Jeremy Cunningham – Ridding Wood Trail – 1991
Material: Wood
Trail: Ridding Wood Trail
Theme: Modern Life, Nature
Form: Representational – Axes
Maps Featured on: ?, 1993 – 1996
Status: Removed, no remains
Quote by the artist – “In the ‘Axe Life Cycle’, my concerns with cycles and tools have come together. I hope I have turned the usual associations of the axe literally on their head.”
Photograph Taken June 2019
The maquette of the sculpture. This now sits on a shelf in Grizedale Arts office in Coniston, after 28 years the axe heads have fallen off.
Photograph taken 1995
Four wooden axes in various stages of life, growing like a plant, from curled to standing straight. They symbolise the cycle of a managed forest. They were very tall structures which also worked as an archway over the low path by the field, on the Ridding Wood Trail. Below is a photo we took, where I have edited out my family but left my dog, who gives some scale. They must have gone not long after this. Last listed on 1996 map, they were then completely removed.
Photograph taken by Robzet approximately 1996
Sculpture in other Artworks
Grizedale 13 – 1994 – Panayiotis Kalorkoti
Kalorkoti a resident painter in Grizedale during the late eighties and nineties used the axes in his paintings. Below one painting focusing on sculptures using tools in the forest, with the Axes featuring most prominently. Further examples of other sculptures used in Kalorkoti’s work can be seen in the Gallery in the Forest Page.
Artist’s other work in Grizedale
– Time Flies – 1993
Page last updated Jan 2021
Grizedale Forest Sculpture An Unofficial Archive 