What’s as tall as an old mine head, has views of Snowdon, Manchester and Liverpool, and costs as much as a house in Chelsea? The answer is a soon to be erected sculpture above the M62 in St Helens as part of Channel 4’s Big Art programme. We met with 3 ex miners – Frank Leach an ex-welder for the coal-board, Mel Morgan an ex-blacksmith, and Gary Conley an ex-fitter, all have retrained after the closure of the Sutton Manor pit in 1991, they still meet with their old colleagues and have organised themselves a 20m sculpture with the help of council man John Whaling on the site of the mine.
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/668376[/vimeo]
The idea of the sculpture is partly to help regenerate and change the identity and image of St Helens. It will be a work about the future on a site that is vital to understanding this area of the North’s past and present. The actual look of this sculpture though is still secret and we wish them best of luck with it. We hope that it will be unique and as interesting an experience as meeting the miners at their old social club.
Regardless of how the success of the piece is eventually measured and by whom, it will be a statement of civic pride, similar to how a cathedral spire of an old English town would act as a landmark, symbolising the aspirations, monetary and cultural wealth of the local people. Like a church it will be a place for community and reflection about the impact and demise of mining. I imagine that the current wave of desire for landmark sculptures across the North to be in some way analogous to the desire for tall church spires of a previous century, if the St Helen’s sculpture is a success, every town will like to have it’s own big sculpture. Some will be great and unique, others like the multitude of churches will more standard and less remarkable.
The Channel 4 big art project will be worth watching to hear more from these chaps and there amazingly straight forward way of explaining art, I even learnt a new word – to Skit someone – meaning to take the Michael.