A Secret Sculpture

A Secret Sculpture – summer

July 13th, 2007

The project was launched yesterday. The weather was too wet to run the miniature railway as planned. I built a pontoon in the middle of the WI Hall and used it to display images of the project so far, there was also a screening of underwater video footage of the dive.

The Kings Head pub made an inaugural Reservoir Punch for us:

Punch

Brandy, Vodka, Red WKD, Blue WKD, Watermelon Barcardi Breezer, Lemon Bacardi Breezer, Mint Mudshake, Toffee Mudshake, Orange juice, Bitter Lemon, Pineapple juice, cress leaves, finely chopped lettuce and orange slices.

Other attractions included seafood at Hundreds Seafood! and a short talk about The Whispering Post (at the actual post) by Maurice Drage.
Here is the sword used to stir the punch – our very own Essex Excalibur .

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Spot the difference

February 1st, 2007

I Went to Rochford with the photographer Andy Keat to take two photos of the sculpture; one before it was thrown into the reservoir and one after. I was imagining that the final thing would look completely different from the original and wanted to do the photos to â€˜revealâ€™ the changes between the versions. Technically they are different, but not dramatically. Perhaps it should have its own spot the difference competition?

Andy and I found the old record and antique shop at the back of the Beehive Cafe. The records there are only a pound each, so I bought an Ian Drury LP.

So, here are the two photos of the sculpture before and after its resurrection. Both incarnations look pretty similar. I like the fact that both photos have water in them; puddles at the yard and the water in the reservoir.

The original fabricators tell me that they don’t think it was put together properly at the reassembly stage – sounds a touch competitive to me.

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Reasons to be cheerful

January 28th, 2007

It is a job done. We made a pontoon, sat the sculpture on it and then floated it out to the island, where it was installed. It looked beautiful as it floated across the reservoir. I launched it with a dribble of Champagne.

Once on the Island the sculpture was positioned. Builders travelled too and fro on a boat and line. I am going to let the wood dry-out and wait to see how the colour of the sculpture comes-up. I think Iâ€™d like to leave it as it is; it looks quite organic with the silt from the reservoir and mud from the banks still on it.

I went over to the island for the first time today; it is covered with bird-poo and dead wood (the sculpture will be covered with bird poo by the time it comes off the island.) The birds were back on the island by the time we left at 3.30pm, which is a Reason to be Cheerful …

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GUTTED!

January 27th, 2007

Nothing to do with fish – but I am gutted! The participants managed to get the sculpture back together again (even with 4 pieces missing.) I wanted the sculpture to look completely different. The participants were on completely the wrong track until a ‘helpful’ first-aider came to the rescue. He was sitting in his car having a spot of lunch when he had a eureka moment and saw how the sculpture should go together.
I just have to accept that they managed to do it. Debbie (Dive Odyssea) told me she hasn’t been sleeping for the worry of not finding all the sculpture parts. Now she has seen the sculpture re-united she thinks she may get her first good sleep in weeks.

Jason (undercover fisherman/security guard) told me he had thought about finishing the sculpture last night, seeing that he hadn’t had any success fishing. He observed that this was to do with the fact that that the fish were feasting on the silt that divers had disturbed and were no longer interested in a tasty fisherman’s worm. There was some talk about me camping at the reservoir tonight. Like Debbie, I haven’t slept properly for some time, so I decided to go home and (try to) get some sleep in my own warm bed.

Ducks being guarded by van…

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32 retrieved / 4 lost

January 26th, 2007

The reservoir was frozen when we arrived at 8am this morning. The divers started at 10am and were in the water for 1 1/2 hours, finding 32 of the 36 pieces that were thrown in last week. After a cup of tea, Debbie went back out onto the water with an underwater metal-detector; it was her last attempt to find all the pieces. During the dive my home-made buoys didnâ€™t help as the visibility was too low, and the divers had to find the sculpture parts by reaching out and feeling in the darkness.
The sculpture parts have been left on a verge at the edge of the reservoir â€“ they have been lit and are partly visible from the road. I had arranged for a security firm to ‘look-after’ the sculpture and lights over-night. So I was surprised that when we arrived at 8am I met Jason, a security guard disguised as a fisherman â€“ already on site. He said he was mixing a bit of fishing and security and had erected his tent at the edge of the reservoir. Things got complicated at 3.30pm, when I got a call from a security guard asking me where the reservoir was. Who had I given the keys to then? When Frank, another security guard, arrived we realised that there had been a double booking. Frank looked a bit bemused at the prospect of having to guard 32 pieces of marine ply.

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Romance and Rove Nails

January 20th, 2007

This is a photo of the wood-workshop at Rochford Adult Community College where participants were taught the basic skills required to put the sculpture back together again. This included how to use Rove Nails and information on puzzle-solving. The workshop was devised and lead by Mike Henson and Bob Liddell, two local woodworkers. Mike and Bob will be leading the re-assembly of the sculpture. They have both been informed of the skills that will be required when re-building the sculpture, but are as much in the dark about the nature of the project as the participants.

In the evening we had a brief meeting regarding the construction of a pontoon, which we are planning to use to float the sculpture over to the island. The whole project is becoming an Essex-based ‘Swallows and Amazons‘ tale of adventure – only the setting is Rochford Reservoir and not The Lake District. It occurred to me today that this sculpture – its process, form and transformative cycle – is a celebration of the hobbyist, where craft and landscape meet and fall in love.

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Abracadabara

January 19th, 2007

Image of the reservoir with the sculpture beneath it. This photo looks like all the other images of the reservoir on this site – only, in this image the sculpture is hidden/stored in the waters.

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250 Riders in the Storm

January 18th, 2007

Today started with Jeff and John, the fabricators, being interviewed live on the BBC Radio Essex breakfast show. I was at the reservoir for 7 to prepare for the day.

At 11am we deposited the sculpture in the Reservoir. The weather was windy, rainy, cold and pretty dramatic.Â Jonathan and Tim Sedgewick (pictured) brought their dinghy and years of experience of all-weather boating with them. Even the wildlife was struggling in the wind – when we arrived at the Reservoir we were told about a distressed bird at the waters-edge. Jonathan deployed his craft straight away to try to help it.

There were 40 sculpture parts, home-made buoys and 1000 horse-shoes strewn on the banks of Rochford Reservoir – all waiting to be put together before being taken out on the boat and put in the water. Jeff, the brains behind the ingenious design, was pretty upset to see his work disappear. I enjoyed watching it being hurled in – but then, I hadnâ€™t spent the past 6 weeks designing and making it.

There was much speculation about what the sculpture actually was.

Thanks to Tim Head for inspiring the title of this entry…

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Photo-teaser

January 17th, 2007

We took photos of the completed sculpture at Clovelly Works in Rawreth today. After all that rain we finally got some sun and the day turned out to be a nice one. Here is an incomplete photo of the complete sculpture…

I experienced a strange mix of feelings today. It was exhilarating to see the sculpture. There are gale warnings for tomorrow, and I wonder if I should postpone tomorrowâ€™s drop? I’ve decided to wait until the day, see what the weather is like and ask the newly appointed boat-men to make an assessment for me.

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