I liked these new community sculptures and thought you would be interested in details: Teena Gould is a member of our website and an innovative potter/sculptor – she most recently has been involved in a project called Coastal Ceramics – details of which can be found on her profile page.
The commission to design, make and install a series of ceramic sculptures came from Lewisham Council, London. Frendsbury Gardens is a small, wonderfully planted community garden which has been developed as a collaboration with the local community and Lewisham. Before moving to Wales, the majority of my public art projects were London based, transforming inner city spaces as an expression of the space and the aspirations of the people in the area.
Starting with a public meeting, I produced designs, and then worked with a nursery school, gardening group, youth club, and community groups to produce mosaics,and ceramic forms which I then developed in my studio. Huge sheets of decorated clay were transported back to Wales, and production started.
The sculptures are a series of cylinders which express the transition of the garden and the community using growth and development of seeds and plants a metaphor. Over 750 ceramic tiles were produced, together with glass mosaic and mirror. The sculptures describe a passage through the garden, starting with larger statement ones at the main entrance. I made plaster moulds, using exotic vegetables as the base for the shapes. A variety of clays, slips, oxides and glazes gave me the language of dark to light. Slip painted slabs were cut into strips, and once installed the patterns read wonderfully around the columns.
Enviroworks Lewisham originally built the garden, and they returned to install the concrete columns, and apply the ceramics. They are a community enterprise team, and some of the long-term unemployed staff live on the estates surrounding Frendsbury Gardens.
