Owl

Steve Blaylock – Ridding Wood Trail – 2005

Photographs by Mike Kewley. Website Link Here.

Material: Metal

Trail: Ridding Wood Trail

Theme: Nature

Form: Figurative – animals

Maps Featured on: 2006

Status: Removed, no remains

In 2005 Blaylock sited several metal animals along the Ridding Wood Trail. The first you’d encounter was an owl a the bend in the path before the large bridge that spans the valley. It was positioned on the top of a dead tree trunk, and was impossible to miss.

Steve initially approached Grizedale a couple of years prior to this but was turned away, as Grizedale Arts were in charge at this point and not interested in art relevant to the forest. In 2005 the Forestry Commission now running the trail again asked Steve to site these sculptures.

They formed part of an exhibition, designed to bring people back to the forest after the terrible Grizedale Arts years, which turned everyone away. This worked and on the back of the popularity of these artworks Grizedale received a grant to install Clockwork Forest in 2011. Unfortunately part of that process seemingly involved the removal of almost every other sculpture on the trail (despite the clockwork keys only being on the first portion of the trail, and prone to not working properly). This meant all of the metal animals were removed at once in 2011.

Other Work by this Artist –

Crow – 2005

Spider, Wasp, Fly – 2005

Butterfly– 2005

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Artist’s Website: metalsculpture.co.uk/

Page last updated Jan 2021