We’ve had a sobering experience. A very sobering experience. Through some freakish accident that nobody can really work out we had a pretty serious fire in the studio last night. We were lucky that a passing kid saw the flames from the road and banged the brains out of the front door to alert us before it came to the point of no return; as well as having the foresight to telephone the fire brigade before he alerted us. As it was I had time, with the assistance of the mystery French youth Nicolas and my brother-in-law (who’s here on holiday) we managed to suppress the flames until the properly equipped blokes turned up. The heat, smoke and fumes were unbelievable but I’m so glad that we persevered. The heat left us with 300 melted favourite CDs, no working materials, a totally destroyed collection of over 20 years life drawings and other work, no studio doors, windows or electrics and the relief that the structure of the house was saved and none of us were hurt.
Most of the paintings for the impending 9-11 show at Red Propeller on the 5th November (no irony eh?!) were saved but I have lost virtually all the work on paper, 2 finished canvases and a couple of unfinished canvases.
I’ll be spending the next few weeks working on replacing the pieces on paper as I hoped these would be more affordable for people than some of the canvases. It’s also broadened the French vocabulary today. Déclaration de sinistre – insurance claim. Mètre fondu de l’électricité – melted electricity meter. Merci, merci, merci Nicolas – vous n’avez aucune idée comment reconnaissant nous tous sommes. I’ve probably buggered the grammar, but I hope you understand the sentiment.
“Refugee” – destroyed in studio fire
guydenning.org 