Les Coleman

Les Coleman was an artist.  He died earlier this year and he seemed like my sort of guy when I read his obituary.  The one in the Daily Telegraph starts:

Les Coleman, who has died aged 67, was an artist, sculptor, author, aphorist, latter-day Dada-ist and all-round rare bird who preferred his work to evoke subtle grins rather than highbrow critiques.

He made an installation called "crossfire" that appeals to me - it was just a lot of arrow heads  and arrow flights (feathers) stuck in a wall.

 I like his satirical commentary on the art world.  This includes a book I've bought called "Meet the Art Students" containing sketches of art college stereotypes.

It also includes the page below, entitled  "How to make it in the art business":

http://www.paulgravett.com/articles2/neal_fox/how_to_make_it_in_the_art_business_neal_fox.jpg

Les Coleman himself never made it big - and he clearly felt sore about other artists becoming celebrities because of their antics rather than their work.

 I must admit that I once thought Grayson Perry was an example of this - wearing a dress to accept the Turner prize certainly got him noticed.

But I've changed my mind about Grayson.  As I said in my previous post, I enjoyed his Reith Lectures and as a result, trawled the Internet looking for something to make it worth while writing a post about him.  I  ended up buying his book, The Vanity of Small Differences, covering his "safari of the taste tribes" of England.

I like it!  I think Les Coleman would have liked it too.  There's no arty farty talk in it.  There's some really thoughtful comments,  the sketchbooks he drew while on his safari,  real close-ups of his final tapestries and some techie stuff on how they were made.

It's just what I was hoping for.    I wanted to understand how Grayson developed his ideas and I wanted to look closely at some of his work.  Previously, photos of his pots hadn't done it for me.

Back to Les Coleman.   By incredible coincidence I've discovered his best friend was my cousin's husband, Jens Janssen, an art collector.

Jens is trying to find a home for Les Coleman's belongings, which includes a sack full of arrow tips and feathered flights.  It's all that remains of "crossfire", which was a temporary installation in different venues.