Looking over Ellie’s art, and writing about the decision of the Council to remove “The Woodsman”, reminded me how beautiful this part of Essex is – in very different ways. Ellie’s art, as she explains in her words in my post below, is heavily influenced by the landscape of her childhood. We grew up nestled in a rural area that was an idyll for children raised on Enid Blyton. Dry Street in Langdon Hills is isolated from the New Town in terms of development and social culture (you might find my very early post on the new town interesting). However, we often took trips to the Estuary coastline, to Coal House Fort, from where we could see the effects of industrialisation very clearly.
With that in mind, I decided to create two galleries on my Flickr page to show off the very different beautiful aspects of the area we live in (both of which are linked in earlier posts but are easy to miss).
The first is of Langdon Hills and is a stunning display of the natural beauty that is available to us in Basildon. The second is of the industrialised Thames Estuary and presents a very different, but equally beautiful view of the same area. Both galleries show pictures of the landscapes to be found in the constituency of South Basildon and East Thurrock.
Some of the scenes are barely a mile apart. Enjoy – and marvel at this diverse and beautiful place.
So Ellie tends to hide her light under a bushel. However, we who know realise that she is an ultra-cool and talented artist whose work is fresh and exciting. I know you think I might say that, as she is my sister, but siblings are not always the kindest critics. I don’t have a good record to be honest. I was apparently interrupted by the neighbour attempting to place my brother (equally talented and ultra-cool) on the bonfire.
This was a long time ago.
Not recently. Anyway…
Most of her stuff is not online at the moment as she is still reworking her online gallery. However, I have decided to embarrass her on my blog by showing the world (well, those who read this) how talented she is.
One of her early commissions was to work on The Compton Skyline Project in Brighton. It was a fantastic and ambitious piece of community art, installed on the roofs of houses and engaging local people in its conceptualisation and production. As well as painting, she is a dab-hand at sculpting and installations, working with both the Eden Project and Truro’s City of Lights Festival and Parade.
Ellie's installation of “Angel Gabriel” in Truro Cathedral, City of Lights 2007 - unattributed
She has also been a part of the creative team at Wildworks, the Cornish theatre company with a reputation for challenging and innovative theatre. Wildworks specialises in working with the landscapeand reworking mythical stories in a way that makes them relevant to the here and now. Recently, Wildworks put on the sensational show The Beautiful Journey. Have a look at the reviews. It’s a tremendous vote of confidence in her talents for her to be credited as a member of the team alongside her great friend, collaborator and house-mate, the equally talented and ultra-cool Myriddin Wannell(more on him another time!).
To give you a better idea of what fuels her creative imagination, probably best to read about Ellie in her own words:
Having grown up overlooking the Thames Estuary and it’s industrial and post-industrial landscape – oil refineries, anonymous edifices, scrub land and muddy-brown waters – it is of no surprise that when I moved to the other end of the country I landed at the heart of Cornwall’s contemporary mining landscape. Currently, I’m fascinated by these industrial yet ghostly and sombre places.
Most of my work is predominantly within the realms of drawing and painting, where I’m driven equally by the exploration of materials and the language of mark-making.”
Derelict tower at Coal House Fort, part of the landscape that inspired Ellie's early work
If anyone wants to see what else she has been up to, have a look at her CV. If you want to acquire a piece of her work or are interested in engaging her talents, drop me a line and I will put you in touch if you can’t track her down on the web!
Yesterday, on my email, I received an email from Conservative-controlled Basildon District Council, linking to a press release on the future of Dave Chapple’s “Woodsman” sculpture. The Council has decided to remove the statue permanently (it is currently in storage) and replace it with the original town clock. As you can see, it says:
“A location for the statue is currently being found within the Park, and the woodsman will remain in storage until then.
Cllr Stephen Horgan, deputy leader of the Council, says: “The woodsman is a well loved piece of public art, and we believe that a new home at Wat Tyler Country Park is more suitable and appropriate, where he will be appreciated by the hundreds of thousands of people that visit the park each year.””
I am all for putting the clock back on display (where it can be properly seen from all four sides!). I am also for ensuring that hundreds of thousands of people get the opportunity to enjoy the unique and other-worldly charm of “The Woodsman”. However, in an act tantamount to municipal vandalism, Conservative councillors intend to remove the sculpture from the urban space for which it was created and place it in a country park – changing its context, function and form entirely.
There is no explanation as to why it is to be moved. We are left to speculate why Cllr Horgan advises that Wat Tyler Country Park will be “more suitable and appropriate”. Perhaps reinstating it so close to the Council’s offices would be a potent reminder of how successive administrations – including the current Conservative administration – have failed to take care of this significant contribution to Basildon’s artistic heritage?
For me, “The Woodsman” isn’t just a quirky carving. Wood is a unique medium to work with. Unlike sculpting in bronze, from a cast, every single wooden carving, even if it appears the same, is very different. Each piece of wood has a different grain. Each piece of wood will have different knots to tax the skills of the carver. Hewn from local timber, from a tree felled in the Great Storm of 1987, “The Woodsman” is a unique piece of art designed to provoke thought and comment in the centre of a busy urban environment. In its original position, it broke up the concrete lines of the town and prompted a pause for thought, even if only a few seconds, to reflect on something that somehow managed to be both incongruous and perfectly situated at the same time.
“The Woodsman” was also a reminder of Basildon’s past. We’ve recently celebrated 60 years as a town. Prior to its construction, much of the area was fields and woodlands. Even now, Basildon is a place that contains areas of incredible natural beauty. It’s not without reason that Arthur Young, in his A Six Weeks’ Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales, wrote the following about Langdon Hills:
“The Woodsman” provided a connection to our history and that natural environment right in the middle of our town, where it could be enjoyed by those shopping, working, visiting the Council or passing through. We didn’t have to make a special trip to see it.
Finally, it also stood as a testament to the talents of Dave Chapple, who passed away on Friday 6th November 2009. Dave had even proposed a sculpture for the Millennium Domewhen the Government was seeking ideas for what to put inside. To my mind it was a stunning challenge to the material assumptions that have overtaken us, putting Christ at the centre of the building commissioned to mark the new millennium.
Dave Chapple with “The Woodsman” - Picture Esk, Flickr
Beautiful detail at the base of “The Woodsman” - Vin Harrop
“The Woodsman” in its rightful place - Vin Harrop
To my mind, we have lost something as a community when politicians are prepared to spend £38 million on a sporting complex, but those same politicians are not prepared to find the money, time or motivation to ensure that “The Woodsman” – created in Basildon, for Basildon – can be enjoyed by thousands in the space it was created for.
“The Woodsman” is a thing of beauty that tells a story far greater than many imagine.
The Town needs to remember its roots – and the people of the town want to know its history and be reminded how beautiful parts of our district truly are.
And The Politicians need to remember who they represent. They also need to remember the heritage – cultural and natural – that is entrusted to them.
If you are interested in seeing some of Dave Chapple’s other work, please see this online gallery.
Sometimes you see something that literally takes your breath away.
I missed this last year – it was covered by the Guardian who reported on how Kseniya Simonova performed live on the final, keeping a nation spellbound and reducing the studio audience to tears with her sand art. Her performance mixed incredibly beautiful pictures with music and a story of Ukraine’s painful wartime history after the German invasion of 1941.
If you’ve seen it, look at it again and be reminded just how talented some people are. If you’ve not seen it, marvel at what those pictures in the sand on Cornish beaches could be.
It’s been a long time since I have been floored by a new album. There are few things more incredible and satisfying than that moment when, hearing the swirl of passionate chords and melodies, you realise you are listening to something truly magnificent.
As a youngster I would spend hours in Parrot Records in Basildon (now gone), flicking through the vinyl until something caught my eye. I would then race home to record it to cassette so I could play it though my headphones and drown in the sound and forget the sheer painful horror of school. Some nights I would jump on my bike and race down to Stringbean’s place and share the latest discovery I would jump on my bike and race down to Stringbean’s place and share the latest discovery over a game of Speedball on the Amiga(you still out there somewhere, mate?). All the rage and passion and anger and hope of growing up, refined in music.
Fantastic.
And somehow, as the years pass, those moments become rarer.
I downloaded Mumford & Sons from Napster because I liked the snatch I heard on the television. Hauling myself into town earlier, I thought I would give them a listen. After four songs I went straight to the counter and bought it – even though I already had a download.
I felt I owed them.
With a sound that is Counting Crows meets Simon & Garfunkel meets The Jayhawks, with a dash of The Dubliners thrown in for good measure, their ability to soar from melancholy to riotous celebration and back again, the honesty in their sound and lyrics, and their relentless energy are the most refreshing things I’ve heard in years. Each song is a poem, reflecting on love, loss, faith or yearning, set to blindingly good tunes. Listening to Marcus Mumford’s aching vocals and you’ll be reminded of Adam Duritz and Paul Simon.
Today I was afforded a special gift: a chance to experience again that heady sense of discovery, depth of passion, tug of emotion, passion and rage that I felt as a youngster.
This may not be news to many of you, but I have stumbled across a great little site which does exactly what it says on the tin: TV ad music.
Adverts are, occasionally, real works of art. The Guinness ads always stick in my mind as being genius. So often they are made all the more memorable by the music. The one that bugged me until recently was the new ad for Walkers Baked. It’s not a work of art by any means, but I do like the tune. To be honest, it struck me as a decent theme tune for my cat, a handsomely thuggish, black Norwegian Forest Cat(alongside the theme tune for the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill):
Those of you who read the Bazzo Christmas piece may be interested to know that Steve from the Ugly Wuggly Puppet Company (the team behind Old Man Stan) has posted a lengthy comment. Vin Harrop, heritage director of Our Basildon, has also posted. You can find their comments by clicking here and scrolling down:
If you have thoughts on the arts in Basildon to add, please do so.
And if you’ve not looked around the Our Basildon website I urge you to do so and see what a wealth of public art there is throughout the district. You can also check out the heritage trail that has been created.
Back in 1989, Basildon Council opened the Towngate Theatre – one of the more controversial capital projects undertaken in recent years and a regular political football between the local parties. After a period of closure, the Conservative administration has made an effort to get the theatre running again, though not without constant sniping that the existing building is inadequate. (One of the charges regularly levelled by the Tory administration is that the Towngate doesn’t have the capacity of modern theatres to attract the right sort of productions. This is a little disingenuous. The Council’s own seating capacity figures show it can take 546 seated or 775 standing. There are plenty of successful West End theatres with a smaller capacity e.g. the Cottesloe Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse, the Arts Theatre and the Fortune Theatre and I would be surprised if they had the backstage facilities, the bar and café facilities or the parking facilities of the Towngate Theatre. Basildon is 30 minutes out of London by c2c, one of the most reliable commuter lines in the country, and it is hard to wear “capacity” as an excuse for not putting more effort into making the Towngate Theatre more successful.)
So with this wealth of creative energy in Basildon, and with the Council not averse to encouraging it or tapping into it, it is a little amusing (bemusing?) to see administration members getting hot under the collar at the latest irreverence from the Ugly Wuggly Puppet Company.
Old Man Stan is a gruff, singing pensioner in the tradition of The Muppets who occasionally points the finger at the Council for various local inadequacies. Kevin Blake, the councillor responsible for for Arts and Leisure, hasn’t seen the funny side. He is reported in the Echo as saying:
I like Kevin and he has demonstrated a significant commitment to leisure activity in Basildon. He and I might contest the balance of priorities between sport and the arts, but I hadn’t expected him to have a sense of humour failure on something as creatively silly as this.
Art has always been subversive. It has always poked fun at authority. It is one of the blessings of living in a free society. Just occasionally, folk need to chill out a little.
As for my view? I love it. I think it’s creative, irreverent, mischievous and funny.
Have a look – and if you think I am wrong and Kevin has a point I am missing, I would very much appreciate your comments.
Fragments and Reflections 