Monsters in the family

Posted by Tiggy Salt on April 23rd, 2007

I was reading a fascinating book, The Art of Maurice Sendak, by Tony Kushner, which is a brilliant examination of Sendak by his lifelong friend and associate, and therefore an insightful foray into the mysterious workings of his life and art. In the frequently asked question of Sendak’s inspiration for the Wild Things, he is amusingly candid: apparently they were based on members of his family! So I would just like to say now that any similarity between plants and actual living people is entirely coincidental and not intended to cause offence…!

I was chatting to my friend Helen about this whole crazy process we are in the midst of, of creating a living piece of theatre all for five rapid days, and she distilled the essence of it with her inimitable mixture of insight and tact. ”So it sounds to me that its a bit like getting ready for your own wedding - there is only so much preparatory work you can do before JUDGEMENT DAY, but you still won’t know if you are going to get gilted until THE DAY itself.” Thanks very much. Clarity doesn’t always achieve parity with peace of mind. As Woody Allen so rightly says: “Paranoia is being made aware of the facts”.

Friday: a glorious excuse for escape. A trip to Howards Nurseries in Diss, Norfolk, with my brother Bert and Alf (obviously). We’ve got some cousins who live in Norfolk as well, so we spent the rest of the weekend with them messing around on the beach. We were going to introduce ourselves for the first time to the ornamental rhubarb, Rheum palmatum ‘Atrosanguineum’, and the Iris ‘Quechee’. Alf’s normal procedure for this sort of thing doesn’t do the plant any good, so we kept him on a lead. Great excitement to finally see them, but they have got a way to go. It was useful to see how much space 20 three-litre pots of iris and 30 three-litre pots of rhubarb take up. The quantities feel right and the journey from 0 to 3 dimensions has finally begun!

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