Sunday 24 July 2011

Big Art in Kirkcudbright 2011 - Days 1 and 2

This is the second year there has been a sculpture symposium in Kirkcudbright and this year's is bigger than last year's with, if my totting up is right, 11 sculptors. You can find my blogs for the last symposium here, here and here. Although there have been some initial problems in getting the stones moved, at least the weather has been very kind to us, so the sculptors have been able to get started on the stones just where they are.

Here are some of them sitting down by the harbour yesterday before they got started on them.


The first stone here is going to be worked on by Nigel Mullan. He intends to base his work on some local cup and ring markings.


This is his piece as it is at the end of today.


Alan Ward often works on sculptures with his wife Christine but today he's working on this alone (Christine will make an appearance shortly).


Here he is this morning shaping his rock.


This is to be worked on by Martha Quinn.


Google seemed a little reluctant to tell me about her website at first but it did eventually - it's here.


I would say it's from her rock that the first recognisable part has appeared this symposium. She has taken some of her inspiration from a piece of fishing net she found.



By this evening there were more knots.


This piece belongs to Eldon Guay, who has flown over from Canada for the symposium.


By the end of today it has started to take on some shape. I managed to find this piece by him on Flickr


Here are Nuala Early and Tom Allan, who was here last year, standing by the stone that they were working on today. I've been rather negligent and not taken a photo of how this was at the end of today, but those who seem glanced over today will get more attention in a day or so's time.


Ali Thomson, the only sculptor I haven't spoken to yet is working on this piece.


So far it's fairly been reduced in size and well on the way to being squared up.


Christine Ward, whose husband we met earlier, had already done a fair bit of work to her stone by the time I met her. She had been thinking about introducing a tartan pattern to it and has made a wee test piece for this.



Michelle de Bruin's slab was much smaller than everyone elses so she was able to get it into position without the aid of the forklift. She does a lot of lettering in her work as well many pieces based around natural history - have a look at her web site here.

Here she is drawing in the first line of the text of her work.....



.... and starting to carve.



The carving as it was this evening.


The text is to be made up of things she has seen that are connected in some way to Kirkcudbright. The gun in question is the Siller Gun which has been mentioned before on these pages. It can be found near the bottom of this blog.


Not mentioned so far, because they haven't started due to other commitments, are Peter Dowden and Andy Breen, who were both here last year. I'm sure they'll be appearing here in a few days time.

11 comments:

The Glebe Blog said...

I think your on stony ground here Sandy.Sorry ! Couldn't resist it.
There's some talented folk there.Martha Quinn looks good.I've seen her Riverside seats in Sligo before,but never paid much attention to them.I will next time.

Unknown said...

Fascinating, Sandy!

John @ Beans and I on the Loose said...

That is amazing. I really admire their talent and efforts. I hope you do a follow-up.

Shundo said...

What a great idea - I'm only surprised nobody has come along to turn it into a reality TV competition...I'm glad they had forklifts to move those ones around,and what a fantastic colour they are - remins me of the cathedrals at Exeter and Hereford.

Sandy's witterings said...

They are talented indeed Jim - here till Saturday at least if you want to see them.

Thanks Chip and Sinbad and I, follow up definately happening. Probably not every day but certainly every couple or so.

Shundo, I think it would make cracking viewing, though I'm not sure I would plump for the reality TV format myself. Exeter and Hereford Cathedrals haven't happened in my path yet, they're bound to at some point, but red sandstone is a fairly common building material around the country (not as much as your more blond stone I think)

Sandi said...

Love the fishing net in stone, and the lettering...actually I like them all and want to feel the textures of the stones.
Look forward to your follow-up blog, Sandy.

Michael (Light-In-A-Box) said...

Sandy, I remember your sculpture blogs from last year, amazing how fast time goes! I certainly would not have the motovation to do any stone work like this! Hats off to these incredible artists!

Poppy (aka Val) said...

Great blog Sandi :) It is amazing to see these talented people and what they can make from a block of stone. I love the knots and the lettering :)

Sandy's witterings said...

Thank you Sandi, Michael and Poppy. Here in Kirkcudbright the weather is being very kind to us just now, so I'm just away to see how the sculptors are doing in the sunshine.

Zia Wolf-Sun said...

Fascinating to see what these type of tools combined with big chunks of rock can achieve!

Becky said...

I am indeed behind here. I have never seen this being done before. How interesting! I think my favorite was the development of the knots.