Garden sculpture show returns to Greys Court

THE glorious setting of Greys Court is once again the backdrop for the Oxford Sculptors’ Group’s summer show.

Thirty-one artists will be participating in the sixth annual Sculptures in the Garden exhibition, starting next Saturday (June 10).

They will be showing 175 sculptures in stone, metal, wood, ceramic, bronze resin, glass, Perspex, steel, wire and bronze both in the grounds and indoors.

All the pieces will be available to buy and a share of the proceeds will go to the National Trust property near Rotherfield Greys.

Min Reid, who is based in the Cotswolds, will be taking part in the show for the first time.

Her pieces will include Lean on Me, a sculpture of an ancient Egyptian dog.

She says: “I started sculpting in lockdown. I started doing a few local courses and then I went to the Sculpture School in Devon, which is taught by a master of sculpture, Andrew Sinclair.

“I learned a lot from him and about anatomy. I still go back to him. I’m constantly learning about things like proportions.

“I’m just navigating the waters, going with my gut feeling about what I love and I love bringing awareness to endangered animals and to ancient animals.

“Sculpting is very therapeutic for me in the sense that you’re just focused on what you have in front of you and something comes out of nothing, which is wonderful.”

Min is married to American singer-songwriter J. R. Richards of the alternative rock band Dishwalla, and the couple have four sons between them.

After a successful career in marketing, design, photography and film-making, she had to make some life changes 13 years ago when her 10-year-old son, Dom, was diagnosed with childhood-onset schizophrenia. He also has autism.

She says: “As a mother, it’s just horrific but you just have to cope, you have to reinvent yourself.

“Dom is the sweetest soul. He’s 23 now and he’s doing really well. He’s an artist too, so it’s all good.

“A lot of my work involves making short films to raise awareness, whether it’s mental health in children, or breast cancer, or people going blind, or early-onset Alzheimer’s. I just have a mission to reduce the stigma.

“Funnily enough, I met my husband through Dom as he is also a singer and a songwriter.

“J. R. and I had both previously been married and I was living in California when Dom put himself into a competition for best original song. I was training at UC Santa Barbara with a wonderful woman called Lynn Koegel in understanding
autism.

“I was a bit nervous of him entering this competition but he had his little rock band and he had written four songs about his psychosis.

“I thought, ‘Oh Lord’ but they ended up winning. As the prize, they got to go on national radio, to be one of the headliners at a music festival and to play at a nightclub.

“I thought, ‘Oh blimey, this is a can of worms’ but I asked a friend whose kids were in a band and he said, ‘Look, I’ve just been working with this amazing chap. Call him.

“He told me his name but he didn’t tell me that he was a rock star, who was massive in America in the Nineties. It was love at first sight.

“I have three sons and J.R. has one son, who is also on the spectrum, so together we have four. Twelve years later, it’s just fantastic and wonderful.”

Carol Orwin, who is based in Guildford, has been a member of the Oxford Sculptors’ Group for about 20 years.

She learned life modelling and practical sculpture at the High Wycombe College of Technology and Art (now Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College) before being accepted by Central Saint Martins School of Art, where she studied under Sir Anthony Caro and Phillip King on an advanced postgraduate sculpture course.

She says: “I started out on a course that taught jobbing sculptors. You learnt, not a trade, but you did learn an awful lot of techniques and methods and that’s why I’m still doing all my own casting. I don’t like relinquishing that to somebody else.

“This is a cold cast method. I model in clay and I make rubber silicone moulds with glass-fibre jacket outers, which hold the rubber silicone nice and firm.

“The rubber silicone itself is incredibly flexible and takes the form of the sculpture that you’ve just modelled. I then fill the top surface with the real bronze, or bronze and copper, or whatever combination I’m using, and then the inside is backed up with glass fibre and resin and reinforcing rods.” Carol loves to capture the anatomy and movements of animals.

“Horses, dogs, beautiful animals,” she says. “My real love is former racing greyhounds. They’re a sculpture every time they move, they’re very fluid, very beautiful and very suited for sculpture.”

Carol’s Siamese cat Villain also features in her work. She says: “He’s a thug and a bully but he’s absolutely wonderful and incredibly sculptural.”

She is delighted to be returning to Greys Court.

“Obviously the garden is absolutely stunning,” she says. “We start out with the clematis — they have flowers the size of dinner plates — and then towards the end of the exhibition, it’s the roses, so there’s always something in the garden.

“Not only is the sculpture trail a wonderful thing to see but sculpture enhances the garden.”

Sue Jones, from North Oxfordshire, will have five pieces in the show.

She says: “I’ve got big horse heads in bronze resin. They’re sort of lifesize and stylised. Years ago, we used to have horses at home and then I went to work with horses, so when I took up sculpting the first thing that came out of me was horse heads.

“I’m thrilled to be exhibiting with the group. There’s such a high standard that I think for anyone that is interested in sculpture, you couldn’t find a better place to go.”

Michele Green, from Buckinghamshire, will be showing her piece Standing Figure, which is 6ft tall and made of iron resin.

She says: “It is meant to represent solitude in a positive way as a time for reflection and being at one with nature. I also want it to express resilience in standing alone.”

• Sculptures in the Garden runs until Sunday, June 16 and will be open from 10am to 5pm daily. Entry is free with the normal price of admission to Greys Court.