A garden full of treasure

While waiting to find out our fate, I decided that life must go on, as pleasantly as possible. And what better way to soothe the soul than with art. So we descended upon my friend Alexandra, a sculptor whose studio spills out into her garden.

Alexandra is a versatile artist who works in many mediums: wood and rusted metal, resin, cardboard and paper. But she mostly starts her pieces with found materials – driftwood discovered on beaches, fallen branches or logs collected in woods, rusted bike frames and other bits of iron. These she assembles into her chosen shape, often horses’ heads or entire, life-size horses. Then she casts them in bronze.

This means her garden, enchantingly wild and overgrown, is a treasure trove of found pieces, as well as finished sculptures. Bits of metal left out to rust, piles of what she calls ‘rubbish’ but which no doubt will come in useful at some point. Works-in-progress, blocks of wood in weird shapes waiting for the next burst of inspiration. In the midst of all this is her studio. Welding equipment is stacked in a corner, and works on paper litter the tables – her latest passion is making books. Materials and tools spill out into the garden, where in the winter she can be seen hard at work, wearing multiple layers of clothes!

I love the way Alexandra scribbles and paints on every available surface. She flattens old cardboard boxes to draw on, uses tea and coffee to create subtle stains, tears things up and reconstructs them in layers.  One of my favourites is this drawing on a broken flowerpot- she calls this work ‘Fragmented Self.’

Another recurring theme are the torsos made out of hammered sheets of metal. They are very evocative – they remind me of the Ancient Greek Kouros statues, but at the same time they suggest suits of armour.

A lovely afternoon was spent discussing how things were put together, what inspired each piece – and it was great being able to touch everything, which you cannot do in a museum or exhibition. The children had a field-day pottering about and feeding Alexandra’s tortoises. We were given ice cream on the terrace, surrounded by her collections of stones and small sculptures. Then the kids were put to work making fish out of actual rubbish gathered on a beach. The result was declared super-cool.

If you want to find out more about Alexandra Athanassiades, this is  her site: http://www.alexandraathanassiades.com