Rosalind Wates – Ridding Wood Trail – 1992
Photograph from official postcard
Material: Stone
Trail: Ridding Wood Trail
Size: 5m across
Theme: Nature
Form: Figurative – Animals
Maps Featured on: 1993 – 2006
Status: Removed, no remains
Quote from the Artist: “The mosaic was started in late golden summer. It took nearly three months to complete, well into December. (It) was made in situ… from natural materials… I started to drive around the local slate quarries. I wanted to make the mosaic with off-cuts from the quarry waste heaps, and had a glorious time creating my ‘palette’ from what I found. It is a wonderful thing to find yourself halfway up Coniston Old Man as the sun rises, a sack over one shoulder, picking around the foot of some vast quarry in search of ‘badger’ grey”
“The design features five indigenous animals – an otter, a deer, a fox, a hare, and a badger… The mosaic has an unashamedly environmental theme. Five indigenous mammals, frozen mid-movement and turned to stone, follow each other around the central sun. Balancing this fiery heart is another element essential to life: a river motif, which forms a border to the mosaic.”
“Many of the sculptures at Grizedale reflect the passing of time. They exist for a while, then decay naturally back into the ground. The Grizedale Mosaic is different. As the Romans left their mark, so have I left mine; a message to future generations saying that we didn’t just care about wealth, power, and the materialistic things of life; beyond all that, there’s a part of us that is still claimed by the wilderness.”
“Romans used animals as subjects for their art; sometimes domestic, sometimes wild, sometimes strange, barely discovered creatures from far-flung corners of their empire. The sense of discovery in their world is replaced in ours by a sense of loss. As we destroy our landscape and the creatures that live in it, so we are beginning to value them in an entirely new way.”
The mosaic was positioned at the end of the Ridding Wood Trail. A perfect finishing point and turning space to return on the trail back to the start. Despite what Rosalind thought above, unfortunately it didn’t survive for future generations to enjoy. At some point in the mid 00s some of the stones came loose and despite being easily fixed the whole artwork was taken away, (concrete foundation and all). Now at the end of the trail you are greeted with an empty space and no feeling of accomplishment.
Sculpture in other Artworks
Grizedale 13 (close up) – 1994
Panayiotis Kalorkoti a resident painter in Grizedale during the late eighties and nineties used the Mosaic in his paintings. Below is part of a painting featuring all the animals depicted. Further examples of other sculptures used in Kalorkoti’s work can be seen in the Gallery in the Forest Page.
Artist’s Website: www.rosalindwates.co.uk
Page last updated Jan 2021
Grizedale Forest Sculpture An Unofficial Archive 