A spell of good weather has people flooding to beaches and beauty spots but unfortunately some people are making potentially life threatening decisions… All around the country road access is being blocked leading to emergency service vehicles & life saving equipment and personnel being late to the scenes of accidents. Every second counts in an emergency so don’t block access on any roads, park sensibly and dial 112/999 and ask for the Coast Guard if you see someone in trouble in the sea or by the coast. Play your part and park sensibly. Thank you. IRISH COAST GUARDS.
However there’s good weather and then there is what’s going on in Europe, temperatures that are unbearable and in the Greek Island of Rhodes the fires are burning hotels, homes and encroaching on towns and villages. How terrifying and for families far away from home on holiday with children must be in trauma. Can you imagine how terrifying it is to be in such a situation. Evacuated from the hotel, all your possessions left behind, grabbing essentials, passports, money, pills or maybe not. Probably limited transport even if you could make your way to an airport, probably limited flights. Choking smoke, roaring flames, shouting and screaming. It must be like living in a film set. Temperatures today are due to be 45c and category 5 the highest risk of fire outbreaks. Everyone is doing the best they can, fire fighters, airlines, hotels, locals and your thoughts go out to them. And I bet it’s only a matter of time before we hear of looting in hotel bedrooms and unmanned shops.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE POWER OF FIRE
Belfastman Tim Shaw was walking through Piccadilly when his mobile phone alerted him to a message. Tuesday 24th September 2013, just another day, just another message? No, it was a very special day and a very special message, it read “Congratulations, Tim Shaw RA.” He had been honoured with membership of the Royal Academy of Arts, one of the youngest academicians in its 255 year history and now he’s one of an august body of invited artists including Turner, Constable, Grayson Perry, Hockney and Tracey Amin.
“I think I might have just jumped for joy – it was really fantastic to see that. It was wonderful and, as it happened, I was right outside Burlington House, the RA headquarters in London. Could hardly believe it.”
Since that day Tim has made a name for himself on the worldwide stage with his remarkable imagination, the depth of his thinking when it comes to the materials he uses and his outspoken work ethic. An early example is Casting A Dark Democracy depicting an Abu Ghraib prisoner being tortured by US guards. The figure in steel, barbed wire and plastic, towers five meters above the viewer and is reminiscent of a Klu Klux clansman in black who is reflected in a huge puddle of crude oil on the floor held in place by sand. The sound track is a heartbeat and the glug, glug of oil seeping from a barrel. Not difficult in getting the political connection.
2023 brings with it another reflection of modern warfare and it’s a powerful image and he considers his most prestigious work so far. Man On Fire was unveiled at the Imperial War Museum North last week and transporting it from the foundry in North Wales to sit in the museum courtyard beside the Trafford Wharf on Manchester Ship Canal, was a major event in itself. It weighs just over three tonnes of bronze and depicts Tim’s ongoing theme of conflict; it shows a burning soldier frantically stretching out from an armoured tank engulfed in flames during the 2005 Basra riots in the Iraq War. “On 20 March 2003, a United States led coalition which included British forces launched the ground invasion of Iraq. During this the 20th anniversary of the Iraq conflict the lives of those affected by war come into sharp focus.”
“War is time old,”
As Tim says: “Conflict does not discriminate between gender, age or country. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine testifies to the fact that we continually repeat the same tragic mistakes.”
His remarkable sculpture is influenced by several events: a visit to Pompeii, photojournalistic images from the Iraq War, the Glasgow Airport terrorist attack in 2007 and a personal experience during the Troubles when he and his mother were caught in a bomb blast and rioting in Belfast. He remembers: “All around cars were ablaze and the tarmac appeared scorched by collective rage.” This is reflected as the tortured man on fire lunges forward in panic and we see his fingers stretching towards safety, his face distorted in fear and pain as he is caught between hopeful life and almost certain dreadful death. It’s not an easy vision, frozen in time it’s powerful and disturbing.
Giving Man On Fire birth was a colossal task which involved the casting and welding together of over one hundred separate pieces of bronze onto a steel reinforcement with the entire image balancing on one area of the foot. Then it had to be transported on a massive low loader to its place outside the museum. “8 a.m. it was slowly hoisted onto the vehicle, driven north and once there and positioned it had to be bolted onto its pedestal and lighting installed.” Did he hold his breath until it was settled in it’s new home? “No, this was a mega operation which took months to arrange and carefully thought over and we had good people making it work.”
Looking Back
“When I mentioned to my mother that I was going to become a sculptor she cried and said she didn’t know how I’d exist, it was going to be a hard and precarious life she said and growing up in Northern Ireland at that time announcing your were going to be an artist didn’t go down well. For much of my secondary education I was a disrupter! Then one day my art teacher sat me down and said he would like me to work with some clay. Great, a new medium for disruption to fire round the room.” However, it soon caught his vivid imagination and as he says modelling in clay gave him a reason for life, an element of magic is how he sums it up.
Certainly there was an element of supernatural forces in his statement Lifting The Curse whenin 2017 eccentric artists Gilbert and George were disgruntled with the Academy and put a curse on it and its members. This annoyed Tim to the extend he determined to remove the curse, so he made a huge figure, a wire outline filled with charcoal wrapped in blankets, bent nails and a heart of wood. It stood in the Academy for three months to absorb the curse and then, in an elaborate ceremony, a shamanic practitioner carried out a ritual as the old moon passed over to the new before it was burned in a field beside his Cornwall studios, the ashes then thrown into the river and so the curse was transformed into something beautiful and positive.
Tim’s mother lived long enough to see her son recognised as a major figure in the international art world, a sculptor of renown and a highly respected Academician who will continue to surprise and stimulate and bring credit to his family, to his home country and to his art teacher.
It’s that time of year when tomatoes are beginning to ripen and hopes are high for a good crop but sometimes problems raise their ugly heads. I watched War Of The Worlds last night and talk about ugly heads, frightening and horrid dreams but a brilliant film. Anyways back to tomatoes, Sun scorch unlikely at the moment but watch out for caterpillars and little slugs.
ALL OUR YESTERDAYS
