Biba booted and too blue jeaned I walked into The Marlborough Gallery, I don't believe this bit, April 1967. Little sculpture eager beaver blown out of the water by Roland Piche. It was art about stuff, I really needed that, intent, content, narrative and great drawings, who else was drawing like that. We knew about visceral, Bacon had been fine tuning us for a while, what blew us kiddies about was all those really basic things about sculpture, like surface, finish, texture, polish, definition, sounds like a Hepworth masterclass, wash your mouth out with soap and water!

So I want to share a little joy, not a lot of it about. A few weeks ago I managed to buy myself a Piche silkscreen, at a very reasonable price. I suspect it's a way of trying to touch base. I bought from an online gallery, loveourart.co.uk, they are a small family business passionate about art, they source first class work, often out of the mainstream, hence my Piche, no reservations about recommending them, check them  out.

Karl Weschke featured in my life for only a couple of years, but he left an indelible impression. I heard the mini chunter down the lane to the Taut, and I emerged from the top studio to see who had arrived, I was taken aback to find Picasso wandering up the middle path with a sack over his shoulder. Not much progress was made with the bronze chasing after that and then Ralph summoned me to the house for a glass of red and a handshake with Karl Weschke. While I sipped and rolled up, Karl upturned the sack into the sink and a lobster supper cascaded out. 

I adored Karl's early work, the palette, the energy, the aspiration, but around this long stretch at Cheltenham a change began in his work that prefigured his later style. It was also at this time that Karl met Madeleine Fry. Madeleine was the London based partner in a Cheltenham boutique with June Daybell. It was a Daybell party in Bisley where they met. The Brown's studio's were alive with a running commentary on the hunt, plans were laid, strategies made, Madeleine was a tall long blonde, striking and reputedly seriously well heeled. She was carefully wooed, it was the distraction of the summer, and it was inevitable that a short time later she was naked, waist deep in Karl's Weschke's Cheltenham lake.

I am suddenly aware that I am writing about dead men, well it's tough but that's very much my world now, and I am afraid there are still several stiffs to go! I've come to Bob Clatworthy, unavoidable really, he is properly responsible for my present situation, that's not a complaint. When I slammed out of that Royal College interview he should have stayed put, but he didn't and so my adventures began. He does make a good drawing. He was an occasional visiting lecturer at Birmingham and had taken a helpful interest in my work. It didn't take a genius to work out I had bogged up my chances with Bernard and Bob Clatworthy caught me outside with a pep talk and a telephone number. The telephone number eventually led me to Oakridge Lynch and Ralph Brown, and a life of penury and self doubt, brilliant. Much of Bob's work is lost to me as I have a complete blind spot where animal sculpture is concerned, with the exception of Skeaping but there are some heads that fascinate. Bob is here then, not because of his art but because of mine. He was a lovely man in a world over populated with shits. I would see him on visits to Oakridge, I think the draw was not so much the Browns as the attractive red haired sculptress who weekended at the lodge at Middle Lypiatt. 

John Bridgeman was Head of Sculpture at Birmingham for twenty odd years and was respected by all the students who passed through his department. A really gentle man, and an interesting sculptor, a lot of civic commissions, he almost pioneered the use of fibre glass and cement fondue. But he was essentially a figurative artist, at the Royal College he had trained with Frank Dobson, and his lyrical influence was never far away, brilliant. I worked for Bridge  at Glebe House, fibreglassing in the freezing studio, but it was my first insight into an artist's practice. I also sat in the study taking tea and watched him rolling the wax between his fingers. The wax was his real gift to me, he also gave me a lot of rope while I was in his care.