Artist Hattie Hambridge explores Tim Riddihough’s Pett Level home, in words and pictures.
Video: Edit + Sound by Samuel A Johnson
At the bottom of the second steepest hill in Sussex, a short walk from the sea, lies a garden of wondrous sculptures. An overgrown meadow of giant daisies, ideas and colour. Strange creatures made of mismatched parts come alive with character and greet you. Bolts, screws, wheels and propellers form the faces and bodies of these beings, who guard the home of their creator Tim Riddihough.
Stepping into Tim’s world of boundless creation is like stepping into a dream I once had, bursting at the seams with unconscious images. Or stumbling into the pages of an old children’s book, filled with magical faces you feel you know. I walk up the garden path, past two rainbow-painted sheds and a twelve-foot yellow bird, to the front door. A green bird man rides a red bicycle along the front wall of the house, with faces and bird-people looking on. A colourful spaceship with a rickety wooden staircase made from bric-a-brac sits around back awaiting take-off. A group of small green, blue and gold ceramic women lie sunbathing on the garage roof.
His home is a fortress of art. The walls, the ceilings… nothing has been left bare, everything a potential surface for art to inhabit. It is a shrine to the imagination, full of sculpted mythical beings. It is very much alive. A red aeroplane hangs above me in the living room; the walls are covered in drawings, taps, paintings, clocks, animal bones, old newspaper clippings. Words jump out at me: ‘Pet shop man waits to pounce.’ ‘Immortality beckons.’ ‘Better hair days.’
Tim sits in an armchair in the living room amongst his silent beings, which look this way and that, standing on tables and hanging on walls. He is silhouetted against the light casting in through the window. His hair is grey, he wears a red t-shirt, sandals, and ripped blue denim shorts. We let a buzzing fly out of the window. Tim talks about his career in aviation. “My passion was aeroplanes,” he tells me. “Anything with wings is interesting to me.”
After 34 years of commercial flying, he found art to be a revelation. “It’s all kinds of improvisations. Nothing deliberate, really.”
Tim Riddihough is a creator of worlds. His home exists as a treasure chest of inspiration that exceeds the traditional bounds of the artist’s studio and becomes a realm of its own. Entering Tim’s world is a reminder that we can simply live in art.