Thanksgiving for the life of Edna Read FRSA

Background

Edna Read was a remarkable woman compared by one friend as ‘a ball-bearing, eg shiny, beautiful, indestructible and always on the move’. Sadly indestructible she was not!

Her life was shaped first by her history - an Anglo-Japanese teenager in Britain during the 1940s - and, secondly, by the intuitive way she embraced the visual arts as a critical and vital humanising presence in the life of the emerging new city of Milton Keynes.

She remained beautiful into her 80s, remaining energetic, persuasive and also completely impossible at times. She died aged 83 following a road accident in November 2012.

The Remarkable Edna Read

Address by The Reverend David Moore

Tuesday 13 November 2012

There is no avoiding it - I cannot avoid being political!

The news that a Henry Moore sculpture sold to Tower Hamlets Council in East London at a reduced price is now to be sold to offset the impact of Government cuts is, I fear, a clear sign of the true terror of our times - that of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

It is not just that the economy is in trouble, but far more critically, the vision of civil society, of our life together, has itself become disposable! Can you imagine what Edna would be doing about the Moore sculpture - she would be firing off letters and emails in all directions, whilst the rest of us go Tut, Tut,Tut and carry on as usual!

Edna understood value and worth in terms of human enrichment, community enrichment ..... for her, cities were not battery farms for people, but launch pads for exploring the, as yet, unknown. For Edna art was far more than decorative, she believed it to be transformative, the very stuff that leads the human adventure/development.

With the death of Edna Read this city has lost an arts Champion at a terribly dangerous moment for the arts. We must all pray - believers and unbelievers together (!) - that the challenge of taking up the baton of her vision will be accepted as a high priority in these austere times. We dare not allow the present restraints to lull us into believing that austerity means the loss of artistic vision, that the new, the unknown is somehow unattainable or put on hold.

There was a time when Edna regularly drove down to London in an old van, convincing Gallery owners to lend her paintings for her to hang in the new offices and other work places of Milton Keynes! You heard earlier John Napleton’s comment on an Arts Loan Scheme Edna organised with the Library Service.

Edna believed to her very bones that the visual arts were as important to civil society as public footpaths, clean water and roundabouts! It is because she was so driven by her vision that I want to nudge you again with words from John Chapter 1 and the Andrew Motion poem A Garden in Japan.

St John writing to an early community of Christians described how he saw things: They heard the conversation still going on, here, now, and took part, discovering a new way of being people.

New ways of being people - that was Edna.

Or again the concluding verses of A Garden in Japan :

but the real event

will be my decision

to lift a red leaf

from the fang of rock

overhanging the pool,

and so free the current

to fall to earth

which will never again

be one and the same (Andrew Motion The Cinder Path)

Edna refuted the view that we could do nothing. She believed there were things we could all do which would make a difference. She was a ‘believer’! We could all find a leaf to lift which would release some energy!

‘Visions’ don’t have a particularly good press at the present time - perhaps to a certain genre of film makers - but visions, or if you prefer, deep seated change, only takes place in real time - never somewhere else, and that was what Edna was always about. Deep seated change and Public art was her gateway and her highway.

She knew in her heart the immense potential of the arts and how a place as ‘barren’ as a new city could be gently transformed by the arts, especially public art, that a culture could be led through infancy and puberty to becoming a life-giving entity.

As we might give a meal a lift by the addition of a twist of black pepper, so Edna knew the arts was charged with a similar mystery and as such was as important as anything else - a twist by the hand or imagination of an artist can produce/uncover the deepest mystery of life!

A work of art can last for ever while almost everything else in life must change or die!

To my mind, the arts are the permanent hand and footprint of God in the world. Edna also knew the art of lifting the leaf, allowing the water to flow and everything being transformed. But this has to be done on the hoof, in the hustling and bustling of everyday life. It is not reified activity.

I remember, as yesterday, the first time I met Edna. It was 18 years ago in her small office on the lower floor of Saxon Court. I was the newly-appointed City Centre Chaplain and had an interest in the arts. I was looking for a brief introduction to the arts in Milton Keynes and I got far more than I had bargained for!

The fact that I had stumbled upon more than I could quantify or comprehend did not matter - that first conversation sealed a friendship which sadly concluded a few days before her death. It was in the Guildhall of this church, a Fair Trade Sale - we had a coffee, lots of laughter and as usual plotting, plotting, plotting. And I must say that although she was frail, she looked spectacular! She was herself a fantastic work of art!

Over the years she introduced me to artists, arts administrators, politicians and community leaders - her address book must have been phenomenal - and it was in and through that address book that she steered her own vision of a ‘world made right’. (How I would like to get my hands on it!)

I recall her speaking of her burning desire as a 14 year old (1943) of not wanting to appear to be Japanese, of wanting to pass as English. She wanted to be tall, white and blonde, not small and dark. The fact that her best efforts were futile probably led to even greater determination, ingenuity and guile in later life!

The Exhibition at this Church ‘The Japanese in Britain’ was an outstanding success. It involved me being driven by Edna to London to meet with possible funders, but also hearing stories from her childhood. Her driving certainly did encourage one to pray! On one occasion she drove straight into the Royal Academy and demanded to park outside the College of Antiquarians and we were immediately admitted. We had tea and cake and left!

You have already heard mention of those three exhibitions in the CBX building - they were absolutely outstanding by anyone’s standards - she put down markers about vision and quality and audacity which are hard to live with and that is the point. ‘A world made right’ does not come cheap and you can’t buy it. It has to be worked for.

Paul Tillich fled Nazi Germany for America. To my mind he was one of the 20th century’s most remarkable theologians - he learned to squeeze himself beyond the immediate mysteries and problems of life to a position where he could form a grand, more detached vision - indeed not unlike Edna. Tillich wrote this about the arts:

“.... the arts open up a dimension of reality which is otherwise hidden, and they open up our own being for receiving this reality.  Only the arts can do this: science, philosophy, moral action and religious devotion cannot.  The artist brings to our senses, and through them to our whole being, something of the depth of our world and of ourselves, something of the mystery of being.” 

Edna may not have put things quite like that but that is what she was about and that is why she was so passionate in her support for so many artists. Her vision outstripped most of our dreams! For her, what she did was not passing fancy, no time filler, this was the STUFF of life itself. She “heard the conversation going on” and joined in! And she was at it until the very end.

Recently Edna was in conversation with this church as to how it might be possible to fund the reinstallation of a Ronnie Rae Sculpture in front of this church. Her proposal was a lease-lending arrangement leading eventually to a transfer of ownership. She just could not stop working against impossible odds, for public sculpture in this city.

It was, of course, Edna that we have to thank for the beautiful Willi Soukop papier maché sculptures in the Reception Area of this Church and the fantastic Madonna and Child in the Chapel. Most of us, including me, have no idea of the debt we owe to this woman.

Public Sculpture in Milton Keynes was a deep, deep concern for Edna - she considered it to be the Jewel in the Crown of Milton Keynes and as such required care and conservation. One of her dreams (that did not come to fruition) was for vacation time courses in art conservation for young people - both in terms of care for our heritage but also in terms of opening windows to career opportunities for young people in this city. She ached for her vision to spread beyond the art specialist, to cascade down to the poorest streets and homes of Milton Keynes.

Find a piece of public sculpture in MK and you will find a trace memory of Edna.

In conclusion, a personal comment - I started making sculptures at the age of 50. The first object I exhibited was at Edna’s insistence! It was at an exhibition she had organised at the then De Montfort University in MK. Since then, somehow, I have curated 16 exhibitions as far afield as Edinburgh, Taunton, Winchester, Westminster, Tower Hamlets and, of course, Milton Keynes, including places where exhibitions were virtually unknown. It was her, she set that ball rolling! She caused something dormant within me to kick start into life. I also “heard the conversation still going on and joined in”. Edna the evangelist!

A Champion has left us ... another red leaf has been lifted, causing much to change .... painful change, untimely change ... and for the moment there is a pause in the conversation. Rest in Peace dear friend .... we will find ways to honour your memory. Remembering your fortitude we will face the new challenges ahead of us.

In Biblical terms Edna was the Good Samaritan - the one who did the right thing. None of us can say we have not been given a good example.

PS This morning I received an email from Ronnie and Pauline Rae in Edinburgh. It is their wish to donate one of Ronnie’s granite sculptures to the memory of Edna and it is their wish that it be sited in front of this Church - that means, it being granite, her memory will be here forever and ever. Amen.