Arts Features

For someone who spent their childhood obsessed with two things; drawing and horses, it would be fair to say that sculptor Heather Jansch has pretty much the perfect job.

She has garnered a worldwide reputation for her lifesize horses made from driftwood with a three-year waiting list for her work.

As a child she found she could really only concentrate on art and would spend many a school break time in the art room.

When she left art school she began to paint pictures of horses which were so accurate that breeders could pick their own foals from a group painting.

But despite making a good living from the paintings and having a long and loyal client list, in the 1970s Heather decided to start channeling her love of representing the equine form through sculpture instead.

She started initially by making smaller pieces in copper.

"But I found they lacked the power I wanted," she says.

Her work sells all over the world

Then one day her son was unable to find any kindling to light the woodburner and started to saw away at a bit of ivy.

"He had left behind a short section that I immediately saw as a horse's torso of the right size to fit straight into the copper wire piece I was working on.

 "The next question was where could I find more or similar shapes and the answer was of course driftwood."

So the driftwood horses were born and they really came to prominence when she was commissioned to create two of them for the stables at Saltram House in Plymouth.

"And it just went nuts after that," says Heather.

There is now a three-year waiting list for her work which also includes sculptures cast in bronze.

The largest pieces - which can weigh between half and three quarters of a ton - can command prices of up to £55,000 and are exported all over the world.

She mostly make horses but has also created the occasional stag and a handful of other creatures.

The Devon landscape inspires and informs her work and she loves living in the tiny hamlet of Olchard where she has her studios.

"I'd have to have to a very good reason to leave Devon, although I may start to spend the colder months somewhere with a bit of heat, my hands are getting a bit creaky."

Each September she opens her gardens - throughout which her work is dotted - to visitors.

"I think it's really important to let people get up close to the work, obviously not everyone can afford to buy it. 

"And it has a really profound effect on some people - they can be really moved by it.

"I still haven't quite got to the bottom of the phenomenon of why it moves people so much but I think driftwood is such a unique thing.

Heather opens her garden each September

"Although it is very obviously dead it has a real life about it and it's that combination with horses which seems to connect very deeply with many people."

And it is a constant struggle to find enough of the material she needs.

"I need an enormous quantity to select from - especially for the life-size pieces and could not possibly carry it myself so my assistant goes with a four-wheel drive pickup."

With the smaller works she might create between 15 and 20 a year but the larger pieces can each take many months to create and she will make about three of them a year.

"I often have more than one piece on the go."

So how does she know when a work is finished?

"Once I think something is finished I live with it for a few months before I can declare that it's truly complete.

"Sometimes during that time I might add a bit or even take some bits away."

She is also focusing on new works which she calls the Leapers - reliefs cast in bronze.

"I can see them as fences at a racing stud somewhere," says Heather, who is now 60 and has no plans to stop working any time soon.

She is already planning ahead for a show in four years' time which will tour round six major cities in Spain.

"It keeps me very fit and I'm really strong too, I am small but mighty," she laughs.

"I will probably die working!"