Wednesday 9 December 2015

She sculpts sea shells

Or rather, he sculpts sea shells high above the sea shore. The 'he' being Peter Randall-Page and the shells being a series of carved Purbeck stone sea shells, set in dry stone niches high on the chalk grassland known as 'The Warren', along the Old Daggers Gate Road, with its commanding views both east and west along the Purbeck coast. The sculptures were commissioned by the ecology group 'Common Ground' as part of a larger project in 1985. This piece is Wayside Carving III.  I found an old photo of this site when new on the Peter Randall-Page web page http://www.peterrandall-page.com/about/sculptures.html and it's clear that in the proceeding 30 years since its installation, Wayside Carving III has sadly fallen into a semi ruinous state, well, not the carving, more the dry stone niche. I think it still looks cool. I thought about contacting the artist and seeing if would be okay to have a go at repairing the niche ( I think a lot of things), but then I though maybe this is what he intended. I could see that. I quite like viewing it as the material/sites journey back to nature and their origins. It's nice to see art in these environments.

No comments:

Post a Comment