My Workshop is out on the Clifftops near Botallack in west Cornwall.

 On a clear day there is a  270 degree sea horizon, from Lands End  to the South ,round to Pendeen & the North Coast, with the  Scilly Isles  clearly visible, out to sea,forty miles due west.

The weather sweeps in from all points of the compass, but mostly off the ocean,& is always changing, strong winds, gales rain & fog  can be expected in the winter months, & sometimes we get all of these at once! The weather sets the mood & determines what work might be done. Sometimes,but not often  its  calm, still & sunny,But this time of year it's usually blowing a gale, with horizontal rain. The wind howls,screams & whistles,my workshop roof shakes & shudders like a ship in a storm,an atmosphere sometimes difficult to ignore.

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 This is the time of year for "cabin fever",which I try & resist,by going with the flow, & painting the magnificent cloudscapes, squalls & dramatic sunsets ,as they engulf my workshop.

These watercolours are painted "wet on wet",a technique  very suitable for catching the vapourous  effects of the  weather( which is after all, mostly wet)using dampened paper & a big sable brush.  I work very quickly, as  the light, the clouds,& the weather are usually moving & changing very quickly. 

The sea & the sky  are constantly changing & nothing  ever stays quite the same?

Graffitti Grannies have struck again,swooping down on the town of Redruth,& coating public statues in a wooly web of applied seasonal crochetry!

Clipping from the"West Briton"

                                            YAPPY  CHRISTMAS !

Cornwall has many legendary Giants& there are many conflicting legends of giants whose gigantic deeds are,to this day marked by local geographical features,rocks caves& hollows. St Michaels Mount,for example is claimed to be the home of CORMORON, whose titanic boulder throwing  battles with the giant of Trencrom,are marked by a huge boulder on the beach at Marazion.Another giant BOLSTER was vanquished by St. Agnes,huge stones near the town ,mark his remains.

The Cornish Giants that interest me ,seem to have all but vanished in the county,the giants of Cornish industry,the Tin Giants of the west,the Clay giants of St Austell,& the Slate Giant of Delabole

The DELABOLE GIANT  is an underground giant producing world famous Delabole Slate, which has been  quarried at Delabole for over a thousand years.I was commissioned in 2003  by Delabole school to build a  Giant in the school grounds, from  slate donated by the Delabole quarry.

BUILDING THE DELABOLE GIANT. Working with the school & Creative Partnerships, a site was identified in the school grounds to build the giant. although huge, he is an underground Giant, & only the very top of his head was to be visible peering above the ground.I was assisted by local sculptor & stone worker Ray Bowler & my son George, who was at that time working as a roofer with slate.

Our first job was to dig a large hole to sink the foundations, two sections of large concrete motorway drainage pipes. all our walls & stonework were based on local walling techniques, using delabole slate.

The giant can speak. the children can access a hidden chamber behind the left eye, where a buried speaking tube, transmits there voice  to an underground outlet below onlookers feet. 

Delabole Slate has been used  for roofs, both locally & worldwide for centuries,so the giants head is crowned with a slate dwelling & roof.

His eyes are made from shards of domestic pottery,broken tea-cups,mugs, plates & bowls, collected from their homes by the school children.The eyes reflect  some aspects of everyday life in the village?

It had been originally intended that the giant  could be visited by both the children, their parents,the people of Delabole & the public through  the small gate at the side of the school.

Unfortunately this gate is no longer in use. The school has kindly agreed to show visitors the giant, if they first telephone or contact  the headmaster to make an appointment  on 08140 212540 

 email head@delabole.cornwall.sch.uk

THE LEGEND OF THE DELABOLE GIANT

A very long time ago,before anybody can remember,in fact, a long time before there were even any people,long before there were even any dinosaurs,the Delabole Giant was born,deep at the bottom of a huge & nameless ocean,thousands of miles to the south,near a place we now know as the Azores,

In those days the world was a very differant place,& since then the Earth has moved many times,oceans have come & gone,continents grown, & mountains sprung up & then disappeared. Great storms slowly dissolved the mountains,turning them into silt & washing them into the sea,where they filled deep trenches at the bottom of these ancient oceans.These deep trenches were pressed by the heavy weight of the seabed to become the bones of the underground giants.

Gradually, over millions &millions of years,the giants pushed & shoved their ways deep under the earth.One of these giants finally banged his head against the Granite of Bodmin Moor,& poked his head out of the ground,at a place we now  call Delabole on the North coast of Cornwall.

This was the origin of the Delabole Giant,who is a Slate Giant.Other underground Cornish Giants are the TIN Giants of Southwest Cornwall,& the huge white Clay Giants of St. Austell.

A Slate Giant is a very useful kind of Giant, & millions of years later,when people finally arrived at Delabole,they found shelter & safe places to live in the slabs of slate & deep cracks & caves that crowned the Slate Giants head.

Later on people found how easy it was to split the slate& build things with it.Slate was very useful for building houses & roofs,garden walls,churches,schools,paths pavements & a lot more. The village of Delabole was once made entirely of slate,even the clothes posts ,the tables& the benches were made of slate

For hundreds & hundreds of years,the men & women ,& even the children of Delabole quarried the slate,cutting & splitting the Slate Giants bones for people to build with.They even built a special railway to carry the slate to the coast,where ships carried it all over the world.Every town & village in Cornwall has some houses built from pieces of the Slate giant.Even today,if you split a piece of Delabole Slate,you will reveal a new section  from that ancient ocean bed, & can be the very first person to touch it, since it was formed millions & millions of years ago!  It does seem rather strange that the bottom of an ocean that disappeared so very long ago, can help us  keep snug & dry in our homes today?

Nowadays new materials & methods are used to build our homes& the Slate Giant of Delabole is not quite as busy as he used to be. In fact,some people dont even know where he lives,with his huge slate body hidden underground,& only the very top of his head,just peeking out. 

When he was underground it was completely dark & black,he did not need to see,he had no eyes,& was completely blind. But the Delabole Giant was such a friendly Giant & so useful to the people of Delabole,that they asked that he should be given eyes,so that he could see & share with us the glorious dance of the light. In a quiet little woods, behind the school,he rests & enjoys woodland life,& the changing skies & colours above the village of Delabole.

David Kemp  Delabole July 2003

Real plants are not always sensitive to the needs of  prestigious modern architectural developments,demanding constant care, maintenance & expensive cutting back.

FLEXIPLANTS are todays answer to modern planting schemes,where instant effects are often required.

FLEXIPLANTS  come in a variety of bright colours in easy-clean plastic,& a variety of formats to suit most modern developments.They are drought-proof,low maintenance& available for Instant Erection in heights in excess of 3 metres.

FLEXIPLANTS can be used on ;

> Motorway verges & rest areas

>Decorative Roundabout features

>Business Parks & Colleges

>Shopping Malls

>Urban Planting Schemes

>Olympic stadiums & Sports Grounds

> Almost anywhere

Above: Traffic Plants at Warwick University Campus

FLEXIPLANTS AT THE EDEN PROJECT  2001-2004

When the EDEN PROJECT first opened in 2001,the domes  had been completed,but the landscape had yet to be planted& grow into the magnificent displays & gardens of today.

I was commissioned by Dominic Coles,Edens Landscape designer &  architect ,to create a temporary display,based on the juxtaposition of the "real" & "artificial" before the real plants started growing.

 FLEXIPLANTS, Instant Landscapes sprung up overnight,as an ironic comment on modern "architectural planting",& the "conveniance" of the plastic  & artificial in our lives

 above;FLEXIPLANT team installing  the  first instant landscape2001

 FLEXIPLANTS Sited on the last bend just before the visitors centre.

These ladies are carrying their live plant purchases in "natural" paper bags. They strongly disapproved of these plastic plants.

Above ;Year two, As the real plants took root & grew,

 FLEXIPLANTS moved up hill & straddled the approaches

.Supported by the tension of the arching "branches" the structure was remarkably wind resistant, & comfortably  endured several gales.

Life & Art? by year three,more temporary buildings were needed all over the site.

These giant plastic yoghurt cups  blended in  well with the artificial planting?

New Growth? FLEXIPLANTS  featured all stages of growth, from shoots springing from the earth ,to towering  flowerheads.

 Above :Detail of plastic pests.

FLEXIPLANTS were made from OSMIDRAIN  plastic Land drain Piping, Thousands of Metres lay underground at the  EDEN Project.

The Tips of the Flowerheads were made from obsolete Compact Discs., which sparkled & lit  randomly as they reflected the light,

 Some of the apparently broken stems & trunks visibly contained an inner structure of electrical wiring. 

 Some folk assumed that the entire structure was"computor controlled".

  By year four, the real plants had  grown & began filling the landscape, storage space became  a problem,& the flexiplants were finally dismantled.

But plastic endures a LONG time,  I still have some plastic botany out in my yard. 

Above : the very "green" Parking Plant

Below;Original drawings & ideas for flexiplants at Eden  in 2000

Ive been spending a few weeks in my painting shed,daubing & dabbling with paintings inspired by the surrounding clifftop landscapes, Heres some work in progress:-

HEADLAND  W600xH600

PLANIT BOTALLACK W500xH500

SEA PINKS W500xH600

HEADLAND may W1020 xH760

CALENDAR H900x W900

BRACKEN TURN H1020xW760

HIGH SUMMER W500xH1100

TWO SUMMERS & A WINTER  W900xH902

 The Iron Horse travelled up from the far end of the line  at my workshop yard in West Cornwall, &   is  now grazing the school field at his new home at OTTERHAM primary  School , Otterham Station, (near Bude North Cornwall.)

Here are some pictures of the mechanical beast being welcomed  by his co-designers and  owners, the   children & teachers of   the  school.

" the  horse now standing at platform three......."

The Legend of the Iron Horse.

There was once an Iron Horse, taller than a house.

In its belly, there burned a fierce fire,& smoke billowed from its head.

It ran at a furious pace along an Iron Ladder ,laid across the land from horizon to horizon

Its bright eyes made the night like day, & shone with the light of many clever things.

It was strong enough to carry anything anyone wanted,& take them almost everywhere.

It fetched the countryside to the town,& the cities to the sea.

One day, the fire in its belly went out,& some men came & took the Iron Ladder away.

The old Iron Horse had run its course.

New Iron Beasts speed along our lanes, today.

They carry people here & there, & back again,

they bring everything for everybody.

                                                                        (  David Kemp)

(written in response to  ideas ,drawings & workshops with the children of

OTTERHAM primary school, June 2011)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OTTERHAM SCHOOL!

 This weekend,(July15th) the school celebrates 100 years  educating the children of Otterham ,Marshgate & district

The Iron Horse has been assembled from found objects & recycled  items that were  once part of  rural  Cornish life,  some of which  recall how much life has changed in the County over the last 100 years. 

Some of the things the Horse have been made of include;-

Musical Instruments from a miners silver Band

Organ Pipe from a Methodist Chapel

Wheels from a chicken coop,an Agricultural machine(possibly a Horse drawn Haycutter?),a Sailmakers sewing machine,a shipwelders trolley & a local brewery.

Landrover & tractor tyres

 doors from a cornish range

A sweeps brush

An oil fuel tank

A fishermans float

A traffic cone

solar panels

An Iron Horse is assembling in my yard,

fed by ideas from the children's drawings &

 a pile of obsolete automotive & agricultural 

ironmongery,a new legend is emerging.

The Iron Horse has been a  re-occurring theme for many years,

here are a few previous incarnations:............

Iron Horse Newcastle upon Tyne 1986

Fire Chariot  1990

Stamping Horse Botallack 1997

Slave to the Iron Horse 1997

Trundler Sun 1997

 This new horse  is designed for a site at  Otterham Primary School, North Cornwall) & is  over four metres tall................See previous Blog,a Tall Order

Work in progress..............the Iron Horse, May 2011

Also in the mix this May, some unlikely juxtapositions of objects discovered  whilst clearing up the workspaces,have thrown up  some more rubbish personalities?

Big Game

The man in the Iron Frock

I went back to school earlier this April,as a guest of the pupils & staff of  Otterham School,a rural County  Primary ,near Bude in North Cornwall.

The children had been investigating the long vanished railway, that had once steamed through nearby  Otterham Station.                                                                                                                                            We had a lot of fun imagining how things might have been before & during the time of the railway,as well as how transport might look in the future.                                                                           The children were very keen & enthusiastic &  made some wonderful  drawings & sculptures.

The infants made a train SO long it came in one door,& out the other.

There were some amazing,planet-friendly vehicles drawn by the older children.

There  were some very imaginative paintings & sculptures of the legendary "Iron Horse" 

Some of these fantastic drawings are now pinned up on my workshop wall,to guide me, as the school has asked me to build a sculpture for the school grounds.

I have also collected  a pile of old agricultural & mechanical bits & pieces. The plan is to combine some of these bits & pieces with ideas from the childrens drawings, & build a sculpture of that mythical beast "The IRON HORSE", to be completed in time for the school's centenary celebrations in July.

Its a tall order!

The"Greenhouse of Other Worlds" was installed at the EDEN PROJECT  nearly ten years ago.

I was invited over to Bodelva,yesterday, as part of their ten years celebrations,to tidy up & restore the Greenhouse & some of my other exhibits.

Ten years exposure to the Suns Rays has bleached & blasted,even the best possible of other worlds was scorched & shrivelled.

After a thorough Spring clean, these sad old  globes were removed & replaced with some bright new worlds.

The Greenhouse is part of a larger installation"INDUSTRIAL FLAME PLANTS" which is sited in  the Outdoor "Plants as Fuel" section at Eden.

 BELOW:Drawings & original proposal for installation 2001

View the Greenhouse of Other Worlds,the Industrial Flame Plants,& My sculpture "The Tropics Trader"(in the Humid Tropics Biodome)& many,many other plants &   attractions ,

 at THE EDEN PROJECT, near St Austell CORNWALL......... an interesting day out for the whole family.

A windy quayside site,near the Marina, on the river Mersey is the site for"FISH&SHIPS",

a wind-driven Kinetic sculpture.

LIVERPOOL has a very long history of Marine trade & commerce,served by huge fleets of Merchant Vessels,which plied to destinations all over the globe.                                                                Industrial products,raw materials,goods & human cargoes were shipped through the Port of Liverpool.Some people arrived in chains, imported as slaves,others were deported as convicts to the colonies,& many millions departed as emigrants,migrating to a new world.

Here  at the end of the quay,Iron bollards remain set into the masonry,& were once used for "warping" ships in & out of the dock.The last ropes linking ship to shore, were cast off here,as the vessels entered the Mersey,& put to sea. This is a place of many sailings & sad farewells. There has been a lot of" leaving of Liverpool", leaving from from these quays.

Time, like the Mersey,flows on,& the people who have not left Liverpool,have found new uses for the old docks. They live,work,& play here. Pleasure craft sail from the Marina,new housing & technologies are replacing the old polluting technologies.

Marine life is returning, & local people go fishing in the river again.

FISH&SHIPS is one of a dozen kinetic &Interactive  artworks,commissioned by Liverpool City Council for  a "WINTERS TRAIL"

Designed to illustrate,Liverpools rich History & cultural heritage, the project was organised by the Liverpool Lantern Company &WILD IN ART.

A WINTERS TRAIL runs from Feb.14th until the 20th March,& is FREE!

By popular demand, "Fish & Ships "will remain at at Coburg Wharf until May.

To download a  free MAP of the trail,& find out about the other sculptures, sound pieces & artists , visit     

  www. liverpooldiscovers.co.uk