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'Reynard's last Stand' - mixed media installation - June 2026
George Roberts |
As most of this blog readers might have guessed, I am very eccentric, so this weekend, feeling not at my best, I decided to ‘seize the day’ and create an art installation for our backyard. Like all art –there is an underlying ‘narrative’.
"Long ago on Maidstone Market in Kent, UK, a ‘cheeky costermonger’ offered me and my newly married wife, a red fox fur stole for 50p (it was a few years after currency decimalisation). The underlying threat being, if I didn’t cough up the dosh, said sad fox corpse would suffer the final ignominy of being dumped in the trash bin. Now even in those days, we were happily ‘woke’, so though neither of us wanted a dead animal skin for clothing, we decided to take the long dead fox off his hands.
Years passed while the Fox sat on a shelf in one of the spare bedrooms in our home. Then grandchildren started to appear and finally we reached the grand total of nine. ‘Sleep-overs’ at our house became a thing and the Fox became a night companion, protecting the children from the ‘black dreamers’ and ‘other nasty nightmares’. He was given the name ‘Reynard’ and was comprehensively loved by all.
Years passed, the grandchildren became adults, sleep-overs became much less frequent and Reynard sat alone and mute in my wife's sewing room.
A month ago, my wife discovered poor Reynard had become infested with mites but neither of us could bring ourselves to put the fox in the bin. The grandchildren found out about poor Reynard’s malaise and were insistent that Reynard should have a dignified end with due respect.
So we cremated Reynard in the backyard and up-cycled a redundant bird table and a charity shop vase, to create a permanently mounted memorial and art installation with his ashes safely stored inside for posterity".
'Reynard's Last Stand'
