Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Artweeks oxfordtimes.co.uk Ingrid Thomas in her studio Photographs: Jon Lewis 16 Oxfordshire Limited Edition May 2011 oxfordtimes.co.uk I ngrid Thomas, who will be exhibiting her extraordinarily beautiful shell collages during Oxfordshire Artweeks, has travelled the world in search of specimens. “I had promised myself that once my son was grown up I would go on a collecting trip,” she said. “I let my house for a year to cover the costs and went to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, via the United States. “In New Zealand I hired a car and drove from the tip of the North Island to the bottom of the south, sleeping in B&Bs, and on beaches, and looking wilder and wilder — I looked like Robinson Crusoe after a while — but I didn’t care,” Ingrid recalled. “I sent home an enormous box of shells, all of which I was permitted to collect under the local government rules. “Before I went travelling, I contacted other shell collectors through the Internet, and they took me on some fabulous field trips. I met people from many different countries, not just those I was travelling in, so I agreed to supply shells from the UK in exchange for them sending me theirs,” she added. “I have a network of contacts just about everywhere now that I can buy from. There’s a colossal, almost infinite, choice of colouring, patterning and textures — every so often I get sent a shell that just stops me in my tracks because it is so gorgeous. “In the temperate north the diet for molluscs is not as rich as it in warmer tropical waters, where there are different foods and hence brighter colours and much greater variety. There are some very subtle shells available in our waters, though. “I have a big collection from Wales, where I tramped up and down the beach for about three days. Many of the specimens were very worn, and all the more beautiful because of it,” Ingrid said. If newly-found shells still have traces of their deceased incumbents and smell bad, she leaves them out in the garden for a few months. Ingrid explained that common mussel shells, Artweeks ‘She sells sea shells’ Julie Webb meets globe-trotting artist Ingrid Thomas which she sometimes gets from restaurants after the diners have finished with them, need a lot of cleaning to avoid persistent hints of wine and garlic hanging about the eventual work of art! Her interest in shells goes back a long way. “I have loved them since I was very tiny, thanks to my Norwegian mother. We lived in Devon, on the coast, during the war, and she used to collect them avidly and put them into my chubby little hands. “Then, about 25 years ago, I went on holiday to the Channel Islands with my own family and my parents, and my mother and I took a trip to Herm, where there is a shell beach. I was instantly and utterly hooked. “I bought a booklet in the Post Office there about all the different shells and went back again and again to identify and collect as many as I could.” Ingrid is passionate about the conservation of molluscs. A proportion of the proceeds from each of her sales goes to the Marine Conservation Society. “There are more than 100,000 species of sea mollusc,” she said. “They are the second biggest class in the animal kingdom. With climate change the oceans are becoming more acid and there is less calcium carbonate in the water for them to use to manufacture their shells. We run the risk of losing a lot of marine life in time, including all the shells in the world, unless a way is found to reverse the process or stabilise the pH of the oceans.” Ingrid only uses shells washed up on beaches — whose inhabitants are mostly long dead — supplemented by a few magnificent and unusual specimens which she buys (at great expense) from an internationally recognised marine laboratory, where they have been used for scientific research and are no longer needed. “They include shells which would normally never be washed up because they are so fragile they get crushed in the waves — and deep water specimens which would just sink to the bottom of the sea.” The average life of a sea mollusc, provided it can secure itself with a tough enough shell to escape predation, is between six months and three years — but there is another threat to its survival, in the shape of unscrupulous dealers. “There is a whole group of them who will stop at nothing to get hold of rare species to sell, including live specimens,” Ingrid said. As well as buying from abroad she replenishes her stocks through the occasional purchase of a collection whose owner has died, and through gifts from people who know about her work. Ingrid’s studio is a real delight. Continued on page 19 May 2011 Oxfordshire Limited Edition 17 oxfordtimes.co.uk Artweeks From page 17 Shells of every description line the walls, stored in drawers, trays, old sweet jars, plastic tubs — big coral coloured land-snail shells from the Indian Ocean islands; tubular milky green shells like baby leeks; the yellowish cowries used for currency in the Pacific; mother-of pearl; and spiny creatures shaped like starfish. She uses a silicone glue to secure them to the picture backing. “It’s not undermined by moisture and the shells never come off,” she said. Three different kinds of tweezers and a selection of dental probes, for turning delicate shells over and moving them around, make up Ingrid’s tool kit. Some of her frames are contemporary and specially built for her; others she picks up at auction houses or in antiques shops. She usually records the common and scientific names of the species used, and their distribution, on the back of each piece. Her work has developed over the 15 years she has been engaged in it. “I have become much more open to creating different moods and different personalities,” she said. “Shells lend themselves to different styles. Some have subtle colours and gentle shapes and suggest femininity and quiet, whereas others are so vibrant and have textures so extraordinary that they suggest something more dramatic,” Ingrid said. “Others are so linear, and, for example, stripy, that they suggest something geometric and formal. The shells are the art — I am only the vehicle.” Ingrid’s pieces sell for between £100 and £350. Visitors to the exhibition will also have the opportunity to buy at a discount her lovely book The Shell: A World of Decoration and Ornament (Thames and Hudson, LE 2007). Ingrid Thomas will be exhibiting at 11 Bainton Road, Oxford on Saturday, May 21, noon-6pm; Sunday, May 22, 10am-4pm; Monday, May 23 and Tuesday, May 24, noon-6pm; Thursday, May 26, noon-8pm; Friday, May 27 and Saturday May 28, noon-6pm; Sunday, May 29, 10am-4pm; Bank Holiday Monday, May 30, noon-6pm. (Closed Wednesday, May 25). Call 01865 510650 or email [email protected]. Examples of Ingrid’s work can be seen online at www.saatchionline.com For more information on the Marine Conservation Society visit the website: www.mcsuk.org May 2011 Oxfordshire Limited Edition 19