11 THE  ART OBSERVER July 2010 calling to visit their old house. I asked Michelle Bastard whether this would feel strange and she said that time moves on and they’d like to visit and so, of course, they will be welcome any time.” I asked Richard whether he became disheartened during the whole process and he said that the task took on gargantuan pro- portions at times, partly working in Manchester and managing a building project in Mons. There were times, he told me, that he had to fly to Nice and back to Manchester on the same day, twice a week. Easy Jet had a reduction in their income stream when the house was complete and he made friends with the cabin crew on the Liverpool Nice route, who couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. Although, he said, “A big part of the project was trying to pre- serve the knackered bits of the house which date back to the seventeenth century and before, whilst making it liveable for us as a family. I have done quite a lot of property work over the years and my instinct is always to gut somewhere and start anew. But when you’ve got a door that’s at least three hundred years old and has huge, drafty gaps around it because it’s just worn away, what do you do? I think I have a different answer to my own question during Winter time and Summer time!” On an early foray to the villages, looking for a house, Richard drove past a gallery on the out- skirts of a neighbouring village. something we could do some- thing with. The deal was sealed when I walked out of the doors from the top bedroom onto a terrace with a view East to West of the slightly curved Mediterranean horizon. No idea how far away that horizon was, although glimpses of Corsica are to be had on the clearest of days and that is almost a hundred kilome- tres. I did know that Cannes and the coast which I could see were thirty-five kilometres away and the mountains and valleys in between - which we now have nicknamed ‘Middle Earth’ - pro- vided the most breathtaking of views. Deal done, I guess! The legal process was tortuous, but the one thing that kept me going was the documentation. The family I was buying from were called Bastard. Not BasTARD. It’s not pronounced that way in France. And so every document had MORRIS/BAS- TARD firmly emblazoned in large letters on the front. Funny thing is, Anick speaks perfect English, but somehow never twigged how funny this all was. She’d phone me and say things like, “ Richard, the Bastard’s have had the phone cut off.” Anyway we got there eventually. It took about eighteen months to clear everything out, put hot water in, a proper electricity supply in, a good cooker (essen- tial!) and decorate, buy furniture and generally exorcise the ghosts of the Bastard’s. Although one of the families kids have been in touch with me recently and are He was with his old friend Trevor who had been accompa- nying him on some of the visits. As Richard says, “Trev and I were pottering along in a little hired Peugeot when we both went, ‘Wooa. Elizabeth Frink.” In the sculpture garden of a small, private gallery were three beautiful Elizabeth Frink heads standing large on podiums. In the Var light they were excep- tionally beautiful. Richard and Trevor wandered in and the gallery owners, Tessa Peskett and Nigel Cox have since become good friends of Richard and his family. “I think being able to stumble across Elizabeth Frink sculptures, in the sunlight, next to the road sums up what I love about art in Var. You just stumble across things that are so unexpected and when you don’t just stum- ble across them they are in the small galleries in every village. The ceramics are beautiful, the glass work is beautiful - we even have a glass blower in Mons who has created all of our sconces and light fittings individ- ually - and the drawing and painting is at times exceptional. Tessa herself is a fine and accomplished painter and I have bought several of her works. And when she’s not painting she sits and plays the cello with the light flooding through the win- dows of her and Nige’s house, next to the gallery. As Tess once said to me, “Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves!” “So what other works have you bought for the Art Lover’s House?” “Well, I’ve taken some over there and bought some there. For example one of my tutor’s at college (not the Picasso man, another tutor!) gave me two plaster sculptures he’d done in the sixties. Sadly Trevor Lofthouse died about ten years ago now, but I think it is an honour that I have a home for such a fine gift that he gave to me decades ago. I’ve bought three of Tessa’s works, which I love. And do you know they are all so differ- ent and - as is the way - I didn’t notice until after I bought them that each had a moon ‘motif’ in them. Weird. Maybe subliminally that’s why I bought them. Others I’ve picked up in the Puce’s - which are the French Flea Markets - for next to noth- ing, one or two I’ve paid too much for in brocantes or galleries. But hey we’ve all done that! They all have a story. There is another English artist in nearby Seillans called Paddy Lovely. He paints horses - pictures of them that is, not paints the horses themselves. Although Paddy likes a drink to say the least and was telling my wife Michelle and I a story a couple of years ago about spiking a horse with something or other to make it stop running around so that he could paint it. Anyway Paddy was the worse for wear, but not apparently as much as the horse when he got the quantities he spiked it with wrong. Sorry, rambling a bit there, but maybe only in Var… But anyway I saw a horse head sculpture he had created out of a piece of driftwood in a local gallery and loved it. I thought it was a bit expensive at thirteen hundred euros, but also thought that if I caught Paddy in a (ahem!) good mood I might get a good reduction. ‘Give me five hundred euros because I know you like it!’ he slurred. Maybe only in Var… I’ve also collected odds and sods of things that just interest me. I recently bought a cast iron ‘gar- goyle’ dog in a street market. Got the guy down from a hun- dred and fifty euros to ninety, gave him the money and then he just smiled at me… I still don’t know how a friend and I lifted it into the back of my car, the suspension survived and then we carried seventy-five kilos of cast iron up five floors to sit on the terrace. Anyway I love it and my kids have christened it ‘rusty.’ It still scares me when I go onto the terrace at night and catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye!” Richard has also shipped his library of art-books out there and hopes to sit down and read them some time in the future. Apparently he has been gathering these for thirty years and still hasn’t made a lot of progress reading them. He says that the house is always full of his fami- ly, kids and friends and so a week of just chilling and reading is not really on the agenda yet. And of course there’s scouring the galleries, craft markets and Puce’s to fill time. “And  you  rent  the  house  out at any time during the year, don’t  you?” “Yes. Friends and family have free run of the house when they want it, of course. But I have a French mortgage to pay and it all helps when I have paying vis- itors there! Although I am very selective (well, to a degree!) in whom we rent to. The house is an authentic Provencale village house and not a Provence holi- day home, of which there are many. I didn’t want a breeze- block pastiche house with a swimming pool, I wanted a real house with real history and atmosphere which we could enjoy with authentic enthusiasm. And somewhere to collect even more art than I do at home! All of our visitors so far have been like-minded and rent the house for the same reasons - they love art and love to live for a week or so in a genuine pri- vate house in which they too can enjoy the works and books that are there - and make some discoveries of their own. It’s an hour’s drive to the coast and the major galleries where they can see the major works of great artists - and it’s a stone’s throw from, for example, one of my favourite spots. The terrace at l’Hotel des Deux Rocs in nearby Seillans, where Picasso used to sit and drink and exchange ideas with Max Ernst, who lived in the village. I think that their spirits are there still!” Anyone interested in spending time at The Art Lover’s House should contact Richard Morris for details through the website: www.artlovershouse.com or email: enquiries@artlovershouse.com or mobile phone: 07841 760432