How easy was it to find
partners for the project?
Finding partners wasn't too difficult, once
I could convince them that I was fully
behind the preservation of the follies,
many of which are listed buildings. Health
and safety was an ongoing concern.
This is a large scale project, what
practical problems did you encounter?
Many follies are listed buildings, so you cannot
alter them in any way. My most ambitious
"follification" involved installing a 6 metre glass
"Rapunzel" sculpture up a folly tower - without
any nails or screws. Instead, we had a complex
system of ropes and counterweights, and one
person up the tower, literally manning it all day, to
supervise and check against wind. In a project like
this everything rides on the weather that day. I was
hugely lucky that it didn't rain, but the sun didn’t
shine either, not once in the entire time it was up;
so, for seven months, I had planned a beautiful
image where the glass hair would glisten and
twinkle in the sunlight...and it just didn't happen!
Did people find it easy to
relate to your project?
I love engaging with the general public, especially
children. Through the project, I went into schools,
ran workshops, but also just talked to people. A
different folly involved a “Sea of Memories”, tiny
glass boats which I engraved with the names
of people’s loved ones - to illustrate the sheer
number of people who had lost somebody.
People emailed me names, and many disclosed
very personal memories, and explained how
the project had touched them. To me, that kind
of connection is what art should be about.
IGNIS
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