This sculpture by Clarke Fitzgerald was given to the Cathedral by Christ Church, Cincinnati, USA in 1971.

A plumb-line is used to determine whether or not a building is standing straight. This sculpture is based on a passage from the Bible, Amos 7.7-9, where God sets out his intention to assess whether or not his people are aligned with him. Amos is warned that, if necessary, God will take action to put things right…

This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A plumb-line.’ Then the Lord said, ‘See, I am setting a plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.’*

*Quoted from a signboard next to the sculpture

Public Sculpture was desligned by Bernard Meadows in 1968. It was commisioned by Eastern County Newspapers for placement at the entrance of the visitor receception area of their new offices.

We arrived at the hospital to visit the patient who we last saw in the Escalation area, pending hospital admission. The Escalation area is basically a corridor between A&E and the hospital wards.

The patient was no longer registered on the A&E system and was now in AMU (Acute Medical Unit).

We had arrived too early for visiting hours which start at 12.30 so we walked for lunch in the nearby Bowring Park taking the long way there and back. The walk gave me a chance to photograph a lovely sculpture located near to the park.

Back at the hospital the patient seemed almost back to normal but as we left, I knew that was not the case. This was confirmed later by a phone call.

Sadly, this means we will have to postpone our imminent Stratford adventure…

Where the Waterside Shopping Centre (built 1987-91) now stands was originally marshy ground, which the Romans reclaimed, building piers and creating inlets. Here Stephen Broadbent’s Empowerment sculpture spans the River Witham from City Square. Its theme is God empowering mankind in the form of Adam. Privately funded, the sculpture reflects the city’s engineering heritage.*

*From the Lincoln Pitkin City Guide

A bronze sculpture by Stojan Batič.

Batič was born in a working-class family in Trbovlje, a mining town in central Slovenia, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Already as a teenager, he worked in the local coal mine. At the age of 19, he joined the partisan resistance, which fought the Nazi German forces. After World War II, he was the first to enroll at the newly established Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Ljubljana, where he studied sculpture under Boris Kalin and Frančišek Smerdu.^[1] In 1957, he received a scholarship, which enabled him to study in Paris with the sculptor Ossip Zadkine.

Batič lived and worked in Ljubljana. In 1995, he had a show at Ljubljana City Gallery.^[2] In 2015, the Jakopič Gallery held a retrospective exhibition of his work under the title “The Man and The Myth” (Človek in mit).

Batič, predominantly a figurative sculptor, is known for about 40 public monuments depicting events from Slovene history, as well as European and Oriental myths and legends. His best-known works include the monument to the Slovene peasant revolts at Ljubljana Castle featuring a group of men holding war scythes, and the Itaka series of figurative sculptures. His 1957 bronze sculpture Balet (Ballet) stands in front of Tivoli Castle in Tivoli Park in Ljubljana. In the 1960s, he created a mining-related series in lignite, and in the 1970s a series of glass sculptures, the two representing his most significant approach to abstract art.

Whilst reading about the artist Bob Murray I was reminded of my visit to The Museum of Steel Sculpture in 2012. The sculptures were dotted around a 10 acre woodland site in Coalbrookdale. On arrival we were greeted by Pam, the co-founder of the museum as we gave her the nominal museum entrance fee. The sculptures seemed to work in their woodland setting, with sunlight dappling through the trees and the larger sculptures dominating the grassy areas. As we were about to leave Pam came out of her house to talk to us and ask if we had enjoyed our visit.

Founded in 1991 by the sculptor, Roy Kitchin FRBS, the Ironbridge Open Air Museum of Steel Sculpture occupies a 10 acre site situated within the historically appropriate district of Coalbrookdale, England. This extraordinary region, known as “the cradle of the Industrial Revolution”, was designated by UNESCO a “World Heritage Site” in 1986.

The Museum is barely half a mile from the remains of the Blast Furnace where, in 1709, Abraham Darby I successfully smelted iron using coke as the fuel instead of charcoal. Here too, in 1779, the world’s first iron bridge was cast, which still spans the River Severn today.

Registered as a Charitable Trust the Museum, since the death of it’s Founder in 1997, has been managed by his widow and co-founder, the sculptor Pam Brown, supported by an experienced Board of Trustees.

Pam wound up the museum during 2014 so that she could concentrate more on her own work. The sculptures have been moved to a new home at the British Ironwork Centre near Oswestry. I wonder if they will work as well in their new setting.

This artwork of terracotta figures by Nicholas Pope is currently situated in the Trinity Chapel at Salisbury Cathedral.

The Apostles Speaking in Tongues Lit by Their Own Lamps is a dramatic re-enactment of events narrated in the New Testament. On the Jewish feast of the Pentacost, the Holy Spirit was said to have come upon the Apostles in Jerusalem enabling them to speak in tongues to all those present. The Holy Spirit descends amidst a ‘rushing mighty wind’ and appears in the form of ‘cloven tongues of fire’. Nicholas Pope’s Apostles are likewise the bearers of fire. Made in brick clay of earth-colours, each figure supports a primitive oil-lamp backed by a halo of beaten metal. The lamps provide a pulsating glow which is reflected from the polished metal.

Just like individuals who make up the average Anglican community – the clergy, the parish council, the parishioners – the twelve apostles came from ordinary walks of life, from agriculture, teaching, the world of commerce. Like members of the congregation, some were good and trusting souls, others turned out to be less wholesome. Pope doesn’t take a neutral view of the twelve. His figures are breathtaking and imposing but at the same time they include aspects of the hideous and the comical. Each figure is identified by his attributes: Doubting Thomas sports trunk-like bloodsucking appendages; Mathew, a tax-collector, carries a heavy paunch while the two-faced Judas has fleshy protruding lips.*

Acts 2:1-6:

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak his own language.

*From a Salisbury Cathedral leaflet on the exhibition

The stone heads on the lawn in front of Wallington capture ones eye as you drive past.  Depending on which source you read they are either Dragons of Gryphens.  With only the heads on display the jury is out…

But where did they come from?

Four griffins’ heads with protruding eyes, large ears, snarling mouths and hair sprouting from under their jowls.
The heads originally belonged to griffins on the medieval gate at Bishopsgate, London, which was demolished in 1761.(1) An engraving at Wallington Hall shows how they looked in the early eighteenth century.(2) The story goes that they arrived in Northumberland as ballast in one of the coal boats belonging to the Blacketts, the great coaland lead-mining family that owned Wallington Hall.(3) It is not known when exactly this was but certainly by 1789 the heads were part of the motley array of objects decorating Rothley Castle, the eighteenth-century Gothic eyecatcher and viewing-point which David Garrett designed for Sir Walter Calverley c.1755 to stand in his newly laid-out deerpark at Rothley Park, five miles to the north of Wallington.

In 1928 the heads were moved from Rothley Castle to Wallington.

Douglas is carved from a 140-year-old fallen pine within in the grounds of the Cragside Estate. The artwork was created by Tommy Craggs from Durham.

The latest edition of the National Trust Magazine provides a brief news snippet:

Tree carvings can be seen in places ranging from inner-city Victorian parks to the great landscapes of the National Trust.  We would like your help to track them down.  Please send pictures and comments to us as part of a project that includes members of the National Trust, the Woodland Trust, the Arboricultural Association and the Ancient Tree forum.
www.ukeconet.org

In a previous post I blogged about an owl sculpture within the formal gardens at Cragside.

This sculpture stands inside The Parish Church of St Mary, Lindisfarne:

In the south aisle stands the imposing statue known as The Journey, depicting the monks of Lindisfarne carrying St.Cuthbert’s body on the first stage of its journey to Durham and is probably the first thing to catch the visitor’s eye. The sculpture is an acclaimed work of Dr Fenwick Lawson made up of 35 piece of elmwood, carved principally with a chain-saw. This has been loaned to St Mary’s Church and a bronze copy has been placed in the Millennium Square in Durham, thus marking the start and finishing places of the journey of St Cuthbert’s coffin between 698 and c920.