Gordon McKenna Studio

  It's odd how you forget an event in your life completely and then suddenly out of the blue the memory of it comes flooding back for no apparent reason. 1985/86 Ice cream man. I can't think of a single reason why I'd suddenly start to recall my days as an ice cream seller in Pine Town in South Africa. I can't have been more than 17 years old so more than 30 years ago. I was still at school and looking for summer work, oddly my father didn't have work for me that year like he had done since I was about 14. It only took about an hour for the manager to show me the ropes, how to use the till, make waffles, scoop ice cream and cash up at the end of the night. He was a bit worried I was a bit young but then I had the confidence of youth and had already achieved my full height of 6 foot. So there I was on my own in the ice cream bar crapping myself while waiting for my first customer, and wait I did! I was doing a Saturday night for about 6 hours but it was completely de...

Clouds, Second hand and the Antiques shop. CLOUDS Its a stunning landscape! the expanse of it, the giant sky and vast fields and mountains scattered with vegetation clinging to life, barely green. Yellows, browns reds and orange against a vast blue sky. Staring out the window of a moving car the fresh wind in my face. 8 maybe 9 years old we were racing home towards the village in the middle of nowhere, our home of old houses snuggled in a canopy of trees. We reached the hill and saw a van parked up on the side of the road, a body to the rear of it. we stopped to see if they needed any help. You do that kind of thing in the countryside. Me and my father, we walked over from the car. An old man lying rigid like he had fallen from a coffin, dead, arms straight by his side on the ground, black as ash and not a mark on him. The farmer stood over him with his man, rifle by his side. The van was packed with middle aged men all black clinging to the sides of the van sitting uncomfortably on it...