A Pier and some Sculptures

 We found these steel silhouette sculptures on the Promenade close to the pier at Colwyn Bay.  They are by Freshwest and depict a family on holiday by the sea.

The pier is a new one.   

When we last visited Colwyn Bay, which seems a very long time ago now, there was a building on the old pier which was mainly a cafe with several stalls around selling things like second hand books and beach toys. 

The first phase of the first pier on this site opened on 1st June 1900 and was known as the Victoria Pier and Pavilion.  A second phase, doubing the length of the pier, was finished around 1905.  In 1911 the owners tried to sell the pier as it wasn't profitable but it failed to sell before the outbreak of WWI in 1914.  A small theatre was added to the end of the pier in 1916.

In 1922 the Pavilion theatre was destroyed by fire, but the newer little theatre survived.  Construction of a second pavilion began in 1923 and it lasted ten years before it was, like the first pavilion, destroyed by fire

 A third pavilion was built with fire retardant materials in an Art Deco style.  The inside walls were decorated by Mary Adshead and Eric Ravilious.  Apparently they were abstract works depicting underwater scenes.  The new, third pavilion opened in 1934.  There were many alterations made over the years due to changes in taste and fashion. Meanwhile the pier deteriorated.

 

By 2018 after much legal wrangling the whole pier was demolished and those Art Deco murals that had not succumbed to damage by damp were rescued by Conwy Council conservation staff.

The new pier was opened on 21st July 2021. 

 

Here is a - link - to more about the murals and another - link - to an article about the history of the pier.

Radical Horizons at Chatsworth

Yesterday we were on our way to visit a friend we hadn't seen since last Autumn and we had stopped to break the journey at Baslow in Derbyshire. A short walk from the centre of Baslow takes you on to the Chatsworth Estate.

Below is the Kissing Gate which takes you into the estate. Inspired by Mrs Jill Cannon and made by Mathers Engineering of Tibshelf it enables wheelchair access to the grounds.  

 

At present Chatsworth is hosting sculptures from The Art of the Burning Man which is held annually in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA.

 

There are twelve sculptures in all and I was hoping to see three or four of the sculptures nearest to the entrance we used.  I wasn't sure how far I could walk but I did quite well.  My little step counter said I'd done 5,500 steps by the time we got back to the car park.

 

There are so many lovely trees in the park but worryingly drifts of crisp, brown leaves were scattered across the grass in some areas.

 

Above and below the first sculpture we came across is Relevé by Rebekah Waites.  It is based on the legend of the Nine Ladies stone circle, a Bronze Age site not far from Chatsworth.  The sculpture celebrates the rebellious spirit of art, dance and music.

It was constructed by youth volunteers and school groups from the local community. 

 

 

The sculpture will be burned at the end of the exhibition in a celebration of 'letting go' of the exhibition which is a tradition of the Burning Man exhibition.

Above and below Lodestar by Randy Polumbo.

Lodestar is made from a second World War military plane.  It has, according to the description, 'blossomed into a contemplative flower and gathering place for pollinators'.

 

It is decorated  with hand blown glass flowers.

Above and below Coralee by Dana Albany and Flash Hopkins.

 

Dana Albany worked with children from the local community to build the Mermaid at Chatsworth.

It is based on the tale of the mermaid's pool which can be found just below Kinder Scout in the High Peaks.

It is made from objects found by the local children and also objects donated by the workers on the Chatsworth estate.

Below is the last sculpture of the four we managed to get to in the time we had.

This one is called Le Attrata and is by Margaret Long and Orion Fredericks.

 

Three moths sit on top of steel spires or flames. There are glowing chrysalises around the sculpture.

I sat on one of the seats incorporated into the sculpture to look up at the moths.

This sculpture was quite popular with visitors mainly because they could sit for a while and take it all in.

 

It was time to make our way back to the car and carry on with our journey.  We saw four out of eight sculptures and are going to go back in a week or two to approach the others from the opposite side of the estate, hopefully we'll see a few more.

As we walked back we spotted the deer under the trees.  

They were happily grazing and not too bothered by the visitors.

 

 

 

Yorkshire Sculpture Park - Part One

As promised in a previous post a few more photos and details about the exhibitions we saw on our visit to the YSP.  We travelled up through Buxton and Glossop and as we drove by the reservoirs to join the main Sheffield to Manchester road we could see the smoke from the fire on Saddleworth Moor which had started the night before.  We drove over Holme Moss by the transmitting station and down into Holmfirth to join the road towards Wakefield.

The first exhibition we saw was the one we had specifically gone to see -
The Wish Post by Mister Finch 

The accompanying leaflet says 'Welcome to the eccentric and fantastical world of The Wish Post - an intricately hand-sewn and constructed menagerie'.

'More than seventy-five individual soft sculptures showcase Mister Finch's masterful combination  of up-cycled and new materials'

The story of the exhibition centres around the magical kingdom where woodland animals collect and sort the wishes of other creatures which are breathed into envelopes and posted into toadstool postboxes.

For one night each year the woodland animals have the chance to have their wishes and dreams to be whisked away on the breeze and for them to come true.  The creatures gather together to prepare the wishes for the wind ahead of The Wish Post Festival.

It's a fascinating exhibition.  The lady on the reception desk said 'It's out of this world' and she was right.  The animals are quite magical and wonderfully sculptured and created.  I was enchanted by them.

In the exhibition you can find badgers with coats full of badges,  bell ringing hedgehogs, thimble tailed rats, rabbits with toadstools, elegant swans and dapper moles.

When we visited on Monday the exhibition had been open for two days and every one of the sculptures had been sold. How wonderful for Mister Finch.

I loved the badgers and the moles.  Fox and ratty were there too.  I was reminded of one of my very favourite childhood books The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham.

We wandered around the exhibition for ages taking it all in and marvelling at each new little intricacy we found.  It was time for a quick lunch in the cafe before moving on to another two exhibits which I'll show you in part two.

A bit of Controversy

Last week we went for a walk along a section of the Cauldon Canal that we hadn't been on before. As you know from previous posts we've walked quite a bit of both the Cauldon and the Trent and Mersey Canals in the last couple of years but this stretch was new to us. We parked close to the canal at Stockton Brook and joined the path going towards the city. The paths were quite good to walk on and as it was a lovely sunny day there were plenty of walkers out and about. At the beginning of the walk we found two rather interesting sculptures and paused to cross the canal and take a closer look at them.

As you can see they are made up of different images in different mediums all to represent the industries and well known connections of Stoke-on-Trent. There are bottle ovens, pieces of pottery, cups and saucers, bowls as well as Reginald Mitchell's Spitfire and the porthole presumably because Captain John Smith of the Titanic came from Stoke too.

Unfortunately the glaze from one of the embedded pots was frost shattered and the two people who looked at the sculpture before us placed the piece on top of the sculpture. I hope it will be found and mended before too long.

As we walked away from the sculpture across the bridge we were stopped by a couple out walking who wanted to know what we thought of the sculpture. We discussed its merits for a while and it appeared that the cost of the sculptures and the pathways had been around twenty thousand pounds. The couple approved of the new pathways but were quite scathing about the sculptures - for three reasons. Firstly because they didn't think they fitted in on the canalside, secondly they thought the embedded pots were 'naff' (their word) in that they were not indicative of the beautiful pottery and china made here but rather cheap and tawdry looking and thirdly they didn't like the fact that British Waterways had used a non local sculptor, but one who has done work for them on other canals in England and Wales.

The sculptor is Anthony Lysycia whom the couple had met and pronounced a very nice chap but felt that there were local sculptors who could have done just as well.

As we left them to carry on with our walk I was thinking about what they had said about the sculptures particularly with regard to the embedded pots. It would have been a shame to use anything other than ordinary, everyday pottery as it may eventually be vandalised (I sincerely hope not but we are living in strange times at the moment) and also for every beautiful piece of Wedgwood, Doulton or Minton made over the years there have been far more everyday wares made, maybe cheap and 'naff' to some but full of interest to others.

The second sculpture was bathed in dappled light and shadows so was harder to photograph but had a similar theme to the other one. So it would seem that some of the residents of Stockton Brook are reserving judgment on the sculptures and are concerned that the grants of money have been used in this way. I wonder?

Monsieur Bibendum

This morning as we set off for our usual walk around Trentham Lake we came across Monsieur Bibendum. He wasn't there last time we walked the same way but this time - there he was.

The 10ft high Michelin Man was carved with a chainsaw from a tree stump, taken from an ancient sequoia tree, by Wolverhampton based artist Fred Woods. It is one of several sculptures that are to be placed around the gardens depicting industries, both past and present, that have been important to the growth of Stoke-on-Trent. The Michelin factory has been a major employer in Stoke-on-Trent for about eighty years and still employs around one thousand two hundred people in the city.

Monsieur Bibendum, the iconic logo of the Michelin company was designed in 1898 by French artist Marius Rossillon and was often depicted with a glass of beer and a cigar. The new Bibendum is slightly less rotund and an altogether more environmentally aware, abstemious character than his 20th century counterpart which was voted logo of the century in 2000.

Although I think that as a work of art this Monsieur Bibendum is very unusual I still prefer the three little blue and white ones that run around the roundabout near the factory in Stoke. It will be very interesting to see what different sculptures Mr Woods will design to depict the other major industries of Stoke-on-Trent.

Scenes from a Garden - Part One

There have been very few opportunities to get out and about just recently but last week we managed to find a couple of hours or so of dry, fairly sunny weather to visit a couple of gardens we'd been wanting to see for a long time. First up was Rennishaw Hall in Derbyshire. Family home of the Sitwell family. The Hall is still lived in by the family but the gardens are open for viewing, as are the family museums - mostly dedicated to the 'terrible trio' as they were known. Costume, books, photos and other mementos of Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell jostling for position with exotic costumes from opera and stage productions, ordinary but somehow spine chilling, everyday objects used by Hitler and Eva Braun and Mussolini and Clara Petacci, Gertrude Lawrence's letters and fur coat and Field Marshall Montgomery's pink pyjamas. The gardens were truly wonderful and outside I found this amazing sculpture.



It depicts the British cellist Amaryllis Fleming (half sister the writer Ian Fleming and illegitimate daughter of the artist Augustus John.) The work is by sculptor (or should I say sculptress?) Fiore de Henriques. Below is one of the many lovely seats - unfortunately all too wet to sit on - dotted around the gardens. This one just caught my eye, I'm not sure why.