'ANOTHER PLACE'

I've been so busy in the last few weeks with my pre moving house decluttering that I've neglected blogland! I'm almost ready for the first car load of STUFF to transport down to Plymouth tomorrow where I will be staying for 3 weeks before returning to Leeds for the final packing and cleaning of the house. Although I'm moving down to Plymouth I have decided to take some time out and defer my degree for a year - I'm going WALKABOUT and about this I will write something later on as I'm not starting until November - in the meantime inbetween the sorting, packing, going backwards and forwards from one end of the country I decided to mark the beginning of my decision to go WALKABOUT last Monday and go to ' ANOTHER PLACE' - it seemed a fitting start! I took the train to Liverpool and then to Crosby Beach, just a few miles north - as I walked from the station at Blundelsands/Crosby I turned around - this was behind me............... Liverpool Docks!

And this was ahead of me - I felt excited at the anticipation of what was waiting on the other side of the dunes...

THIS.........................
'ANOTHER PLACE' - 100 cast iron figures by the artist Anthony Gormley spread along 3 kms of beach and reaching 1 km out to sea. According to Antony Gormley, Another Place harnesses the ebb and flow of the tide to explore man's relationship with nature. He says "the seaside is a good place to do this. Here time is tested by tide, architecture by the elements and the prevalence of sky seems to question the earth's substance. In this work human life is tested against planetary time. This sculpture exposes to light and time the nakedness of a particular and peculiar body. It is no hero, no ideal, just the industrially reproduced body of a middle-aged man trying to remain standing and trying to breathe, facing a horizon busy with ships moving materials and manufactured things around the planet." The figures are life size casts of Gormley's body. Incredibly they all seem to be so different..........I felt so moved - just look at this face - he seemed to have a tear rolling down his cheek!

this figure was near to the dunes and not submerged by water very often - the patina of the rusty iron was incredible to feel - something you just can't do in a gallery!
And this one much nearer to the sea - spending much more time under water

Quite spooky really..........
I tried to capture the expanse of the beach but it felt impossible........... the high tides here can rise by 100ft and at certain times all 100 figures are completely submerged - I was lucky enough to catch a very low tide and walk 1km out towards the sea......

Next week I'm off to Venice to the Biennale - more about that in a couple of weeks!