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It was never really a choice for me I would be an artist, my father was an artist, he
was a potter and a sculptor. My mother’s an art teacher who was previously a jeweller,
so this was always a path that I was always going to go down.
Interviewer: Are you having trouble? Yeah...It’s really annoying when it doesn’t...I
can see in my head what I want to draw. I just started off trying to draw a fox, so
you’ve got the ears, but then the initial, the two triangles that make up the ears. I
can’t even draw them straight. They just don’t work; they look like children’s
drawings. It’s bent, it doesn’t work, I didn’t mean to draw that. And {sigh} It’s
just really, really frustrating. When I first started to lose my sight I found
it very difficult because I had very little peripheral vision, the best way to describe
it is like looking through a dirty pain of glass, everything’s slightly out of focus,
it’s blurred, the colours are washed out and you’ve got all these black lines everywhere.
Doctor: Last time you came to the clinic was January, is that correct?
Harry: Yes. Doctor: Has anything changed?
Harry: No, I did mean to ask you about wearing glasses...
Doctor: Well let me just take a look at you today, as long as we’re happy that everything
is under control then it would be possible to consider that option. Okay?
When I go to Moorfields I meet my consultant who’s been a lifesaver for me. I’ve never
so much confidence in a man to look after me as he has.
[An eye examination takes place] He’s reassured me and obviously broken bad
news ; that there was a good possibility that I would lose all of my eyesight.
This is a rare disorder, what happenes is that a virus sets off your immune system which
then starts attacking your eye. It started off in one eye and I thought; ‘oh fine if
one eye goes down I’ve still got the other one’ and that one became even worse than
the other one. The damage that’s been done is irreversible.
Consultant: What the scan is showing today is that your left eye is absolutely fine but
we have a bit of a recurrence of the swelling in the back of the right, so the vision is
down for that reason. So I suggest we meet again in four weeks. Great. Thank you.
Who knows what the future holds, but, yeah...I dunno, it upsets me to be talking about this.
I almost kind of cut any form of art out of my life, I got rid of almost everything. I’ve
got a couple left now that I couldn’t bear to be parted with. I’ve got one piece that
is a cat I cast for my brother. This piece has got sentimental value, it was
produced from a piece of wood my ex brought back for me, I made it for her...I definitely
don’t like looking at it anymore! Kingston’s opened a new chapter in my life.
From feeling very depressed and down and feeling that I had nothing left to give. I found that
there was still an outlet for my personality, my creativity, my artistic expression. It
gave me hope again and made me think that there is a future now.
I can still be part of the business world, I can still make a living, I can still have
things that I’m interested in and that it wasn’t all about what I was losing but in
fact there was something else opening up for me.
The course I’m doing is ‘Creative Economics and Advertising’ and what I get out of it
from the creative economics is an understanding of the nature of the business around art.
So, how art can be sold, how artists interact with the business world, now I can still be
involved with art. I can be involved in the selling of it, the commissioning of it for
businesses, I can still have a link with all the people I know and it’s given me a much
better idea of what my future holds for me rather than this black void that was the loss
of eyesight. I’ve had a lot of problems using computers
mainly for the fact that most people carry small laptops around with a small screen.
That’s just not possible for me. I need high magnification, I need the words to be
large, I need to be able to move them around easily. My eyes just won’t allow me to see
small detail anymore. My dissertation is on the rub between artists
and business. Where the conflict happens, where business men are commissioning art for
the sake of financial gain and where artists are trying to produce a concept based around
artistic merit and emotion. It’s been great, I’ve really enjoyed interviewing
various different artists especially for my MA. To be able to go out there and talk to
people, usually friends or people I’d just like to meet.
I went to meet Ian Byers, who’s been working as a sculptor for nigh on 40 years and was
a very interesting character, he has done bits and pieces for design agencies.
Ian: Art is a sort of glue-on, I think, for a company.
Harry: Did they ever say ‘well we love the shape of this but can we change the texture
and colour of it? Can you make it this big and stuff like that?
Ian: Yes I have had that in the past where interior designers have asked me to make something
that maybe matches the curtains. For pretty much the first year, even when
I was at Kingston, I was just obsessed with what would happen to me and what my life would
become as a blind person. I had to come to terms with the fact that it would be me wandering
down the street with a little stick, walking into things. That’s how I envisioned my
life going. Now, coming to the end of the course, I think
my life’s going to be completely different it’s going to be what I make it, it’s
kind of given me back my choice of what I want to do for my life.