I don't remember exactly when it was but it must have been in the early seventies. I went with my brother Simon who was then at art school and my mother. I would have been about 12 or 13. see annexe
A little later we were all on a family holiday in the Lake district when we came across a place called Backbarrow where there used to be a dye works where they made (or used to make) Reckitt's Blue which was a little block of blue pigment with a cloth covering which people added to their wash, in pre-biological detergent days, to give it that "blue whiteness." The whole area was littered with this stuff dumped by the side of the road, some of it intact in its packaging some of it crumbling to blue powder. The colour was the exact ultramarine of International Klein Blue and it transformed the whole village - basically one street and a river, also stained blue - into an unintentional art installation. I seem to remember we took home boxes of the stuff. It's all gone now and the works is an hotel.
The blue thing became important for me. I did a Batman collage using material from an annual but the best bit was the areas between the collaged elements which I filled with ultramarine poster paint.
Blue was always an important colour in art. Ultramarine (literally: over the sea) was made from Lapis Lazuli which was mostly found in Afghanistan. It's rarity both as a colour in nature and as a commodity (something it shares with gold, which Yves Klein used extensively too) made it the colour of choice for the garments of important personages, the Virgin Mary in particular.
There is a lot of blue in the Tre Riche Heur too. I first came across these in postcard form in Watford Bookshop which I used to visit most Saturdays. But it was probably Simon who pointed me in their direction.
On my visit to Tate Modern I bought a book on Yves Klein.
Klein conducting his monotone symphony, which consisted of one single note played continuously followed by a period of silence.
