The shell artist At the age of 83 Peter Cooke has become a master of his art. There are still many things that Peter Cooke would like to try his hand at-paper-making and feather-work are on his list. For the moment though, he will stick to the skill that he has been delighted to perfect over the past ten years: making delicate and unusual objects out of shells. "Tell me if I am boring you" , he says, as he leads me round his apartment showing me his work. There is a fine line between being a bore and being an enthusiast, but Cooke need not worry: he fits into the latter category, helped both by his charm and by the beauty of the things he makes. He points to a pair of shell-covered ornaments above a fireplace. „I shan‟t be at all bothered if people don‟t buy them because I have got so used to them, and to me they‟re adorable. Inever meant to sell my work commercially. Some friends came to see me about five years ago and said. “ You must have an exhibition-people ought to see these. We‟ll take to a man who owns an art gallery”. The result was an exhibition in London, at which 70 percent of the objects were sold. His second exhibitions opened at the gallery yesterday. Considering the enormous prices he pieces command- around 2,000 for the ornaments- an empty space above the fire place would seem a small sacrifice for Cooke to make. There are 86 pieces in the exhibition, with prices starting at 225 for a shell-flower in a crystal vase. Cook insists that he has nothing to do with the prices and is cheerily open about their level: he claims there is nobody else in the world who produces work like his, and, as the gallery-owner told him, "Well, you're going to stop one day and everybody will want your pieces because there won‟t be any more." "I do wish, though" ,says Cooke, „that I‟d taken this up a lot earlier, becausethen I would have been able to produce really wonderful things- at least the potential would have been there. Although the ideas are still there and I‟m doing the best I can now, I‟m more limited physically than I was when I started.‟ Still, the work that he has managedto produce is a long way from the common shell constructions that can be found in seasides shops. "I have a miniature mind," he says, and this has resulted in boxes covered in thousands of tiny shells, little shaded pictures made from shells and baskets of astonishingly realistic flowers. Cooke has created hs own method and uses materials as and when he finds them. He uses the cardboard sent back with laundered shirts for his flower bases, a nameless glue bought in bulk from a sail-maker ("If it runs out, I don‟t know what will I do!") and washing-up liquid to wash the shells. „ I have an idea of what I want to do, and it just does ifself,‟ he says of his working method, yet the attention to detail, colour gradations and symmetry he achieves look far from accidental. Cooke‟s quest for beautiful, and especially tiny, shells has taken him furtherthan his Norfolk shore: to France, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa and the Philippines, to name but a few of the beaches where ha has lain on his stomach and looked for beaties to bring home. He is insistent that he only collects dead shells and defends himself against people who write him letters accusing him of stripping the world‟s beaches. „When I am collecting shells, I hear people‟s great far feet crunching them up far faster tha I can collect them; and the ones that are left, the sea breaks up. I would not dream of collecting shells with living creatures in them or diving for them, but once their occupants have left,why should I not collect them?‟ If one bases this argument on the amount of luggage that can be carried home by one man, the sum beauty of whose work is often greater than its natural parts, it becomes very convincing indeed.
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