At the Swell sculpture festival at nearby Currumbin Beach we saw, and loved, this work, titled Fiddle Sticks, by Col Henry.
We think the name might not translate universally. The âsticksâ relate to a game Suzie says is called Pick Up Sticks and Des recalls being Fiddlesticks. This is a game where you throw down a bunch of colored sticks and then use the black stick to lift other sticks off the pile successively. When in the process you make another stick move you lose. Points are scored on the basis of the colors of the sticks you have retrieved.
The term âfiddlesticks!â was sometimes used by our parents’ generation as a socially acceptable expression of disbelief in some other person’s utterance with which they disagreed strongly: nicer than âwhat unmitigated rubbish!â or some other, more vulgar expression that might spring to mind. That usage seems to go back to at least the 18th century – http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-fid1.htm
The artist of the sculpture, Col Henry, clearly has the game in mind. He says the sculpture âplays with the concept of unpredictabilityâ.
