Early in 1940 we managed to find a small house and for the
next three years... I was not able to carve at all... the only sculptures I carried out were some small plaster maquettes for the second «sculpture with colour», and it was not until 1943, when we moved to another house, that I was able to carve this idea... In St Ives I was fortunate enough to have constant contact with artists and writers and craftsmen who lived there, Ben Nicholson my husband, Naum Gabo, Bernard Leach, Adrian Stokes, and there was a steady stream of visitors from London who came for a
few days rest, and who contributed in a great measure to the important exchange of ideas and stimulus to creative activity... It was
during this
time that I gradually discovered the remarkable pagan landscape which lies between St Ives, Penzance and Land's End; a landscape which still has a very deep effect on me, developing all my ideas about the relationship of the human figure in landscape - sculpture in landscape and the essential quality of light in relation to sculpture which induced a new way of piercing the forms to contain colour... The sea, a flat diminishing plane, held within itself the capacity to radiate an infinitude of blues, greys, greens and even pinks of strange hues; the lighthouse and its strange rocky island was an eye; the Island of St Ives an arm, a hand, a face... I used colour and strings in many of the carvings of this
time.
«For micro-organisims which have generation
times of a
few days, adaptation may happen
during the
next 100 years or so as the ocean continues to acidify to critical levels,» explained the researcher from the IFM - Geomar centre, braving glacial winds in a bright yellow padded windbreaker and a woolen hat.