An inspiring house full of surprises
Stereotyping is a sin that we all commit and driving through the Dales on the way to see artist Lesley Coates Jones I imagine an elderly lady in a twee cottage painting lovely landscapes. It's another lesson in never assuming anything when I arrive to find a quirky house full of amazing abstracts and a vivacious woman telling me in no uncertain terms that she does not paint sheep.
It's a wonderful surprise, and she has another. We get two for the price of one as her husband Ken is a gifted artist too. He is also a talented DIYer, who can tackle just about anything – and has done, thanks to what he calls Lesley's gipsy blood and her penchant for buying "wrecks".
They have moved many times during almost 50 years of marriage and have renovated everything from run-down cottages to a crumbling mansion in Silsden, near Keighley. "Ken's brilliant, he can do anything, which is good because we've never been able to afford to pay builders. I used to be completely promiscuous as far as property was concerned. If I saw a tumbledown wreck I had to have it and nurture it back to life, " says Lesley. Once she demanded that her husband stop the car on the Bront moors after she saw a shack with a corrugated roof.
"She shouted 'Stop the car. That's got potential', – and I drove off fast thinking 'there's no way I am converting that'," says Ken. After an itinerant existence, their five-bedroom house in the hamlet of Stalling Busk, near Leyburn, has been their home for the past 19 years. "I've done it up but I haven't quite finished it, because if I do I know Lesley will want to sell it and move again," jokes Ken.
It has a higgledy-piggedly layout and doubles as a home and workplace. Ken boxed off part of the landing to create an office and turned two bedrooms into studios. It is furnished with an interesting mish-mash of whatever they've collected over the years. "I'm a nest-builder but we've never had a lot of money, so it's evolved and I'm glad, because I don't like the idea of an instant home," says Lesley.
The house is light thanks to wobbly, white painted walls and it feels warm, happy and vibrant, reflecting the personalities of the people who live there. Ken, 69, and Lesley, 68, who have two grown-up children and seven grandchildren, are a perfect match. They fell in love after meeting at art college in Leeds when they were 18.
Both are from Yorkshire mining communities – he is from Rotherham and she is from Fitzwillliam, where she went to school with Geoff Boycott.
"I used to sit next to him in class. He wouldn't lend me his rubber because he was cross that I could spell tongue and he couldn't," she reveals.
Their dream was to be full-time artists, but the reality of having to pay bills meant they had to find other ways of making a living, so Ken taught art for a while, and in the 1970's they had a shop selling hippy gear before moving from Silsden to Gunnerside in Swaledale.
"The idea was to run art courses and paint, but we ended up being full-time hoteliers," says Lesley. They finally realised their ambition to be full-time painters when they moved to Busk House in 1990.
"How could you not love it?" says Lesley, who reckons that the hamlet near Semerwater has a population of 17, though 200 years ago it was bigger than Hawes and had five pubs. At the moment their house is full to bursting with their own work, some of it called in from galleries, in readiness for the North Yorkshire Open Studios event.
Whether you like modern art or not, you'll be mesmerised if you visit the Jones' home. This is abstract at its beguiling best. It demands and deserves attention and you'll find yourself lingering and studying it in a way you wouldn't over a more literal landscape or portrait.
Lesley's work is colourful and celebratory and is informed by her drawing skills and a fascination with ancient texts and alphabets. Ken's is sculptural, textural and darker, and one of his finest is in the guest room – an incredible triptych that reflects his interest in geology and religion, and is so powerful that one of his friends cried when he saw it.
He paints on canvas and also on wood, once taking a bedroom door off to use as a base after being gripped by an idea. Prices range from 200 to 3,000 and the paintings bring an erratic income.
"We've lived the last 20 years like a couple of students, not knowing whether we'll make it through to the next month. Thanks goodness for the old age pension," says Lesley. Fortunately money isn't everything and Lesley and Ken still manage to have an enviable lifestyle in a beautiful setting. "We love it here. It's very quiet but we're never bored," says Lesley. "We can get up in a morning and spend hours over the breakfast table discussing art, we paint and we both love music and we're learning to play guitar. I think realistically we'll have to leave at some point. It is a big house and we are getting older."
They are close to their 70th birthdays but appear a great deal younger.
"I think it's because artists never stop playing and experimenting," says Lesley. "We never grow up."
The North Yorkshire Open Studios event runs on Saturday June 20 and 21 and again on June 26, 27 and 28 between 10.30am and 5.30pm each day. For more information tel: 01756 748529 www.art-connections.org.uk
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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