On a voyage of the mind

Clare Henry of her passion for collecting.

ART IS very important in the life of Jane MacAllister Dukes. ''I

firmly believe it to be uplifting -- whether you know it or not,'' she

says. ''Art not only teaches you how to look, it gives you strength. If

you hang it on the wall you get a gut-wrenching boost. It's an

incredible bonus.''

Her collection started organically, but grew overnight when she

married in 1990. ''I'm not a materialist at all and I never had a bean,

yet I've ended up with a massive collection. I didn't realise how many

pictures I'd got until I recently had them framed. It's all due to

people's generosity. The wedding presents were amazing, stunning,

unbelievable! It was so touching. Almost all our wedding presents were

pictures from people I'd known for years. That response, that

groundswell of support, gave me a lift-off to a new life.''

She began her career in Carlisle and Sheffield and now lives in London

and Nice, but from 1980 until her marriage to the media mogul and

Channel 4 founding director, Justin Dukes, she devoted a decade of her

life to the famous Demarco Gallery. ''I worked for years completely

unpaid or for a pittance. In the end I had to sell my flat to help pay

off the gallery debts. Nevertheless it was a great privilege to work for

the Demarco Gallery because I was paid -- on a spiritual level.''

Their wedding was memorable. For the guests it was pure performance;

theatrical in the best sense, even her dress, an artwork in itself, the

fine floating flower-layered organza designed by award-winning Abe

Hamilton. Presents came from artists John Byrne (''he said it was 'a wee

minder' ''), the American John Mooney, Dawson Murray, Lys Hansen, Bill

Wright, Marj Bond, Brian McCann, Rose Frain, Chris Orr, Dorothy

Sterling, the Polish artist Edward Dwurnik, Rudi Fuchs (a Barry Flanagan

etching), and many more. Always fond of angels, several artists supplied

appropriate images, like Ainslie Yule's Fallen Angel. George Mackay

Brown wrote them a beautiful poem, An Angel Visited Their House

Unheralded.

Among the many artists she knows and loves MacAllister highlights

five: Pat Douthwaite, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Joseph Beuys, Paul Neagu, and

Alastair Park. ''They made the biggest impact on me. All have a

wonderful sense of the ridiculous. You need that to enable you to live!

Beuys was always laughing. He had time for everyone -- just like a

priest. My art college never taught us about Beuys. A disgrace! But

perhaps that was good because I wasn't in awe of this towering

international figure and he became a friend. I used to send him haggis

and bannocks!'' Beuys's image, New Beginnings Are In The Offing,

dedicated to Jane, hangs in their sitting-room.

MacAllister's tiny Pat Douthwaite sketch is in her two-year-old son's

bedroom along with wedding-present pictures, Jack Knox's Dove and

Gunther Uecker's Embossed Nails. ''Douthwaite is so staggering, so

fantastic -- a great artist and vastly under-rated. That picture came

from one of Demarco's exhibitions in 1987. It was not expensive but a

vast sum to me because I was a poverty-stricken administrator. But I

just loved it. I had to have it. There's an auction at Phillips in

Edinburgh on September 1 of 30 years' work from her studio. I hope to be

there.''

Park died an unsung hero. ''He'd been really hurt by the Arts Council

who sat on his work and then rejected it. He gave me a piece from his

City Art Centre show. I'd never part with it in a million years.''

MacAllister's Hamilton Finlay prints were early gifts from Richard

Demarco. ''Richard collaborated with Ian on several prints in 1970

including A Rock Rose, Little Seamstress, and Glossary.'' She also has a

landscape sketch for his 60ft panels for the Golf Hotel in St Andrews

and some drawings from the 1960s and 70s. ''Richard gave me a whole

stack in 1980. I kept six, including one of stone circles which I framed

for the hall. However, my very first Demarco prints -- I bought two for

the price of one after considerable barter -- I gave to my boyfriend who

'redesigned them with his feet' when I left him! I have a 1966

semi-abstract Connemara landscape of Richard's, courtesy of trustee John

Martin. Richard doesn't have enough time to draw but when he's good, he

is wonderful.''

She met Demarco in December 1979 in Cumberland. ''I was working as a

saddler -- which is really sculpture in leather -- and teaching

part-time at Carlise College of Art. My parents had five children and

four went to art school. My dad was a vet. He once accepted a picture in

payment for an operation on a cat! I think he'd have liked to be an

artist. One brother is a musician and my sister Lizzie who died was a

highly talented ceramist.

''Richard was lecturing on 'The Long Way Round to the Edinburgh

Festival'. I arrived late just as he showed a slide of the Marques which

he ran as a 'university before the mast'. He was about to sail round the

British Isles and quoted the line, 'All my life I've been after an

adventure, a pure dispassionate adventure such as befell early heroic

voyagers'. I just knew I had to drop everything and go. Help make it

happen. Jump in the deep end.''

For the next 10 years, first as assistant, then as deputy artistic

director, she travelled the world, organising and facilitating shows and

exchanges with Poland, Italy, France, Romania, Ireland, the States, and

Sarajevo. Now a trustee of the Demarco European Art Foundation, she is

taking part in the Demarco Festival exhibition with a piece titled

Sarajevo Communion: For the Living, the Dead and the Yet Unborn. ''It

combines mirror symbols of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity reflecting

into one another. It's inspired by Beuys, who is currently the main

focus of the major Edinburgh Festival show of German art at the

Fruitmarket Gallery and also at the Demarco Foundation in York Lane.''

She is also working on a film, Sail of the Demonic Women, by the Polish

author Witkiewicz and has just designed and made a festival altar-cloth

for St Giles which is inaugurated tomorrow. ''After years of enabling,

it's bloody marvellous to be doing my own work.''

Justin also collects pictures, so their London house has much to

accommodate, but four works by Christo take pride of place in the

drawing-room. ''Christo gave me those images of his wrapped Paris Pont

Neuf when we visited his studio in New York and Justin bought me the

Christo wrapped Horse.'' Before their marriage Justin gave her a gentle

Mary Newcombe oil of girls jumping for chestnuts and a Calman cartoon

which says: ''I'm bored in bed because I'm not my type.'' He also bought

her a Neagu box construction. ''I adore Paul's work. I have a

magnificent wooden Hyphen sculpture. He stayed with me in Edinburgh in

1988. It was a present for my blue room.''

As I left she grabbed my arm. ''The great thing is it's possible to

collect in your imagination. Remember that wonderful sculpture Paul made

when we were in Sarajevo? A great big sexy thing vibrating in space. It

was made of railway sleepers that had to go back after the show, so it

no longer exists. But I can conjure it up in my mind. If art hits the

chord you never forget it. You may not be able to collect it -- but you

have it in your head anyway.''