Message in a Bottle found in Staithes Harbour !

 

 

This image was inspired by a piece of Sculpture which has had a Gallery of Modern Art, MIMA,  erected by it’s side. The sculpture is called ‘Bottle of Notes’ and was created in 1993 by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, artists who are well known for their large-scale public works. More from them here,  http://www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com/largescaleprojects/bottleofnotes.htm. Now it’s been made and the Earths’ precious resources used let’s share it with others.

Redcar vertical Pier One & Other

Having just moved to border country on the North East Coast, that is the border between North Yorkshire and what lies beyond, the couldn’t be missed opportunity to create yet another, One & Other, presented itself when I saw the Vertical Pier at Redcar for the first time.

The Redcar Beacon / Vertical Pier to the people of Sunny Redcar, as they wanted a traditional replacement for the one they used to have, shot to national fame when it was voted onto a shortlist of six projects announced by Building Design magazine. Its annual Carbuncle Cup competition claims to recognise the worst architectural projects. The cup proved to be beyond the grasp of Redcar, and they failed to bring it home. Perhaps they would have better luck with this version ?

Emley & One & other

emleygormleysculpturepark1sharp

As a regular visitor to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and resident of West Yorkshire the ever present presence of Emley Moor mast creates a sensation of someone looking over your shoulder all the time. When you’re out and about you’ll suddenly find yourself glancing to the horizon to see if it’s still there or you’ll discover a view of the tower you hadn’t seen previously and be pleasantly amazed. ( Yes there will be a gallery of pure Emley shots and maybe an ode or two later. )

The Sculpture Park affords the ‘ Emley Gazers ‘ a splendid view, weather permitting, and excellent photo opportunity with the foreground parkland a subtle contrast, so they will be happy but the experience of the Moores plinthed in the open spaces being dwarfed by the scale of Emley and even of the trees kept making me want to create a sculpture at least as tall as a tree so it could compete on a level footing.

Andrew Gormley has realised this for the park by attaching a cast figure of himself on top of a tree in the park, getting over the problem of constructing something as tall as a tree with the attendant planning permission problems that can entail. However the tree has to be dead and the first tree he was on was bio-degraded to an unsafe state and he had to be lowered to safety. He’s now on a new dead tree which I think will also bio-degrade quickly as the pictures I took of it earlier in the spring had wasps or bees flying in and out so I guess there is a nest in there. Maybe they will have to construct a fake dead tree and face planning after all. Always, keep it simple, they keep telling me.

So putting two and two together I decided to go for the tall time sculptural scale and here submit my answer to the problem, Emley Mast lakeside at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, One & other on top and plonk it, sorry erect it in google virtual space, no planning permission and virtually no costs. The pic is a photomontage of what it might look like.