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Desmond Gardiners interview
Desmond why do you do this art work
?
John, at the age of 73 I have had
two strokes, and the last one was quite serious resulting in a major
heart bypass operation. I felt while I was in hospital, if you can come
through something as serious as that, you can go on to do anything!
I find it is so
important to have something to do, and this art work sculpture has in
fact always been something I wanted to do. I used to play the piano
but as one of my hands seem to have 'seized up' even though I can still
play a little, I now put all my energies into this copper and brass
welded sculpture.
Look John, I know
of six people around my age who when they stopped working they did nothing,
and within a short time they had all died.
I find I am now
so excited, and ready to do this art work that I am
up early, sometimes at 5 am, have breakfast and into the studio to start
work. The danger is that if you have worked for others and have had
your working day all planned for you, and you don't have your retirement
planned as some of my late friends didn't, they did nothing, and the
result was they quickly died.
My working life
has been as an engineer and this copper and brass sculpture is the result
of many hours of work.
With the America's
Cup yachting regatta now being held down in Auckland, New Zealand, I
felt it appropriate to take on the theme of yachting which has resulted
in this work as shown in the photo. The large one is some 1.9 meters
high down to small ones only about 300 mm high. About one foot tall.
I have also recently
built a sculpture of a Chinese junk, but mainly these America's Cup
yachts are what I produce.
You see, during
my working life I didn't have time to do this (what I really wanted
to do). I used to paint water colours but time was always difficult
to find but now I have that time I have become totally engrossed in
this art work.
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