Midnight Feast

Michael Winstone – Wood Heads – 1984

Photograph from ‘A Sense of Place’ 1984 by Mark Prior

Material: Stone, Concrete, Wood

Trail: Millwood Trail

Theme: Nature

Form: Figurative – Lizard, Hedgehog

Maps Featured on: 1984 – 2020

Status: Still in situ, (very mossy) March ’24

Quote from the artist – “Midnight Feast relates specifically to the nocturnal life of the ‘Silurian Way’. These midnight creatures, a hedgehog and a lizard, invoke their ancestral predecessors, as does the Silurian Way.”

Photograph from ‘A Sense of Place’ 1984 by Mark Prior

A photograph of the maquette for the sculpture.

Positioned on a flat crag on the slope above the Silurian Way on Carron Crags lower flanks. ‘The original piece invoked the nocturnal life of the forest.’ Made out of local rocks and slate it originally depicted a large hedgehog  biting a lizard. However when Mike returned a few years later he decided to remove the lizard and replace it with a log covered in miniature cars. ‘A visual roll reversal on life, an ant trail of cars manoeuvring across a log being eaten by a giant hedgehog.’

Photograph from ‘Grizedale Experience’ 1991 by Mike Oram

The photo above shows it after its transformation subverted the image of  hedgehogs being killed by cars and the animal here was taking its revenge on the transport. The  dinky toys have long since been stolen, but the log they were on remains.

The sculpture is now a bit more mossy and camouflaged, but essentially the same as it’s been since it was initially changed in the mid 1980s.

Photograph Taken 2017

Left photograph taken April 1997 by Ingram. Right my photo taken 2019

The waymarker for this artwork, since 1997 has been a worm.

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Artist’s other work in Grizedale –

Waiting For Lunch – 1984

To Fuel A Dream – 1989

Piscatorial Flora – 1995

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Artist’s Website: www.michaelwinstone.com

Page last updated April 2020