Wednesday 14th March
She informs me she is not coming back in April, do you know I'm not really bothered I am surely to busy right now to accommodate visitors. She will still be going on to see her friends no doubt and she is still off to India.

Managed to construct one bullet in the morning before meeting Tony Smith from Gateway church with Rona. Tony was very positive and also keen to help. David Calder wandered in during the meeting said nothing and then left. I do hope I have not upset him.


Closed up the church returned to the studio, cleaned up all my equipment and then loaded it on to a trolley. With help from John and Dave we went off to the church (they just wanted to be nosey really) showed them around unloaded and said my goodbyes, they went back to school and I to work.
Stopped and spoke to the community support officers outside let them know what I was doing gave them mine and Rona’s name and explained they should look out for us.

Work, home, bed.

I pondered all day, how I am going to display and present the finished bullets. I am still unsure. In rows along the pews, huddled in a corner, filling the chapel and war memorial, I just don’t know yet. Need to see them in the space to know. The vestry will definitely work and I rooted out and started to assemble all manner of artefacts and bric-a-brac from the church that will go very nicely in the display cases with, my found shrapnel and possibly the baseball bats (possibly). This style of presentation s something that I enjoy in Mark Dions work. “Thames Dig” especially.

Whilst the process of Gleaning the original shrapnel from the fields of Verdun was very much like the process performed by Dion in his work, that is where the similarity ends. To help me describe where I believe my own work fits best, contemporary sculptor Beth Galston writes:

"An environmental sculptor plans a piece from the very beginning in relationship to its surroundings. The site is a catalyst, becoming part of the creative process." (38)

Artists who have influenced me both directly and indirectly in this area are Edward Kienholz, Robert Smithson, Richard Serra, Andy Goldsworthy and Anthony Gormley but to name a few. I am not working with nature as with land art/ earth works like Smithson or even Goldsworthy but placing something in an environment where it becomes part of and reacts with, its surroundings. Perhaps not in the entirely physical way of Smithson or Goldsworthy but maybe in a philosophical, theoretical even theological way.
Image taken during my visit to Goldsworthy show at the Yorkshire Sculpture park 2007

I had not chosen the exact location from the very start, once I had made a trip to Verdun and collected the shrapnel I knew that I wanted to work in a Church or abandoned building. The fact that both of these elements met in St Marks church was a combination of hard work and great luck. I wanted my work to deal with the formal, political, historical, and social context of both the church (as building and institution) and of man (as individual and constituent. One should speak of the other and serve as both positive and negative examples of the attributes of man and the man made. The relationship between the work and the church will allow the viewer to question human nature and then by default the wider construct of the world.

"The finished sculpture and site become one integrated unit, working together to create a unified mood or atmosphere," (39)



Christian Boltanski "Children of Dijon"


Conrad Atkinson, "Land Mine"



Richar Serra Bilbao, Guggenheim


Robert Smithson, "Spiral Jetty"

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(38)(39) Beth Galston http://www.bethgalston.com/env_sculpt.html
Started the day with the new routine of going to the church at 7am and getting stuck into the clearing up. Filled a few bin liners to the sounds of Talvin Singh as the sun rose through the Alter window. Then went off to school via coffee a paper and a quick call to her.