Artemis at Glyndebourne

 My sister, Deborah Bell, has two monumental sculptures on show 

at Glyndebourne for the 2012 Opera Festival. 

Artemis and her three dogs 

  

and

 

The Crossing

 ps  That's a Henry Moore in the background. Deborah in the foreground 

Glyndebourne is a stately country manor ( presumed to be about 600 years old) in East Sussex in England. Opera has been performed here since 1934. 

Deborah's  bronze sculptures are huge, and heavy.  They have been shipped from South Africa.  There is a lovely video clip about the installation of  Artemis (the clip is brief and includes sheep -- just click on the link). 

I feel a special connection with this work.  My first view of Deborah's Artemis was a photo she sent me for my sixtieth birthday in November 2010.  It showed her up a ladder working on this, her largest piece.  

 I stayed with her over Christmas later that year and she spent hours and hours in her outdoor studio fine-tuning the dogs until they were perfect in her eyes -- very demanding work using an angle grinder, her fingers painfully damaged by the work.

I then saw the completed sculpture on display at her exhibition at the Everard Read Gallery in Johannesburg in April 2011.  I wrote about this and pasted photos in my posting Presence -- The Exhibition

You wind up a curving ramp into an enormous oval room and there is ...

Deborah's huge bronze Artemis with her three dogs,

Her bow is unstrung.  Her eyes are closed and her left hand

reaches forward with intent and purpose.  The dogs lead her. 

She is moving forward into an unknown future, with clarity and focus. 

It stopped me in my tracks, walking into the room and seeing her work.  And on 2nd June, as I rounded a corner at Glyndebourne and saw her Artemis in that field, the dogs bounding powerfully ahead of her and the landscape stretching behind,  I stopped again in my tracks.  Tears rose in my eyes.

We picnicked in great style on the lawn, sipped champagne,  watched sheep come over the brow of the hill, noticed some white fleece caught on a dog's tail.  The sculpture looked perfect in that setting.  Glyndebourne staff and other visitors said they wished it could be a permanent installation!

A gathering of family from four continents. Deborah and her daughter, Victoria, from South Africa,  John and Jenny from Windsor,  Rob and Helen from New Zealand and me from USA.  The off-spring of three New Zealand sisters, all together for the first time.  The sun shone, a picnic was kindly provided and we saw La boheme!

"... this representation of female power, focus and freedom 

.... a symbol of some promise of the future."     Deborah Bell

In England Deborah is represented by the John Martin Gallery.   In addition to the sculptures at Glyndebourne,  there is an exhibition of her work  A Far Country  currently showing at the John Martin Gallery.