Celebrated Liverpool poet Brian Patten has written a poem to ‘Toxic Lady’, the latest sculpture by artist Clare Ralph Leonty made with radioactive uranium glass.
The sculpture is of the torso of a woman sculpted in radioactive uranium glass, embedded within clear glass, and is designed to be seen in the dark under ultra violet light. In its specially designed frame, surrounded by noise sensitive lights, their eerie glow picks out the ultra violet light-sensitive pieces of bright green uranium glass deep within her body.
After viewing photos of Toxic Lady, Brian was moved to pen a short poem about Clare’s latest creation. Brian says:
“I’ve always loved Clare’s work. The last time I saw her, about 20 years ago, she was making dinosaur bone jewellery, which was fantastic. This Toxic Lady is something quite different, and she deserves a few words.”
Brian and Clare were briefly reunited at The Million Dollar Bash, a concert to commemorate the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival, where Brian performed.
Clare says:
“I wanted to make a statement about our toxic lives. We eat meat from animals that are over-dosed with drugs; we breathe in the toxic fumes from the glyphosates they spray on the weeds on our pavements; we’re apparently full of micro beads of plastic that make their way into the food chain and the sun is now giving us cancer because our protective ozone layer is being destroyed by global warming.
“Certain types of coral are phosphorescent and the coral reefs are being destroyed. Other corals and underwater plants emit this light when they are in danger; when the sea temperature rises, due to global warming.
Article continues below this advertisement “This is my statement on modern living, and the way we will end up if we carry on in our self-destructive ways.”
Toxic Lady is a one off piece that Clare made with Timothy Harris of the award-winning Isle of Wight Studio Glass at his studio in Arreton. It can be seen there, although only by appointment as the sculpture has to be seen in the dark, lit by the ‘black lights’.
Clare added:
“It would be ideal if this piece could be displayed in a nightclub or in a private screening room, somewhere that is dark but accessible. Or a collector might have her in a darkened corner of their gallery. She needs her own space – she is toxic after all.”
Toxic Lady by Brian Patten
She was so beautiful that some men thought her toxic.
They were afraid of the way she’d glow-
Timid men afraid of being burnt by her,
She remained a mystery that they’d never know.
Yet others were so amazed by her
That unquestioning they would go
Into the fire that surrounded her,
And they found that it burnt as cool as snow,
As cool and fresh as the purest snow..
Reproduced with the kind permission of Brian Patten
