The mother of invention: Nick Curtis meets Hazel Jones, eccentric inventor of the utterly useless
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Your support makes all the difference.An inventor, artist and craftsperson, Hazel Jones's work also qualifies her as a fully paid-up Great British Eccentric. Her inventions are designed to make us notice things. One of the things is gravel. That's why her Gravel Collecting Sticks (slender brass and bronze pooper-scoop devices for, well, collecting gravel) sit alongside her Gravel Trolleys (small bronze wheely things with rows of individual cups for each stone) in her new residency-cum- workshop at the Studio of London's Young Vic Theatre. It's not all about gravel, of course. Once you've seen her set of Blossom Catchers, you'll wonder how you've ever managed without one.
There are the Tea-Splatters for throwing minute quantities of tea around. There are the Ticket Winders, Shredders and Fancy-Edge Rippers ('For when you're bored on buses,' says Jones). There are the romantic Ear-Nibblers and Chin-Chuckers designed for Valentine's Day exhibitions. And there's the Belly Button Protector. It's a tiny circular shield on a long strap. 'I invented it when I was pregnant,' says Jones, 'to protect your belly button when it, you know, protrudes.'
Jones describes herself as 'an artist when I exhibit and a craftsperson when I'm applying for craft grants'. Her lateral imagination provides an insight into the British time-wasting psyche. There's a beguiling practicality to these eloquently useless inventions. They are mostly bronze and brass (although there is a Chocolate Safe for a single chocolate button) and unpolished because Jones hates chemicals, which gives them an antique air of Victorian gadgetry.
The obvious comparison is with Heath Robinson, though it's one which Jones rejects: 'He only worked on paper, he didn't really invent anything.' Besides, her inventions all - well, nearly all - work. She is mortified that the Tea Leaf Steam Iron doesn't actually produce steam, and that her Currant Stretcher snaps them in half.
Jones has a workbench in the centre of the Studio, where she may begin work on a device for mending broken balloons. Visitors are welcome to ask for demonstrations, and should blow up and burst a balloon on the way in to provide raw material. As I drag myself away, she is being photographed with her Egg Roller. It's a tiny wheeled cart with a long handle that enables you to roll an egg as you walk, and is surrounded by egg shell. She comes over to give me a badge with the words 'tea stain' and a tea stain on it. Like all Jones's work, it's charming, witty, absolutely useless and undoubtedly unique.
To 18 Dec, Young Vic Studio, 66 The Cut, London SE1. Jones is there 12-5pm and to 8.30pm some evenings (071-928 6363)
(Photograph omitted)
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