I have been to this place before and wondered at the marvels that are here. This is an old industrial landscape where people have worked in tough conditions in a tough place. The quarry is now deserted and what remains is a landscape full of fascination and history.
I often wander in the landscape before deciding on a place to work, feeling the atmosphere and then stopping to contemplate / meditate on the place that I have found, picking up on the subtleties of that place. I found a huge rock that had been quarried out of the ground. One end was about eight feet in the air with a substantial hollow underneath. This end of the rock had a crude wall that was starting to crack under the pressure of the rock above. The rock itself gave of a huge power, but beneath it was a place of protection, of peace, of stillness from the elements. For some reason it seemed natural to connect the earth to the underside of the rock. This stack, when finished would have to be about seven and a half feet tall.
I started work, and although much more sheltered from the wind, I had to re-build several times. The rocks around here are not the smooth rocks that you find on the beach, but are jagged and never fit quite perfectly. Also the balances involved in a stack this high are quite critical and I found that the whole of the sculpture relied on one of the lower balances.
Whilst I was building this I noticed that about forty feet away, someone else had made their own creation. Two people having the same kind of idea in the same place. Coincidence?
I got the stack to within six inches of the lower face of the rock, and it seems to fit my feelings at that time. This enormous rock gave some kind of protection to its progeny. Protection from the wind and rain. It almost caressed / embraced the stack. I just hope that the photos carry some of the feeling that this piece gave me while creating it.