where art collides philosoperontap

We have been following the progress of the carving of the new Eleanor Cross for Lincoln by sculptor Alan Ward. The main body of this historic new monument is now almost complete and Alan will shortly be beginning work on the slate wing and seating area around the base..

You can see that Eleanor is emerging from the stone. In my mind this is analogous to her re-emerging from oblivion after being destroyed by the Roundheads approximately 370 years ago.

It seems strange to thing that we have been covering this project on the blog with images and video whilst there will be no record of it being broken up all those years ago let alone of it being built, hundreds of years before that. I can almost feel the spectres of those involved walking around inspecting the statue making observations, or just quietly raising a ghostly eyebrow.

The original site of the Cross is lost although it is thought that it could be at the top of Cross O’Cliff Hill which stacks up when you think about it. The Church of St Katherines is at the bottom of this hill. The population of Lincoln at the time would only have been a couple of thousand people – a far cry from the busy town of today. The erection of the Cross would have been big news in those days. Let’s hope we can make a similar impact in 2014.

We don’t yet have a date for an official unveiling of the Lincoln Eleanor Cross but I certainly feel a party coming on. Perhaps recreate the drink that was on offer when the Cross was originally installed (I’ll have to check on that one as it may be just stuff like mead which is orrible and won’t play a part in any party of mine:) ). We certainly won’t be dishing out any gruel.

Lincoln based readers may want to make a mental note to revisit trefor.net periodically to look out for any announcement or by all means leave a comment and I’ll take that as a request to be notified. If you don’t want to go on public record re this just say so in the comment and I’ll keep it private. If you have previously commented this won’t work as these comments are not moderated in advance.

Work on the carving of the new Eleanor Cross for Lincoln continues with artist and sculptor Alan Ward making good progress this week. When looking at the work being done by Alan you begin to understand why in historical times it might take years to carve a statue. By using power tools Al has been able to reduce it to a couple of months. There is an awful lot of stone to hack away at.

The following photos show some progress during the week. The first one to appear was taken a few days before the second. The third image is a close up of the wing, The others are videos with a short chat with Alan regarding this week’s work and a look at him in action smoothing out some of the wing

At this stage of the game pictures speak louder than words. Just after I was there the bishop of Lincoln swung by for a gander. Happy with progress apparently.

A few pics for you. Links to previous Eleanor Cross posts at the end of this one so that you can track progress with the sculpture. Much of the work is painstaking chipping away of large parts of the stone block that aren’t needed for the stature itself. You can see from the close up the striata where Alan Ward has been chiselling away.

Choosing the stone for the new Eleanor Cross for Lincoln project at the CDS quarry in Metheringham Heath.

Last week we covered the launch event for the new Eleanor Cross project for Lincoln. It’s been quite a wait to get the right piece of rock to start carving the statue. The quarry is only digging out new rock on a few days a month and often the pieces that come out are not of a suitable size or shape.

Moreover whilst the giant digging equipment that is occasionally brought can handle them the larger “lumps” are difficult to move using the quarry’s onsite kit and have to be carefully drilled to facilitate cutting into manageable sizes.

This first candidate on the right had already been moved into the main quarry working area. It might do the job as one of the halves. Alan and quarry manager Sean are seen discussing dimensions. For practical reasons the Eleanor Cross statue will be carved in two halves and cemented together. Otherwise the stone would be too heavy to cart to site for carving.

Tune in every weekend for updates on this project. Coverage was initially planned for philosopherontap.com but this is interesting enough to merit the wider readership that trefor.net offers.