Another Celebration

Today there was cause for more celebration although I'm happy to say that it wasn't another 1000th! I might sometimes feel like I'm that age but I'm not! John spoiled me rotten with gorgeous presents as did my mother and friends and I was also allowed to choose where I wanted to go for an outing. I choose Jupiter Artland where we were in July when my mother was here. The place is very large and we hadn't taken in all the attractions at that time so we started with those artworks we hadn't seen before. The above boathouse is part of Rivers, by Tania Kovats.

Inside the boathouse is a collection of water from one hundred rivers around the British Isles. The whole list is hanging outside the door. Piddle attracted my special attention.

And here are some of the bottles containing that river water. Her artist statement reads: "Each river has a history and each river has a story and in some way I am trying to capture that in each bottle".

We had also missed the Stone Coppice structures by  Andy Goldsworthy. Here boulders were placed in coppiced trees with limbs able to hold them. It will be fascinating to see how the trees look when they grow larger and the plan is to add more boulders at some future day. This is what Goldsworthy has to say about this: "A living, growing, changing sculpture in which people and wood play equally important roles.

This art piece is by Anya Gallaccio and is called The Light Pours Out of Me. It is an underground chamber of amethyst surrounded by obsidian in its natural state, protected by gold barbed wire.

Being enclosed on all sides by walls of amethyst was an amazingly sparkling experience and that was on a not very sunny day. What it must look like in the sun I can only imagine and hopefully will be able to one day see for myself.

 We continued on our way and reached Life Mounds by Charles Jencks and climbed up to the top of some of the mounds. There are sculptures of fish at the top of them with different inscriptions on each. This one reads: The Future Pregnant with the Past, which seemed rather suitable to think about on my birthday.

 Here is a beautiful textured detail.

We could not resist walking around some of the other art on show again and above is Firmament by Antony Gormley, which was inspired by an old star map. His statement reads: "Think about the endless condition of the sky and the conditioned space of architecture. It looked great against the dark sky.

There is time for contemplation on our own mortality in among the unreal gravestones of In Memory by Nathan Coley. This is a concrete enclosure inside which there is a mock cemetery with examples of gravestones from a variety of different cultures and traditions. Where normally there would be a name, here there is a blank space. His statement says: "In memory asks us to think about how we mark lives that are passed".

I simply could not resist taken another picture of one of the Weeping Girls by Laura Ford. They are so evocative and pure beauty, and my most favourite art at Jupiter.

And I managed to get a much better picture than last time of A Forest by Jim Lambie on the wall of one of the steading buildings. I just love the colours being peeled back from the wall.

Apart from the art done by human hand there is also art by nature on show at Jupiter Artland and these toadstools caught my eye quite by change. You can just about imagine them with a little door, now can't you? No artist statement was provided by Nature!

When we left back through this magnificent gate by Ben Tindall we vouched we would return again soon!