Homage

I've always liked the album cover The Best of Black Sabbath.

The album cover features in the foreground five rock-cut graves, which are in fact graves dating back to the 11th century. The location is St Patrick's Chapel, Heysham in Lancashire overlooking Morecambe Bay, in the background the sun is setting, so apparently taken at dusk.

As I was visiting a client in the area I'd decided that if I had enough time and the weather was favourable, I would visit the chapel for a look around.
What a surprise the village is, I'd only visited the port before which isn't that inspiring, not only does it have the ruins of St Patrick's chapel where the rock cut graves are to be found, it also has the parish church of St Peter which is on the site of an earlier Saxon chapel.

St Peter's Church

Around St Patrick's Chapel are the remains of eight rock-cut graves hewn from the headland, several of which are body shaped and have rock-cut sockets, possibly for wooden crosses. It is thought that the graves were created around the eleventh century and were used for burying very high-status individuals.

St Patrick's Chapel south wall

The graves today complete with wind farm on the horizon!

Of course I took a shot at the grave site, my attempt at the album cover is not quite the same! Done from memory at the wrong time of day and the wrong season (the original has ice in the graves). Must revisit the site again this winter.

Hidden Treasure

On a recent visit to Liverpool Cathedral I sort of bumped into, gate crashed, another meeting. Cathedral architect Ulrike Knox was still with my client discussing the possible relocation of a reredos to a position within the Cathedral, the connection being that the reredos was designed by the architect G F Bodley.
In 1902 Bodley was an assessor for the competition to design Liverpool Cathedral which selected a design by the young Giles Gilbert Scott. When construction of the cathedral began in 1904, Bodley was appointed to oversee Gilbert Scott's work.
The reredos in question was originally installed in St Stephen the Martyr, Grove Street, Liverpool where it had a chequered history, one of the incumbents didn't like the reredos and nailed battens to it and covered it with material!
One week later I find myself back at the Cathedral operating a sort of taxi service to the current home of the reredos at St Stephen's Church, Crown Street, the reredos was moved here when St Stephen the Martyr was demolished in 1992. St Stephen's closed as a centre for parish worship in the Summer of 2014 and is now in use as a centre for community work, since that change of use the reredos has been covered again, this time with care, to protect it from damage. Getting the new cover off proves to be a bit of a challenge, I've no photographs of this stage as everyone in the building was required to lower the cover to the floor! As we stood back we were all amazed at the good condition of the reredos, apart from the colour of the wall it sits on and the large pieces of timber to mount the cover, it looked amazing.

The Bodley Reredos uncovered!

Update:

The decision to put the Bodley reredos in Liverpool Cathedral has been decided against, but the reredos is moving to another church in Southport once it has been approved by the Liverpool Diocesan Advisory Committee.

I don't know what the interior of the Southport church looks like but I just had to quickly put the reredos on what I think is a better background colour! 

Sweeping up

The Foundation for Sport and the Arts has now wound up it's operation for good.

Along the way some of the projects I photographed for the annual reports were unfinished and in an effort to keep the Foundations photographic archive complete I have, when able, been 'sweeping up' these unfinished projects.
The most notable of these being Firstsite in Colchester, only at the superstructure stage when I originally visited for the FSA's 2007 annual report.

Firstsite’s new building was designed by the Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly. His design was selected by a worldwide architectural competition that attracted more than 100 entries. Rafael Viñoly Architects PC are also creators of the Curve centre for the performing arts in Leicester, and the recently completed masterplan for London’s Battersea Power Station redevelopment.

Firstsite is built on a steel frame, and clad entirely in TECU Gold a malleable copper-aluminium alloy that had to be applied by hand. The building lies on Scheduled Ancient Monument land, with archaeological artefacts buried beneath. This meant a ‘no-dig’ policy, conventional foundations could not be dug. Instead, the vast 3,200 square metre building is supported by a giant concrete ‘raft’, which floats above the ground.

Organising a visit to photograph Firstsite was, as I thought it would be, easy, I would already be in the area and would combine the visit with another job. Everything slotted into place as I thought it would, two days before I was due to be in Colchester, yes you guessed it, the phone rings, 'hello Lindsay here can you cancel as someone has smashed the entrance porch glass which will have to be ordered from Austria and will probably only be replaced in a couple of months'!

So here I am trying to 'sweep up' unfinished jobs nearly ending up with a brush in my hand! only photographed the interior this time, I'll have to revisit once the exterior has been repaired!

The 'Object Project'

Sounded simple enough, photograph artwork and produce Giclee prints for an exhibition! By way of an introduction, read on.

Exhibition by Lin Holland & Jane Poulton with the participation of 18 residents from West Everton

The Object Project began almost one year ago with collaborating artists Lin Holland & Jane Poulton working with seventeen households from the West Everton Community Council on a participatory research project.
The aim of the project was to build a dialogue between the artists and residents wherein they could collectively explore how objects become meaningful in the lives of their owners and what role three-dimensional contemporary art might have in domestic spaces.

The artists visited each household where the project participants revealed their significant object and explained how it had accrued its meaning. The portraits, objects and stories were recorded, creating an archive of intimate heritage. Seventeen new artworks have been made by Lin & Jane in response to this exchange and these will be exhibited, along with photographic images documenting the project.

Now Lin & Jane have put me through the wringer before always interesting, sometimes very challenging projects.
No surprises this time! Three location's for the photography the first being a studio at Hope University followed by a shoot in the Everton community centre involving a model who has never been photographed before, is agoraphobic and needs to take up ten different classical poses after famous works of art representing 'Venus'.

Then followed wax, glass, plaster, linen, coloured boxes, cutlery, granite, bronze, a mirror, feather filled pillow and last but not least several Lego towers with a house on top of each, a great project and very rewarding to see all my prints on display at Hope University at the private viewing.