Fifteen years ago, when my studio was in the North of England and I had the luxury of the Times newspaper, mention was made of a sculpture to commemorate the painter James Whistler.
The sculptor Nicholas Dimbleby had been chosen to produce the memorial and I clipped out the picture of his maquette thinking, I wish I'd have made that! The sculptor's intention was to make the whole piece very impressionistic and loosely modelled, as if Whistler himself had made his own self-portrait in clay.
In the maquette this he certainly achieved. But a few days ago I searched the Internet for a picture of the finished sculpture. Alas, as Rodin himself found - and I can equally vouch for - the spontaneity of the maquette can seldom be carried through to the finished piece.
While we are on the subject of taking the rough with the smooth, it is now six months since Hurricane Maria devastated Dominica. We are still without electricity and 50% of Dominicans are still living under tarpaulins.
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