick Gale's work here.
The North Cornwall Book Festival runs from October 1st - 4th 2020
The Penwith Gallery is here.
