Green men and a bowing crow - 'In the Downbelow'

I went into the crypt under the church of St John on the Wall in Bristol today, to see 'In the Downbelow', the latest exhibition by the sculptor and model maker Tom Astley. 

The crypt dates back to the early 14th century and one of the highlights of the place, for me, was the collection of carved green man faces on the roof bosses. They are quite low down compared to most churches and cathedrals, so can be easily studied from floor level.

This one has a fine set on teeth on show!

The crypt is very atmospheric and had inspired Tom to create some artworks especially to display in this space. It was interesting to see his new pieces, showing the distinctive style that he's developed.

This sculpture is entitled 'Plague doctor' and was based on the physicians, with their strange beaked masks, who tended to victims of the Black Death.

The sculpture 'Lady of Letters' came about because a tomb effigy of a wealthy noblewoman in the crypt shows her writing kit tied to her waist.

This 'Lord of Misrule' has a paper crown and would take over his duties during the Festival of St Stephen. The tradition lasted in Britain until the sixteenth century. Other images based on the idea can be seen amongst the misericords in Bristol Cathedral.

The final sculpture in the exhibition was inspired by the green men carved overhead.

You might agree that the darkly atmospheric artworks fit perfectly in the vaulted stone space of the crypt. 

'In the Downbelow' runs from the 17th to the 30th November and is open Tuesday to Saturday, 11am until 6pm.

Carving a kestrel and a nuthatch for 'Woodland Arts'

'Woodland Arts' was a small, two day exhibition held on a piece of woodland next to the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol during October 2017. I was invited by the organisers to show some work in it. I like the opportunity to create work for exhibitions, as it allows ideas to be explored that may not have been suited to previous commissions.

I hadn't carved a bird sculpture for a long time, so decided to make a nuthatch. I'd thought of carving one before as I think that they are particularly elegant birds and also interesting, as they are the only British bird that regularly moves headfirst down tree trunks as well as up them. 

There were a lot of offcuts of European larch around my workshop, produced by other businesses there. This wood is durable outdoors and has beautiful ring markings, but is quite tricky to carve with hand tools. I find abrasive discs, burrs and wheels work more efficiently on it, usually mounted on angle grinders.

The action of the discs also gave the sculptures a smoother, more abstract feel that I like a lot. I did consider painting the carvings, but the smoothness seemed to suit a finishing oil better.

After carving in some simple detailing, I fitted a beak and eyes made from small offcuts of greenheart timber. This wood is a piece of Bristol's maritime history. The greenheart was given to me by furniture maker Jim Sharples and was originally part of a tree trunk fitted to the top of the nineteenth century North Junction lock gates. These gates formed the connection between Bristol's harbour and the Avon Gorge, from which ships headed out to sea. When the gates were replaced a few years ago, Jim was asked to make a bench to go next to the Mshed museum in Bristol and had some trimmings left over, which he kindly gave to me. The dark wood was perfect to depict a small bird's beady eyes.

After several coats of finishing oil, I mounted a picture hanger on the back of the sculpture, so that the piece could be hung with its beak pointing down - as a real nuthatch moves down a tree. These timbers are durable outdoors, so the sculpture could end up hung on a real tree. I particularly like the grain pattern that loops like contours around the head.

After making the nuthatch, I fancied making another bird. So I looked for another suitable bit of larch...

This piece was to become a falcon. Until I had started roughing out the block, cutting away chunks with a bandsaw, I wan't completely sure if it would be a merlin or a kestrel. 

Eventually I decided on a kestrel as, like the nuthatch, it lives in that area. The body was also shaped using angle grinders fitted with mini arbortech blades or abrasive discs. Again, I really liked the slightly abstracted form and the contour lines winding around the finished body, especially at the bottom of the belly.

As well as greenheart wood, this sculpture uses a piece of  pale-coloured hornbeam wood in the beak. It originally came from a tree that  grew in the grounds of Southmead hospital in Bristol, which had to be removed during building work. The kestrel looks like it has been to hospital itself in this photo, taken when the glue holding the eyes in was still drying.

I was very happy with this sculpture too and it got a lot of attention at the exhibition.

 

The show had a good mix of work, including a picture by Lord Bath. He owns Longleat house and was the patron of the show. I won't show an image of his picture here though, as this blog has people of all ages reading it! Thanks to Jasmine who curated the show and Topper, who organised it, for asking me to be part of Woodland Arts.

Visiting Dismaland; a 'bemusement park', complete with some woodcarving!

There has been a lot of talk recently in certain quarters about the 'Dismaland' exhibition in Weston-super-mare. I was kindly given a ticket by a friend and went along last week.

The exhibition has been laid out like a small theme park with a decidedly dystopian air. It has been put together at a tiny derelict waterpark on the seafront at Weston-super-mare near Bristol.

The 'Tropicana' was well-known in these parts and many from Bristol, Weston and the surrounding area  have fond memories of it. The artist Banksy is known to have strong links to the area and, I believe, was one of the main organisers of the exhibition. Perhaps he also remembers swimming there. It did seem the perfect place to stage the show.

Staff at the exhibition (identified by their pink "Dismal' tabards and Mickey-mouse-style ears) had been instructed to be deliberately rude to visitors and the ticket buying system was also deliberately made to be infuriating and random. Tickets were made more available to people living in the area via the local newspaper. One member of staff admitted in front of me that he'd stopped being horrible to people because everyone was being nice back and he couldn't be bothered to be nasty any more.

I have to say that I enjoyed Dismaland a lot more than I thought I would! I was slightly expecting an overhyped show full of irritating hipsters and, although there were quite a few art crowd types floating about, the exhibition was unusual and fun. A couple of heavy rain showers just seemed to add to the atmosphere and it was great to see it all lit up at night.

Fifty artists from 17 countries had been invited to show their work and these included some very well-known names such as Damien Hirst and Jenny Holzer. One of the pieces from Hirst's workshops was a white pony with a golden horn in a vitrine (a glass case full of preserving solution).

It didn't seem that particular fuss was made of the bigger names though, which was good to see. Many artist's work could only be identified by their names spray-painted with stencils on the floor or, like Mike Ross' 'Big Rig Jig' in the first photo, from the programme's descriptions. It wasn't possible to get photos of it all and, to be honest, you can probably find better images online anyway- as one staff member yelled at those taking photos near her. I'll just show a few that stood out for me and which I got reasonable shots of...

American Michael Beitz made this looping picnic table and the following toilet paper roll one. I like the sense of fun in his work.

Another American, Scott Hove, made a series of sculptures that look like vicious cakes:

Banksy put quite a few pieces into the exhibition, including the mermaid sculpture shown in a photo above and an installation with Death on the dodgems. He also showed the picture below.

I chuckled a bit to see that, despite all the other artists with work in Dismaland, the stencils on the pavements outside pointing the way to the show only had his name:

Jimmy Cauty showed a huge artwork called the Aftermath Displacement Principle. He and others made 3000 tiny figures of riot police for it over several years. Aged 17, Cauty produced a picture to illustrate the Lord of the Rings which became one of Athena's best-selling posters. He also co-founded the music projects the KLF, the Justified Ancients of MuMu and the Orb, all of which had a lot of success. He also, notoriously, burnt a million pounds as part of the K foundation with Bill Drummond. The piece at Dismaland was certainly epic too. It was a gigantic model diorama showing the immediate aftermath of a massive civil disorder, with the only figures visible being police.

I could have looked at it for ages as there was so much going on in the tiny world but the exhibition was closing and the staff were yelling even more than usual, so it was time to move on. In the programme, Cauty says that one of his favourite quotes about art is that:

'being an artist is like going on a journey and finding interesting artefacts, and bringing them back and showing them to people.'

Even though he's probably right when he also says that he thinks the sentiment in that saying is far more positive than the reality of being an artist, I still like it too.

There were a few artefacts by Maskull Laserre on display, including this one carved in wood:

Laserre's work has been mentioned in a previous post. He is based in Canada and often carves things into wooden objects. I wasn't sure about the finish left on some previous carvings, but it was possible to go right up to this one and the finish was excellently done even though some of the wood had obviously started to dote (softening up before rotting) and so must have been more difficult to work with. I also liked the sawdust and woodchips left inside the ribcage.

Laserre also works in other materials, including metal. A piece by him based around a chair and a trap was nearby.

Heading out into the town of Weston-super-mare after walking around this dystopia for two hours certainly felt strange! No loud music or shouting allowed in the local multi-storey carpark...

Large wooden outdoor sculptures at Lake Vyrnwy and Bala in Wales

 On a recent trip to Wales, I visited Lake Vyrnwy. The lake is actually a reservoir, with a stone dam built in the 1880s holding back the waters...

 and a very striking Gothic-revival 'straining tower', which filters the waters before they are pumped off to supply Liverpool and Merseyside.

The area around the reservoir is now a bird reserve, partly managed by the RSPB. At one end of the lake, overlooked by the dam,  is an interesting sculpture trail showing large wooden artworks by artists from around the world.

Here's one called 'Water is life' by Angela Polglaze from Australia:

 

I also liked this more abstract form; 'Obelisk' by the Norwegian artist Nils Haukeland

 

...as well as 'The Ark of Llanwddyn' by the Welsh artist Irene Brown (Llanwddyn is the name of the village submerged by the waters when the reservoir was built)

 

...and 'Cupboard' by Rosemary Terry, also from Wales.

Some of the sculptures are showing signs of the deterioration that you would expect after twelve or more years of Welsh weather acting on them, but many were still in pretty good shape.

After looking around, we went off to find the tallest tree in England and Wales, which was marked as growing on the side of the lake. We were four years too late! The Douglas fir, which was once 63.7m (208.9ft) high, was badly damaged in a storm and had to be felled. However, the chainsaw carver Simon O'Rourke has sculpted the remaining 50-foot stump into a huge reaching hand, which is situated in a beautiful spot near a small waterfall.

On the other side of the lake were more huge wooden artworks. These picnic benches are huge! They were the scene for a highlight of the trip; feeding chaffinches peanuts from my hand.

Simon O'Rourke also carved some very nice sculptures at the camping site that we stayed at;
Pen y bont, on the outskirts of the small town of Bala. They represent figures from the ancient Welsh tales called the Mabinogion. Apparently he carved them all (the image below shows about half the total number) in about 5 days.

This is Taliesin, the poet and seer:

 

This is the giant Tegid Foel, who was supposed to have lived on an island in the middle of Lake Bala (which is called Llyn Tegid in Welsh):

This is Blodeuedd, who was created from the flowers of meadowsweet, broom and oak by Math and the sorceror Gwydion: