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Orchid by Mark Swan
Off We Go
I drew out a rough sketch of the four exhibition areas at Hatchlands: these included the front lawn, terrace and parterre, the wooded area which included a temple and an ice house, and the two walkways through the wild flower meadow which, in February, looked more like a piece of rough ground!
I then sorted the sculptures in order of size. The largest for the front lawn, smaller for the parterre which I thought could be an ideal outside gallery space. Organic structures, flowers and birds for the wooded area, and tall and colourful pieces for the wild walkways. I chose individual pieces for the temple, terrace and the ice house and favoured statement pieces to attract the eye to certain areas. Marrying each sculpture with like-minded pieces according to their qualities, size, finish, colour and meaning is so engaging.
I then spent a Sunday in the rain with my wife, Alison, to scale out all the exhibition areas and to decide on sculpture placements. I felt so much better afterwards as no matter how many photos one takes there is no substitute for surveying the site!
I marked out and numbered my drawings and then had a meeting with Becky Wallis, Curator for National Trust London and South East, for her to pass my plans.
A final group meeting at Henriette’s house with plenty of coffee and a lovely home-cooked lunch concluded our plans, eagerly awaiting the imminent set up day!
Setting Out
We had a final meeting with James at Hatchlands. Whilst I was in the meeting with Henriette, my youngest son Tom was assigned the duty of marking out. After the meeting, I found Tom and we finished placing out the number stakes for the exhibition in the pouring rain and got completely soaked.
Sycamore Seeds by Terri Smart
Freddie by Margaret McSheehy