"Something to Crow About"
Steel €375
"Legacy of a Landmine"
Copper, Aluminium and Wood, mounted on Acrylic €400
Some years ago during a campaign to ban the indiscriminate use of anti personnel mines, I was greatly affected by images of innocent civilians, men,women and young children who had lost hands when the curious looking object they had picked up exploded. This sculpture is to acknowledge their loss and condemn those who caused it.
"Earth Science"
Brass on naturally textured sedimentary rock €300
Though meant for internal display, this sculpture can be adjusted to any latitude to become an equatorial sundial.
"Warrior Skin"
Steel €450
Inspired by Akira Kurosawa's famous film "The Seven Samurai" (which was also the inspiration for the western "The Magnificent Seven")
"A Head for Business"
Steel €300
This head was modeled on the skull of a Velociraptor - a vicious predator with razor sharp teeth and a sickle like claw on each hind foot. One of the stars in the film "Jurassic Park" (though it lived in the later Cretaceous age!)
The Entrance Sculpture
(Clonaslee National School)
The entrance sculpture was constructed in ‘316’ stainless steel plate (6mm thick). This material was chosen to represent this modern age; requires less maintenance; will reflect light well and is strong, relative to the same thickness in other plate metal.
The sculpture has seven elements of varying size, giving the impression of simplified human forms. It can be interpreted as a group of children; children with an adult; a family group or a symbolic representation of the classes of the National School. The surfaces of the figures are textured reflecting diversity of creed, culture and tradition. Each figure has a diagonal band at either 30 or 45 degrees. This band may be interpreted as indicating gender; as a sash representing team, religion or ethnicity.
The six elements are linked to each other by solid bars to provide the structure with greater strength (representing the strength of the group or community compared with the strength of its individual members). The sculpture was assembled in a parabolic curve, the focus of which is in the path leading to the door of the school. This focal point of the parabola is marked with a stainless steel pin set into, and flush with, the surface of the path.
Apart from its artistic function it is hoped that the sculpture will also act as a resource for elements of the National School curriculum that deal with mathematics and the use and application of materials. It is intended that the parabolic reference (specifically chosen here to acknowledge education through communication)* be linked culturally to the Greek amphitheatre at Epidavros and mathematically to the construction of modern communications dishes.
* A parabolic curve has the property that light or sound radiated from the focal point and reflected off the curve is broadcast away from the curve in a concentrated beam. Conversely, information collected by the curve is reflected in a concentrated beam to the focal point of the curve. This reference may be interpreted as a teacher broadcasting information to pupils and then in turn, pupils broadcasting that knowledge to the community, and conversely, the wealth of community information, tradition and heritage reflected to the individual.
The Courtyard
(Clonaslee National School)
The courtyard sculpture represents the story of the Slieve Bloom landscape, which has resulted from natural and manmade influences. Various materials used refer to the hidden geology, effects of glaciation and the influence of man through habitation and ritual.
The courtyard design was laid out in an orientation which reflects the landscape of the Forelacka /Cumber valley (southeast of the village of Kinnity). This heavily glaciated valley has been inhabited since man first discovered Slieve Bloom and has been chosen because hidden in this seemingly “ordinary” landscape is a wealth of evidence of habitation and ritual in the form of ring forts, burial mounds and standing stones.
The rivers of the Forelacka/Cumber valley transport the glacial debris carried there by the ice sheets of the last Ice Age and this material still influences and shapes the landscape and its flora and has provided ritual standing stones used to mark especially significant locations and intriguing alignments. These alignments were central to the orientation of the courtyard design. The rainwater downpipes were located to feed water into drainage channels which match the location of the rivers in the real landscape. In these channels were placed glacially eroded limestone cobbles from the Clonaslee area. Each child in the school was asked to collect these stones and under the supervision of their teacher, wrote their name, or the name of a loved one (sometimes deceased) on the stone with an ultra violet marker. After a few minutes the writing faded but could still be read under ultra violet light. When placed in the ‘river’ channels they became a commemorative link between the school and its pupils. The Bronze Age standing stone (known as The Fiddler’s Rock) was be represented by a Bronze pin set into the ground, and two weathered limestone standing stones by stainless steel pins; the Bronze Age Forelacka Tumulus was represented by a stainless steel dome circled by small quartz pebbles. These pins and dome were aligned as they are in the actual landscape, but were also aligned with the entrance doors of the school. Ringforts were represented by raised circles of Quartz pebbles gathered from local river deposits.
To create a link between the seemingly ageless land and the short span of human existence, a Vertical Declining sundial was also specially designed and manufactured for the courtyard wall. Though this type of dial is the most complicated to calculate, the design appears to be very simple (as a pupil would draw an angle in a Maths class) hiding, as nature does, the complexities of the physics governing space and time.
When it was erected the ‘time’ was initially set, but the times and dates of other events (eg. the official opening of the school; a school celebration; major local event) will continue to be recorded and new markers fixed to the wall. Using such a natural, ‘timeless’ clock to record community events, hints at megalithic calendar stones like the entrance stone to Newgrange burial chamber. In conjunction with the sundial an explanation of its mathematical construction was drafted in a style reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s codices and this was framed and displayed inside the school, adjacent to the courtyard. It is hoped that this display will prompt investigation of da Vinci’s amazing work.
It is hoped that these artworks will provide a stepping stone leading pupils to an awareness of self, place and time in the context of their local environment and that they may also act as a resource when teaching elements of the National School Curriculum.
"Grecian Contours"
While on holiday in Greece, I carved this figure out of a block of wood from a discarded, broken pallet. To recognise its previous 'life', I left the two nails that had once held the block to the boards of the pallet.
"Balance"
Brass, Steel, Plastic, Wood, Aluminium
This was a commission to design and make a trophy for the Irish Reserve Defence Forces shooting competition.
The bullets and ring suggest the view through a telescopic sight; the circular ring is a symbol of the unity of the Defence Force; the sphere (the strongest of natures structures) symbolises strength. The various elements are arranged to give a sense of balance and precision - qualities needed by a winning marksman.
