I love the local art community, its supportive embrace and its enthusiasm. I am its loyal advocate and standard bearer. I’m also a member of Torbay Culture Board and as such I’m its representative but also its challenger, critic and questioner.
I attended the launch of the Cockington Sculpture trail 2018 by invite and thoroughly enjoyed the launch, the artists and the meeting up with fellow culture lovers. Putting aside not being a great enthusiast of junk music and colander vibes, I’m currently listening to Foxtrot by Genesis so who am I to judge, I instead took an early turn around the walled garden and places where the sculptures called out. For me this is what public art does, calls out above and beyond the everyday and familiar. It challenges us to see through a different lens, refraction of the norm into the little jagged edges of the artists perspective that somehow re-forms back into a familiar territory, a raw assault on our complacency. The best sculpture were the ones that by size and boldness stood in the landscape and refused to compromise, the less successful sat slightly reduced and diminished; I can see you but I can’t quite hear you. I hope this concept at Cockington grows and embraces some of the louder voices and encourages the smaller ones. I’m a lover of WH Auden and in particular:
“You owe to all to us to get on with what you are good at”
I live by this daily. Get better, bigger and bolder. The trail has built on last year and long may it grow in beauty alongside the loveliness of Cockington
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