Milestone commission

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This remains a truly amazing formative experience for me. The project was managed by Steve Chettle of Cleveland Arts, with funding from Northern Arts, British Steel, Skelton and Brotton PC and Marske PC.
This was the last in a series of Milestone Commissions initiated by Common Ground; and was inspired by ideas about locally distinctive features in the landscape. It was also the first time I had got involved in ‘public art’ and was a powerful initiation. I lived in a flat over a club and worked in the local steel rolling mill in nearby Skinningrove. The residency took around twelve weeks and was completed in September 1990 and during that time I made three sculptures for a location south of Saltburn called Huntcliff, 300 feet above the North Sea and part of the Cleveland Way.
The experience involved extensive community consultation mainly through conversations with men at the works and at the club in North Skelton. It happened as a matter of course. Further inspiration came from visits to the moors and Whitby and the local library, not to mention the un-forgettable site of steel beams and strip being rolled at the then British steelworks at Redcar. Unfortunately as I write the Corus Group is the latest major casualty of the recession presumably because we can import steel cheaper from far off places like China and India despite the transport and CO2 costs.
I used special sections that had been rolled at Skinningrove such as caterpillar tracks, lift shaft runners and reinforcing fish-plates in the sculptures. All the materials and workshop facilities were provided by British Steel. Days began early with the lighting of the forge and by 9am I was really going; forging flame cut pairs of steel plates that I welded together to make three dimensional images of what I found around me. The Boiler shop where I had been given a work-space closed at 4pm giving me plenty of time to explore. A local film crew documented the work in a programme called Elements.

Years later in 1996 the Circle was completely destroyed by vandals so I returned to repair it. The sculpture actually improved during that visit and is much stronger than before being encircled with three turns of 25mm stainless steel rope that fits perfectly into the ‘fish-plate’ material on the outer edge of the ring. It has become a place where people have been married and has a certain magic about it when the charms on the sculpture rattle in the wind. Even a song has been written about the place Charm Bracelet by Barbara Helen.