About two years after we had agreed to be her Art Executors, Jenny died, unexpectedly. It was a huge shock: I had seen her a few days before and while she didn’t look well and was clearly tired that wasn’t unusual. After the first shock and grief, we realised we had no idea what to do.
Jenny and I and James had talked about a new exhibition of her latest work, which would bring together her work in different media on the theme of geometric forms in nature and the substance of matter. When we finally saw the studio, full of her works, finished and unfinished, our first thought was to make sure that there would be exhibition of her work.
Our next thought was how to carry out Jenny’s directions on what we should do with what Art was left. She had said, “I shan’t know or care, give family and friends anything they would like to keep, do what you like with the rest, you can burn it if you want to”.
Jenny lived and worked in a rented flat: the Studio was the back room looking onto a communal garden. After the funeral friends and family went back to the studio and were invited to choose what they liked. I see now that while it was right to carry out her wishes about giving away art to friends, the funeral wasn’t a good time to do this. Everyone was in a state of high emotion and not really in a fit state to choose and we weren’t in a fit state to keep a proper list.