Email assists Hebridean art
A top Scottish sculptor, Steven Dilworth, has sent a 2ft high model to stoneworks in Xiamen, in south-east Fujian province, made by him at his home in the Outer Hebrides. After communicating by phone and email how he wanted the job done, Chinese stonemasons have had created a 10ft high masterpiece out of solid black granite. The cost and scale of creating the 20-ton Venus Stone has involved a team working flat out over the past three months to create what Dilworth says is among his finest work.
The whole cost of the project - including the £1,000 shipping bill - is around £25,000, less than a quarter of the cost of making it in the UK. "There is no way I could have made the Venus Stone in this country - it just wouldn't have happened," Dilworth is quoted as saying from his home on the Isle of Harris. "You couldn't even buy the raw stone for that price."
The Venus Stone has been shipped by container ship to Britain and will arrive in the next few days for display at the Goodwood Sculpture Park in Sussex where it will go on sale at a price of more than £100,000.
Dilworth, whose work is in public buildings throughout the world, designed the prestigious Dailly Bridge in Ayrshire - a design based on fish vertebrae and funded by the Royal Society for the Arts, South Ayrshire Council and the Scottish Arts Council.
But a lot of his work is in a smaller dimension, as his blackbird (left) and guillemot (right)at the Hart Gallery demonstrate.
Source: http://www.sundayherald.com/
Web:http://www.hartgallery.co.uk