Track boat

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This, the second version of the boat was made in 1990 for the Crafts Council/Common Ground touring exhibition Out of the Woods. It currently contains a selection of inflated diatoms replacing its original cargo that was made up entirely of forged iron elements. At some exhibitions people were asked to arrange the diatoms at the different venues in the tour. I made the oak boat at a time when the mythology of oak and iron was fresh in my mind. It referred to forging steel as it was associated with the thunder gods and as seen with the idea of guardian keys was the ‘stout guardian of the door‘. It also refers to the African myth that the first man was a chief and a metal-worker who came down to earth in a boat on a rainbow that contained models of all the things that were to be on earth.