HERITAGE PROJECTS
Wooden sculpture project
History at the heart of Blackwell
New life for old trees to tell our story
As part of Greater Creatives focus on heritage, a community competition was launched which asked for wood sculpture designs from residents in the parish. Our talented artistic partner Andrew Frost gave four community demonstrations to promote the project and ghave out competition forms across the parish including going into school playgrounds to being in community centre car parks!
The Greater Creative Working Party Team worked invited impartial members from the community to help them select a winning design for each village (which was tricky process because we had some amazing entrees!). The winning designers were then invited to join the artist at his studio in Crich for half a day to select their timber and to talk through the designs and do any essential practical amends with the sculptor.
The competition winners also got to meet other winners and some of the greater creative working party and to also experience the sculptors seasoned wood sculptor trail set in the grounds at The Crich Tramway Museum.
During the visit everyone was surprised by the sheer scale that Andrew was planning on working with. Issac a Westhouses winner brought his dad along who exclaimed “I didn’t realise the final sculpture would be so big! We thought it would be about 2ft maybe, not 6ft!”
Jasmine, one of our Blackwell winners whilst surprised was pleased that her idea of giving her sculpture a purpose would come to fruit when it takes it place in the landscape “I wasn’t expecting to win! I really wanted my design to look like it had grown from the land. I wanted it to have a purpose so if I made it for the birds with the baths and feeders on it it would have a purpose as well”
James’s design is based on his great Grandad who was a miner in Blackwell and his mum was proud that there would be a personal connection to the sculpture as well as a connection to the areas heritage “James never met his great grandad but we always talk about him. Where the sculpture is planned to go is where we always take the dog for a walk where the pit once was, it’s an appropriate place”.
The sculptor Andrew Frost commented on the process:
“I like that we’ve not really changed the entrants designs much, usually I’m commissioned and given an idea of what’s required and I go away and carve something that visually represents that idea, I love that for this project I’m just designing what they’ve drawn, there’s a real truth to it. There aren’t any major issues with the designs. I’ve really enjoyed the process of working on this commission, the design process has somewhat disappeared over the years in my work, so letting the kids see me carve at the schools and getting to talk with groups and the entrants has been great. It’s also great for them to see my process, it’s about planting seeds with people that this could be a career. I also love community involvement in projects, it gives it meaning and it gives the community ownership over the project and the pieces. It’s been a breath of fresh air; I haven’t had community jobs like this for about five years. Sometimes you need these kinds of leaders, with this kind of vision to say, “we’re going to try for this, get funding but what do you as the community want to see? This project has been great, it really feels like the community involvement has been just as important as the sculptures.”
Here are the sculptures now installed across the parish:
