This is an extract from a July 2000 interview with sculptress Sally Corney

the sculptress

 

A sculpture with the title 'Waterstone' was unveiled at Chew Valley Lake in July 2000, and has become a durable part of the landscape within which it was created. Sally Corney worked on the sculpture in situ since the beginning of the year, when she took delivery of a block of limestone with pores frozen solid with ice.

What now greets walkers and cyclists is a strikingly evocative three-dimensional shape, which incorporates sinuous contour lines (reflecting the surrounding landscapes above and below water) with smooth and rough surfaces echoing the textures in the surrounding expanse of water, sky and land.

A ring of concentric circles is one feature of the stone: it could suggest the ripples of a child's stone in water, or maybe the plan of Bronze Age wooden henges at Stanton Drew, but for Sally it relates more to the many circular and spiral patterns found on ancient stones throughout the world. She hopes one day this stone will also be viewed as an ancient stone, with its acknowledged cultural importance in its context.

A shallow depression in the sculpture mirrors the shape of the lake itself, and provides a measure of the porosity of the limestone - "It's like a big sponge", according to Sally. Limestone was a natural choice, given the composition of the Mendips, but in fact the piece she finally chose from a Mendip stone mason's yard originated from France.

Sally says in a way she would have preferred to use Mendip stone, but few observers of the work would question the aesthetic qualities of the stone, which is a beautiful chalky white. The relics of prehistoric, tiny sea creatures preserved in the stone are a reminder that the Mendips and local marls were also formed by deposits at the bottom of ancient oceans. "I am interested in the geology of the site - where we are shapes who we are, and that is a part of the tribal themes which underlie a lot of my work." Given that she is completing an MA at the University of the West of England. in Fine Art in Context, this may not be surprising. She also says there were practical reasons for the choice of stone, in that it needed to be a really hard stone to survive the anticipated knocks from kids' bikes and the like.

The work has been funded by Sustrans, as a marker on its the newly opened National Cycle Network and culminates two years of related projects with local schools and individuals. Further funding came from the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty office, Bristol Water and North East Somerset Arts.

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