There are still many things that Peter Cooke
would like to try his hand at — paper-making and feather-work are on his list.
For the moment, though, he will stick to the skill that he has been delighted
to make perfect over the past ten years: making delicate and unusual objects
out of shells.
As he leads
me round his apartment showing me his work, he points to a pair of
shell-covered ornaments(装饰品) above a fireplace. “I shan’t be at all
bothered if people don’t buy them because I have got so used to them, and to me
they’re lovely. I never meant to sell my work commercially. Some friends came
to see me about five years ago and said, ‘You must have an exhibition — people
ought to see these. We’ll talk to a man who owns an art gallery’”. The result
was an exhibition in London, at which 70 per cent of the objects were sold. His
second exhibition opened at the gallery yesterday. Considering the enormous
prices the pieces command —around ￡2,000 for the
ornaments — an empty space above the fireplace would seem a small sacrifice
for Cooke to make.
There are 86
pieces in the exhibition, with prices starting at￡225 for a shell-flower
in a crystal vase. Cooke insists that he has nothing to do with the prices and
is cheerily open about their level: he claims there is nobody else in the world
who produces work like his, and, as the gallery-owner told him, “Well, you’re
going to stop one day and everybody will want your pieces because there won’t
be any more.”
“I do wish, though,” says Cooke, “that I’d taken
this up a lot earlier, because then I would have been able to produce really
wonderful things — at least the potential would have been there. Although the
ideas are still there and I’m doing the best I can now, I’m more limited
physically than I was when I started.” Still, the work that he has managed to
produce is a long way from the common shell constructions that can be found in
seaside shops. “I have a miniature(微型的) mind,” he says,
and this has resulted in boxes covered in thousands of tiny shells, little
shaded pictures made from shells and baskets of astonishingly realistic
flowers.?
Cooke’s
quest(追求) for
beautiful, and especially tiny, shells has taken him further than his Norfolk
shore: to France, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa and the Philippines, to name
but a few of the beaches where he has lain on his stomach and looked for beauties
to bring home. He is insistent that he only collects dead shells and defends
himself against people who write him letters accusing him of stripping the
world’s beaches. “When I am collecting shells, I hear people’s great fat feet
crunching(嘎吱嘎吱地踩) them up far
faster than I can collect them; and the ones that are left, the sea breaks up.
I would not dream of collecting shells with living creatures in them or diving
for them, but once their occupants have left, why should I not collect them?”
If one bases this argument on the amount of luggage that can be carried home by
one man, the beauty of whose work is often greater than its natural parts, it
becomes very convincing indeed.
1.What does the reader learn about Peter Cooke
in the first paragraph?
A. He has produced hand-made objects in
different materials.?
B. He hopes to work with other materials in the
future.?
C. He has written about his love of making shell
objects.?
D. He was praised for his shell objects many
years ago.
2.When mentioning the cost of his shell objects,
Cooke ____.
A. cleverly changes the subject.
B.
defends the prices charged for his work.
C.
says he has no idea why the level
is so high.
D.
notes that his work will not always be so popular.
3.The “small sacrifice” in Paragraph 2 refers to
_________.?
A. the loss of Cooke’s ornaments? B.
the display of Cooke’s ornaments?
C. the cost of keeping Cooke’s ornaments D.
the space required to store Cooke’s ornaments
4.What does Cooke regret about his work?
A. He is not as famous as he should have been.?B. He makes less money than he should make.
C. He is less imaginative than he used to be.? D. He is not as skillful as
he used to be. ?
5.What does the reader learn about Cooke's
shell-collecting activities?
A. Not everyone approves of what he does.
B. Other
methods might make his work easier.
C. Other tourists get in the way of his
collecting.
D. Not all shells are the right size and shape
for his work
