sheep unveiling

The sheep was unveiled today. We had a clown, a band, donkeys and the deputy Mayor came to do the honours in her jewellery, releasing helium balloons to a countdown. Even the sun came out! The council produced some sustainable sheep shopping bags to hand out to the crowd - 'a very ewesful bag'.

public art - installing the sheep

The sheep is being installed in the town centre. Its a tight deadline as the unveiling is this Saturday the 1st of March. So far we've had freezing temperatures, gale force winds, torrential rain and the odd earthquake, along with various cuts, bruises, aches and pains, coffee burns and a cement filled eye. If whoever it is in charge of the weather happens to glance at this tonight can we have a few days of sun please? There's been alot of interest from the public - alot of good comments and a few bad - including concerns that we're planting a devil opposite woolies. Anyway there are a few photos above of the last couple of weeks progress. Some shots of the iron umbrella from its beginnings in the Old Forge Foundry through to its welding into the site. A detail of the mosaic before the mesh was applied to the plinth and fantastic support artist Kath who's been out in all weathers.

Public Art Project in Progress (Sheep)

These images show the development of a current project to create a sculpture for a town centre space. Last year I was commissioned to undertake the consultation with the general public and make sure that local people had a say in the final piece. The local community decided on a sheep sculpture in stone, with a realistic/comic element and the final theme was voted on as - a shopping sheep. Later I was commissioned to design and create the final piece. Anyway the pictures show a few of the stages of the design process - from sketchbook roughs through to my maquette to it's current stage, also pictured is the life size version in clay which will be used to create the mould for the cast stone to be fabricated locally by Martin Bond.