Peoples Republic of South Devon

Granite Song

July 12th, 2008

Being asked to create top-notch art in a your new home village while exploring ‘local distinctiveness’ might seem like being stuck between a rock and a hard place (tee hee). But sculptor Peter Randall-Page carried it off and Chris Chapman’s photographic documentation of the project is on show at the Burton Art Gallery, Bideford. Lee Morgan spoke to the sculptor

There’s a measured, evolving pace to Peter Randall-Page’s sculptures, so what is it that makes them feel so ‘now’?

The exhibition of Granite Song, which is on at the Burton Gallery, Bideford, is photographer Chris Chapman’s record of work that was completed in 1999.

There was no fanfare to the pieces, which found themselves nestled in Peter’s community in and around Drewsteignton. No pomp or ceremony other than the graft of making them and getting them in place. And it seems fitting that the exhibition is a celebration of the how well the work has fitted in with village life.

The Granite Song commission came through the environmental charity Common Ground, who were looking to produce a project on local distinctiveness, and for the artist to work within their own community.

The project began in the early 1990s and culminated in the publication of Chris’s photographic record in 1999 – it wasn’t a quick process - and in a way the pace reflected the relationships that were being formed. Trust was gained, ideas discussed, walls built and stones split.

“I was building up a kind of trust. People didn’t know necessarily what I was about. I hadn’t been in the village very long and although they might have liked the things I’d done before they were keen to make sure, as was I, that I didn’t put something in the landscape which would spoil people’s experience notice or not notice, not ever see or things embedded in the landscape,” said Peter.

There were six elements to the project: Secret Place; Granite Song; Waterstone; Passage; Burrow Stone and Village Garden. Five sculptures and a renovation of public space. Each piece has its own story and its own uniqueness which complements the surroundings.

Secret Place nestles within a wall, like a shrine, Granite Song is a hatched and opened stone, Waterstone seems a natural spring, Passage marks the entrance on a path to nowhere and Burrow Stone is almost like a hieroglyph that has burrowed itself into a wall (it’s also near Burrow Farm).

There were no labels to the pieces, no explanatory signs, they are like wayside shrines in Southern Europe where every field has its own god. Signage would kill the magic.

The show at the Burton is part of the Devon Rock programme and will offer educational material about the project itself and the use of working with nature and communities for inspiration.

“It’s not that direct, but I get a lot of nourishment from living here. I love this 3D landscape, and the village with its nooks and crannies, and I get a lot of nourishment from the community. And I love the idea that good quality doesn’t need to be metropolitan.”

And in a quote that could easily reflect a community, the siting of the work or the work itself:

“There is an assumption that space is a passive receptacle for form - that space is the derermining factor and things only fit in certain ways.” It’s a statement that could sum up Peter’s approach to sculpture. A piece which had the imposed regular spherical forms of ping pong balls attached to it was almost completed in the workshop.

“Mathematicans get a lot of pleasure in understanding how things fit together. Science and art are two impulses from the same place. They are an attempt to make sense of the world and the universe and understand how things come to be as they are.”

There are rules to his work, self-imposed and restricting. On another work in progress, he’s marking up a boulder in chalk and charcoal for sculpting, making sure that the continuous lines meet up correctly.

“It’s very akin to improvised music,” he said. “And you need to know what the material will do.”

One of his rules is to not change the overall shape of the stone. And in a sense, the essence of the rationalising of the eroded boulder is doomed. The elements of order are imposed and create their own rules, and their own patterns start to emerge. But they are not exact. Then again, nature’s own patterns are not exact. It is a striving for order and understanding that is the quest, and people throughout history have always had an emotional response to form and have loved a walking line.

“All the boulders here are through man’s intervention,” he said looking around his workshop. But it’s been a timeless journey, and the journey continues.
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