1967–present
Serena de la Hey
Serena de la Hey was born in Kenya, spent her early childhood on farms in Australia, and has lived and worked in Somerset since the early 1990s. She makes wicker figures of people and animals from local willow. Her best-known work, “Willow Man”, about twelve metres high beside the M5 motorway near Bridgwater, was burnt in 2001 and rebuilt.
Biography
In May 2001 only the metal frame was left of “Willow Man”: vandals had set the figure on fire. Five months later the sculptor finished a second version.
Serena de la Hey was born in 1967 in Eldoret, Kenya. She spent her early childhood on farms in Australia. She studied at Falmouth Art College, after which she settled in Somerset and began working with willow, which she took from the Somerset Levels. She first used willow for human figures in 1992, when her running wicker figures appeared in the Nevada Desert. Since then she has woven people and animals in her studio in Stoke Gregory, near Taunton. Her clients are mostly private, and the figures are meant for the house or garden. She calls willow “fluid”, a quick way of getting into an idea. In 1999, together with Fernando Martin, she made a figure for the Glastonbury Festival; on the last night it was burnt as part of a pyrotechnic display.
In 2000 the organisation South West Arts commissioned a sculpture from her for a site beside the M5 motorway near Bridgwater. “Willow Man”, about forty feet (around twelve metres) high, was made of local willow on a metal frame; the work took four weeks, and the figure was finished in September 2000. After the arson attack in May 2001 a campaign began to restore the sculpture. In October 2001 de la Hey completed a second version, in which the willow is interwoven with steel wire, and an acre of weedbed was laid out around the figure to protect it. The sculpture was originally expected to last only three years. The artist has, however, repaired it several times, and the figure still stands. Repairs are costly, and de la Hey herself, as reported, is wondering whether to redesign the work so that it is cheaper to maintain.
It seems to me that the fate of this piece shows how little a short-lived material has in common with a public monument: its completion date has to be given twice.
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