WHEN it comes to art if you have had your work displayed in London and New York it must mean you have a fair bit of talent.
And you'd think that, having conquered those locations, getting a piece into Crawley Museum would be easy.
But not so for one Southgate artist.
Jeff Herbert set about showing off his creativity in London, New York and Paris because "they are the three cities everyone talks about".
And while so far he's had to settle for a village in the south of France rather than Paris, he has managed to get his work into the other two.
However, by his own admission, nobody seems overly interested in his latest offering, which he hoped would be installed at the new Crawley Museum when it opens on the High Street.
Despite turning up to a number of council meetings, sending letters to the council and having been in regular contact with Crawley Museum Society, he hasn't managed to generate interest in what has so far been a one-man artistic crusade.
Mr Herbert, from Wolstonbury Close, Southgate, said: "There's me struggling and working hard to make the (piece of) art but Crawley Borough Council are not really interested. So I've dumped it on them.
"I got so fed up I left it at the Town Hall and haven't seen it since."
Upon hearing the museum was to get a new home, Mr Herbert set about coming up with a way of celebrating the news with a piece of art which could also raise money for the museum's upkeep.
It consists of a collection of bricks with the Crawley emblem on it and sandstone around the edges.
He also wanted to create a "buy a brick" initiative to go alongside it.
The idea was for residents to pay £10 to have their name added to one of the bricks contained in the piece of art.
Chris Mullins, the council's current cabinet member for leisure and culture, says it is up to the museum society to decide whether to sanction his idea.
He said: "Anything which generates money for the museum I think is a good idea but I have spoken to Mr Herbert about this and explained that it is a decision for the museum."
Nobody from the museum society was available for comment.
Mr Herbert's work has been installed near the top of a New York skyscraper and at the Australian Bicentennial Exhibition in London.
The piece in New York was a mini Statue of Liberty in glass to commemorate the restoration of the real statue in the mid-1980s.
His boss at British Caledonian, for whom he worked at the time, sent him to their New York office to have it installed on the 100th floor when he approached him with the idea.
Mr Herbert said: "Everyone thought I was crazy and they all laughed at me but they weren't laughing when I got given a plane ticket to New York."
One of his neighbours, who had a property in the French village, took another piece of Mr Herbert's art when he visited, and a map he created of Australia was added to the exhibition in London in 1988.
On top of that, several miniature heads of poet Percy Shelley were accepted by Blenheim Palace.
Despite all his past success, Mr Herbert, 68, has become increasingly frustrated that he's received little interest in his newest artwork.
He said: "If one of the councillors had come up with this idea, or one of the museum society, they would be saying 'let's get into this' but because it's just silly old me doing it, they are not interested."
![Artist furious that Crawley Museum will not display his donation]( "Artist furious that Crawley Museum will not display his donation")
