First love

As an artist my first response to the wall was visual. Even before I’d thought about what the exhibition as a whole would look like, I knew that some of the individual blocks of stone I’d seen would feature. This one was my first love:

The erosion of the stone allows it to reveal its inner beauty. Whereas a new wall will look fairly uniform and the scutch marks left by the mason’s tools are the main distinguishing features, once erosion starts and develops, all sorts of secrets emerge.

There are contour lines and curves

And holes

And protrusions and concavities

There are yellows and greys and greens and reds.

There are hidden worlds and places to explore

In the sun it glistens, in the shade it is more subtle. The same changes of light which bring sculpture to life create a different experience of the wall with each visit and each step.

The surface is hard and smoothed by time or worryingly crumbly. My feltmakers hands, experienced in sensing the feel of the wool and the resistance it gives as it felts, are intrigued by the graininess of this new material.