February – Over before it started !

The grass begins to grow around the Yoxmans’ feet.. He is now a feature in the Suffolk landscape, welcomed by all, well the miffed walk on the other side of the street when they see me… its a problem when you live where you work!

Honestly though he has been positivly recieved…

Many people, rather wonderfully, send photographs of him, this splendid one was taken by Ken Durling on a moody January evening …

The press had a field day with him at the end of January, with the Sun and the Daily Mail leading the way, followed by just about everyone else and Loose Women and ‘The Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2.. where I was interviewed with a traffic enforcement officer.. who’s nearest experience to the distraction the sculpture may cause to passing traffic was the ‘Wonderbra’ advert in the early naughties..

I have to admit the debate was far from sophisticated, but good natured.. His nakedness and risk to the safety of passing drivers being the prevelant themes!

Here’s the contribution made by The Sun..followed by The Daily Mail’s genius!

I find myself entertaining lots of college and school groups now, which is a good thing.. aren’t the youth of today a wonderful phenomena!! Masked and often dangerous….

I had an awe inspiring full moon with him at two in the morning it was like approaching a blue whale…

Believe it or not the rest of life still goes go on.. We installed Arbour in a pond in the west country on a freezing day..my dry suit was not dry, and i was colder than I was in Siberia.. Johnny Messum displayed courage beyond that usually expected from a Mayfair Gallerist! It was worth it the sculpture looked beautiful in its new home.

I loved the way it fused with the plant life surrounding the water.. the reflections, even in the mirky agitated water, doubled the impact..

I revisited one of my early public art projects..I gave this set of sculptures a make over .. they’re in Grange Farm, Kesgrave, (Ipswich). They are called ‘Time after Time’ and represent the before and after of the site. The agricultural history and the houses that replaced it. It’s next to a school which was fiull of bird boxes at the time (2007).. I remember it seemed like a good idea to create a bird box view finder to look at the sculptures through, fun for the kids!.. it swivelled and everything, had lens’s inside which, when looked through, flipped the sculptures upside down… all very clever…though I hadn’t reckoned on Blue tits’ nesting in it, destroying my vision!!

A little bronze of Mr Crispin Rope was inserted in a niche prepared for him years back.. It was his vision that secured the development, joining forces with two other farming families (The Jolly’s and The Fentons). He didin’t want to be recognised in his life time, so I made this sculpture from a video.. He sadly passed last year, prompting my return and the installation .

so you see how it goes… Horse is replaced by Engine!!!

Gainsbourough used to make diorama’s of landscapes in shoe boxes (when he couldn’t be bothered to go out) to paint his landscapes from… he used brocolli for tree’s… this then is a tree in the spirit of Thomas Gainsborough.. a Suffolk Artist a Suffolk Oak!!

They had fared quite well, the patina’s came up well after blow torching and hot wax treatments….

Next up is the foundry Xmas trip to Henry Moore’s House and Studios in Perry Green Hertfordshire.

My old mate from college days James Copper runs the place .. well the practical side of it.. restoration , care of studios,buildings, grounds, works, exhibitons … the lot really… Here he is with my other old mate Chris Summerfield.. who actually worked there in the 80’s and even found some of this work!!

Not this piece, a large work James has been restoring on and off for a good few years .. when he gets a moment!!

In the Maquette studio.. which James allowed us to enter!! Mind blowing to be honest..Chris (a great sculptor and retired lecturer ) shows one of the sculptures he worked on for Moore.

Here Chris finds a sculpture he scaled up… he hadn’t been there for thirty years… an emotional day…

We were even allowed to handle stuff.. jeez …..I’ve only ever seen it through a glass window before…

fascinating photos on the studio walls…

And if that isn’t enough.. we had the launch of the Mining Sculpture in Doncaster.. Covid precluded us marching with banners and bands, but the reception in the Mansion House was emotional. A ‘community of the rock’ assembled, over a hundred souls, it was like a reunion, so moving to see all the miners again with their families…

I went to see the sculpture the next day.. obviously relieved to see it still standing…

I’ll leave you with one photo sent to me which was not of the Yoxman.. for some reason the sender thought it was!!!

Tutty by.. stay safe and tell all your friends ..

b t w my Instgram is a regular peep into the life of an honest hard working sculptor.. you’ll love it..@Laurenceedwards.bronze

I’ll see you there…

Lxx

‘Yoxman’ arrival….

Well it’s finally happened … without further ado here is a little photo essay of the day the ‘Yoxman’ came to his final resting place after 4 yrs of hard work and planning!!

‘Quinto’ arrived with a 300 tonne crane and a little 40 tonne helper early on the 18th of November.

He lay like a leviathan, horizontal for the first and hopefully only time!

I was able to study close up, marks and forms I’d made years before, he seemed prehistoric.

To my delight he appeared like a piece of the natural world. As I’d hoped the cliffs at Covehithe and Dunwich were there in the forms and surfaces..It seemed this figure was eroding before my eyes..

He was then driven on the vast arctic lorry to Yoxford on arrival he was parked under a chestnut tree, which seemed to grow from him, slowly he rose again…

Calmly guided into place, the hall in the background..

Looking like penitants at a religous ceremony men bolted and glued him into position..

His strops were uncoupled by a caged man. (Photo by Andrew Turner)

His first morning saw him greeted by the Autumn sun..

The first view of him from the footpath, see’s him wonderfully obscured by a tree…

His reflection in the lake designed by Kim Wilkie took my breath away..

The second morning was more familiar, the subdued light suiting him, this the view from the A12 which rushed by, cars stopping, people peering.

I walk by him most days now, learning and trying to understand what it is that has appeared in this Suffolk landscape, making sense of him will I hope take a good while.

Thanks to The ‘Wilderness Reserve’, to Lois and Jon Hunt for their patronage, Tom Crompton for supervising the casting and construction, looking over an evolving and talented team.

Quinto cranes, Bill Jackson and Tim Bowden for their photographs, and Messums Wiltshire for their support and encouragment.

Two become one. Yox-man arrives.

Big summer, finally the two halves of the Colossus joined. The Yoxman is a step closer.

Here’s a little visual journey!

Four years of contstructung, planning ,fretting and stressing, comes to a head!!

He towers!

Good day for Edward, as he climbs up through the inside to peek out of the top!

He now hides amidst the containers, as we spend the next month finishing and colouring him… and whilst the new landscape is prepared for him at Cockfield Hall, Yoxford, on the side of the A12, the main artery through East Suffolk.

He will be on the right here, just out of shot, bristling at this new lake that will confront him, It’s as though he’s been turfed out of his resting place, extracted from this gaping wound. Forced to face the light..

Heres the spoil, a new scape will be created out of his old home.

Amazing how he connects, yet resists this relocation. A Revenant.

We look to install in early November, by then the lake will be dug, and the scape complete..

Meanwhile , this Dovecote at Hedingham Castle in Essex has played host to this figure in need of rest. It wasn’t eggs they farmed in these nest boxes.. It was the Squabs, young bald pigeons… collected daily for Squab Pie! Yum…

Big Day! another four year project concludes…

On saturday, October the 2nd. Doncaster plays host to marching bands and a banner procession, speeches and folk music to celebrate the unveiling of ‘A Rich Seam’ the tribute to Doncaster Miners i’ve just installed..Please make it if you can its going to be a great day. Starting at the Mansion House at 1pm.

A new book chronicalling the story of the Doncaster pits and the making of the sculpture will also launch.. I’ll sign it if you like!!!

Accompnying the opening, I have my first solo show at ‘Messums Yorkshire’ opening on the 1st October in Harrogate, see Messums Wiltshire website for more information.

Oh and talking of wonderful books, This book accompanies a show i’m in in the St Barbe Museum, Lymington , Hampshire..the title of the book tells you what its all about, a great survey of all the great Post War british artists that have evolved this peculiarly english subject, Good writers and curators too..available at all good bookshops..Show continues until January 2022… check out their website for timings….

Big fan of Edward Burra, who happily features.. this painting is awe inspiring..

Hey…….Thankyou for spending the time!!! Its been emotional!!!!

Art by 2000 cuts

I had the privilage of contributing to ‘Here’ the inaugural show at the ‘Art Station’, a new arts space for Suffolk, based at the old telephone exchange in Saxmundham

The curators gave me a room with a view. I gave myself 2000 feet of steel, an angle grinder and a mig welder. I locked the door..made a racket ,nearly burnt the place down had a ball for a week… here’s what went down!

I repurposed a wax bust which was hanging in my studio, and used an old drawing as reference..

Vertical lines were my way in .. so with a jar of ink, a brush and a step ladder I created the backdrop.

I then set too cutting steel and welding..

I started to factor in the opening door, the walls .. burning wallpaper as I went..

Welded the windows open, and even effected a steel drawn curtain… (impossible to photograph against the light of the window)

You can see a film of it on my new instagram site.. @laurenceedwards.bronze

Amidst many other inspirational moments!

As if that wasn’t enough, we managed to finish the second 8ft Walking Man at the foundry.. the second of five, he’s going to the EA festival at Hedingham Castle at the end of July.

I’m really pleased with him, the third one is being moulded as I write, and i’m starting the armature for the fourth this week…

Meanwhile the ‘Yoxman’ The Colossus for Suffolk is getting there.. his torso is coming together.

Thats all folks… i’ll leave you with Freddy finishing a ‘Man of Stones’ which is now on show at the ‘Grange’ festival in Hampshire… remember the instagram page… its a nice compliment to this … @laurenceedwards.bronze

Stay safe!

A Norman Soldier, Kubrick in Suffolk, Big Walking man and a mystery perhaps!!

**I have re imagined the lying man, the one I placed in the Butley mudflats..**

The second cast of the edition has returned from his travels and now sits atop a billiard table in a place called Potton Hall, nr Westelton, Suffolk… it’s part of the ‘Waveney Valley Sculpture trail’ which opened this weekend. It is open daily until June 27th.

It reminds me of a Stanley Kubrick film set, exposed and isolated. The splendid billiard light reveals a vulnerability. It’s good to be able to get up close, to see the surface detail and weathering I’d not seen for 5 years or more.

This is how close you get to him usually!

We boxed in the table , creating a platform far bigger than i’d normally make, which is rather dramatic.. The cues and score board are still on the wall, I measured up for a pot, leaving blue chalk marks on him, interesting.. give it a go if you’re there, i’ll count them up at the end…It’s well worth a visit.

‘THE HOMECOMING’

Well I was asked to respond to the Norman history of Ebbsfleet, it was originally called Sweynes Camp and is purported to have been a Norman settlement.

The Sculpture’s called ‘Homecoming’ and is about a man who has been away from home, feeling he has been changed by stressful situations. He is returning home to a family and village that may also have changed. I’ve tried to make him tentative.

I loved developing this character, embellishing him, creating acoutrements, (a Norman word I’d wager!) using my old work overalls, aprons etc…

He is sationed in the 12th century courtyard behind Messums Wiltshire, appropriate if not 150 yrs out..

GALLERY TALK: Sculptor Laurence Edwards introduces ‘Homecoming’

I read Paul Kingsnorths ‘The Wake’ trilogy as a part of the research. Set in 1067 in the Fens and written in what the author calls ‘Shadow tongue ‘ a simplified old English which serves to evoke perfectly the life of ‘Buccmaster of Holland’, whose family and life have been destroyed in the savage merciless invasion. The story follows his efforts to raise a partisan gang in the forests, plotting and picking off Norman soldiers as they impose impossible hardship on those Britons left alive.

Aswell as Kasuo Ishiguro’s ‘The Buried Giant’, also set in ancient Briton / Saxon England.. wonderful source material.

The sculpture will leave the courtyard at Tisbury for his new home in Ebbsfleet Kent, immediatly after the talk. So if you are tempted to go and see him, i’m afraid you’ll have to go in the next few days. Although Ebbsfleet by all accounts is very nice!

New Big Bronze:

The First 8ft Walking Man is finished!

I’ve been privately commissioned by a wonderful patron to realise a long held dream, to create a gang of 5, 8ft Walking Men.

We installed the first one this month, said patron wishes his privacy to be respected so there are no shots of him in situ, I do have a rather beautiful set of studio photographs though.

It will take me two years to complete the set, its rather a daunting undertaking..once the first set has been installed i’ll be casting a second to exhibit. The unveiling of the series will be at Messums Wiltshire next September, before they go on a museum tour of Australia with a show of other new large works in 2023.

The second one is being finished as we speak, you’ll have to wait untll next months blog to see him!!

BREAKING NEWS

The belly of the giant is being assembled, Eddy looks as though he’s enjoying himself! Hopefully the top half will be finished by the end of July and a crane will lift it onto the legs, in an exciting and rather fitting finale to a four year epic journey, oddyssey, slog…

BREAK OUT!

Eva, Tom and Nhung, are detained in order to finish wax sticks for a very large ‘Loaded ‘ sculpture being cast, they are to be fixed to this torso .. which has a body and legs too.. Louis stands guard.

(I know this is hammy apologies )

Eva Terzoni is leaving us after years of wonderful and devoted service, she will be pursueing a sculptural career in her home town of Florence.. Putting to good use the skills she has mastered with us..

Quite why she’d leave the wonderful life I’ve created for her at the Fire Station is beyond me..

Good luck Eva and thankyou, we’ll miss your relentless laughter.

Oh and by the way..

I’ve just started Instagram.. a great compliment to the blog..

check out : Laurenceedwards.bronze

12 giant steps to happiness! and a new ‘Carrier’

OK…Here’s a brief one, well, by my standards..

I’ve got two things to show you.. first off, we passed an amazing landmark this week.

We managed to get a 4 tonne pair of legs out of the studio using four pallet trucks and a Land Rover.. here’s what happened!

First off, after much bracing of feet and waiting we finally lifted the legs in the foundry!

Tom skilfully steered them past workbenches and staircases…

Sim you’ll notice was often caught striking a pose !

Saddled up and ready to roll, Freddy’s Land Rover was disconcerting..

Not sure if Rowan was enjoying himself or petrified.

Finally reached base camp and lowered the beast. Sim you’ll noticed has disappeared!

**Awesome**, even if I do say so myself.

We now start constructing the torso.. and in a few months will bring that out into the open, and with a crane, lower it on to the legs.. that will be an amazing day!

Meanwhile I’ve been working on a new commission for a large scale version of a sculpture called the ‘Carrier’

The figure is seven foot tall, you can see us working in the background, for scale.. not to be confused with the other two sculptures..easy mistake.. both 8ft ..not us, them!

proper mouldmaking challenge this.

Really excited to see this in bronze.. its a casting odyssey..stay tuned..

Told you it was short..

Damn it I wanted to show you these renderings.. which I made for the client.

Please come back again, sign up and follow, if you can work out how…

Check out Messums Website for more info..https://messumslondon.com/artists/laurence-edwards/

Oh I almost forgot..

The ‘Thousand Tides’ sculpture has started to sink, its rather lovely, I reckon it will go quite fast now its started its journey. See it while you can.. Butley Creek, just up from the mill.

And Kim Wilkie the fantastic landscape designer who is doing a talk at Messums Wiltshire on the 28th of April, which I shall certainly be attending.. and indeed whose landscape the giant figure will eventually be placed in, took these wonderful photographs of my ‘Creek Men’ at Hevenigham Hall, another of his wonderful settings..

That really is it.. wasn’t that short in the end was it..

New London Exhibiton opening next week!!

Hello… I have a new show opening at ‘Messums’ London next tuesday the 16th, and rather excitingly we cant have a party, so we’re having a zoom chat instead. Johnny Messum and I will walk around the show and discuss it… Hope you can make it, if not I’m sure it will be available to watch on the Messum’s Wiltshire website..

The work represents a new departure for me, made during the first lockdown. Plaster figures sliced up and reconstructed, who became my audience, companions even confidents!! through those lonely months.. Its a special show for me here’s the link to the free event.

And here for you delictation is a brief preview of the work, The plasters are being shown alongside the bronzes, on the same stands used in the studio, will be interesting to compare and contrast, especially now the plasters are repaired and glued together after fragmenting in the mouldmaking adding another layer to the experience.

They’re all around 60cms high…

Looking forward to seeing you there, tell all your friends!!!

The Tribute to Miners in Doncaster.

Tadaaa….Finally after 4 years, here is Doncaster’s “A Rich Seam.” A tribute to Doncaster’s Mining community.’

Forty tonnes of York Stone arrived from Huddersfield, at the crack of dawn on Valentines day…but the crane didn’t!

So we unloaded the miner and placed him in the centre of the rather splendid Plinth.. and waited anxiously!

Like the seventh cavalry our lovely 100 tonne crane arrived at midday! Only 5 hours behind shedule. The first one had broken down, the second was too small.. so a ‘Mate’ with a crane in Leeds was asked to ‘do us a favour’… leaving an understandably irrate wife on a rather special morning!!

Our miner waited nervously as he was put into place the next day…

Reggie and George made sure the rocks sat safely, concreting, rather splendidly, between the cracks and crevices…

I did a great job at masking my confusion ‘Did I leave a box at home’??

Danny Heaton the man who took these photo’s was even co opted whilst I changed drill bits.

I’m not known for my perfectionism..

Wow!!

It all looks fantastic, better than I could of imagined.! In the quarry the rock looked aggresive and brutal.. but in the street it’s golden hues simmered and bounced off the buildings. It’s presence seemed to lend a sense of humanity to the street..

Whilst we were there the varieties of Yorkshire light showed themselves.

This was the sun at 3 o’clock!

The street is now being relaid with beautiful York stone slabs, lighting and seating. We are creating the information points which will guide the visitor to the forty films made to accompany each head, showing the modelling sessions and the testimony’s of each miner featured, a valuable archive set down for the future.. A big thankyou to camera shy Tom whose planning and forsight made it all happen on the day!!

The street opens at the beginning of April, so you’ll be able to visit then. We hope for a grand opening with brass bands and banners sometime this summer when the restrictions have hopefully lifted… watch this space, and thankyou for coming….

Sculpture, Quarries and Soldiers – December 2020.

This month i’m taking you to a quarry in Yorkshire where we are carving niches for 40 miners portraits, for the public sculpture i’m making to celebrate Doncaster’s mining history.

To be installed next February.

Then you will see a Norman Soldier.. yes.. this one’s come out of the blue. A commission I recieved three years ago, (and had forgotten about) finally recieved its planning permission and suddenly a tight deadline presented itself.. alot of fun.. you’ll agree!!

Anyway enough of me.. lets go to the quarry…

‘Johnsons Wellfied’ in Huddersfield, where Freddy Morris my trusty stone carver and I stayed for ten days, cooking beautiful food (ready meals from the Co-op). Huddersfield is a truly beautiful Victorian town set on the edge of the Peak District in Yorkshire, I loved being there.. Here’s a photo Essay of the work done, black and whites by Bill Jackson, colour by me.

I think it’ll be a random set of photos, not in any particular order….

These are giant blocks of York stone, weighing about 25 tonnes each..

We drilled pilot holes first to establish where we were going to chisel..

At times it felt as if we were wandering through corridors of heads in ancient streets.

This stone recieves light so beautifully, I realised it would have been impossible to replocate this effect in any other material.

Excuse the armpit!

It became apparant early on that the heads should flow with the contours of the rock, they were set at different angles in harmony with the topography of the surfaces, bringing the viewing experience to life.

I decided to work with the scarring on the rocks, where the machinery had gashed and brutalized the surface..

This is John Davies, (above) who sadly succumbed to Covid this year, he is the first miner featured on the rocks to have passed away.

The blocks now sit and wait. A 6ft miner is being cast at the foundry and he will eventually stand between them in a newly refurbished street in Doncaster..

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Next we have a 2mtre high Norman Soldier returning home to ‘Sweyns Camp’ in Ebbsfleet Kent, to a waiting family.

The sculpture is called the ‘Homecoming’ and has been commissioned to go on a site where once there was a Norman settlement, now a housing develpment.

I wanted there to be a certain anxiety as well as hope in his face and indeed, in the way he holds the ropes . I wanted to convey a man returning home after a long time away, having been through life changing experience. To a family that may also have changed.

His helmut hangs on his shield.. I love the shield, it was also a device I could use to express his emotional state, battered and scarred.

I loved hanging all the accoutrements on him, ambigous enough so the viewer could imagine what their purpose might be and what they may contain. Also making the tunic out of my old work overalls..

We start the casting after Christmas, and he’s due to be installed in April next year. If we are lucky we might be able to show him in Messum’s London space before he goes..

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Thanks for hanging in there.

For those of you that it means anything to, have a great Christmas.. see you in January…

Lockdown Work- October 2020

Hi.. !!

Well this is my opportunity to show the world what I made during Lockdown. I managed after a faultering start to get quite a bit done..

I suffered the anxiety of suddenly having a load of time with the business shut down. I couldn’t escape the feeling that in this ‘historic incredible time’ everything had to be brilliant, salient, relevant and about the now.. so after a series of works based on bog rolls and grabbing everything in the supermarket I gave up..

I Started work on studio repairs, plastering the walls putting shelves up painting, tiling you know the sort of thing.. then! There was plaster left over in buckets that had to be used, (Can’t stand waste) I started to fill random moulds around the studio with the excess..

After a few weeks I’d inadvertantly built up a collection of figure sculptures in plaster.. I remembered that i’d been intrigued by the scaling up process we used for the giant sculpture we are making, (see previous blogs) slicing up the plaster on the bandsaw. I thought i’d play with that.. so I started to slice up all the plasters i’d made on the bandsaw.

I soon had stacks of diced figures precariously balancing all over the place (and a rusty bandsaw!) I thought i’d amalgamate different figures, two or three at a time, pile them up to form stretched elongated figure forms.. I glued the first one up using plaster and was shocked by the strange stretched form i’d created.. During the following days I stacked and stuck figure after figure. Soon a crowd of figures populated the room (under the gaze of this torso i’d suspended from the ceiling a while back and had forgotten about), They all looked unnervingly in one direction, as though trying to work out a thing, a future, a strange place.

Every morning I entered the studio there they were querelously spying me, working me out, peering, leering looking over each others shoulders, through gaps, like a colony of Meerkat’s. Couples leaning together, mimicking each others poses, some holding hands, nervously comforting each other.

Half way through this I heard on the radio that the magnetic north pole had moved a few degrees from Alaska to Siberia.. all the navigational systems of the world had to re calibrate, this chimed perfectly with the leaning skewed figures I was making, standing as if on a tilting earth, compensating, trying to accomodate change.

I should shut up now and give you some pictures.. taken by Bill Jackson and Tim Bowden..

Here’s how the studio looked on entry every morning, greenery bursting through an open window, now impossible to shut!!

It was like a set from Midsummer nights dream.. no not midsummer murders!

I’ll slowly introduce you….

Here’s a couple of shots from guest photographer Claire Waddell!!

Ok here are some ‘Individual’s’ by Tim..

I have to say, I feel like they are friends, we’ve been through alot together..

Johnny from the gallery loved them too, so we are going to show them in the London space next spring.. we think we’ll show all the plasters in one room, set up as in the studio and then a load of them in bronze in the next room.. It will be very interesting to be able to compare and contrast.

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Other things happened in the studio too, it was a creative time.. I’m not going to bore you with loads of intellectual explanations.. you can do all that.. I’ll just show you some images!