Clee Hill

This artwork featured in Mappa Mundi (2004). A Meadow Arts commission.

One of Meadow Arts’ very first commission was a monumental new work by renown sculptor Stephen Cox RA, in 2004. Coming shortly after Cox’s move to a new home and studio on the Clee Hill, the large piece was made of 27 huge blocks of basalt hewn out of the quarry at Titterstone Clee. Cox had discovered that duhstone, the stone local to his new home, was very much like the basalt he had worked with for many years in Southern India. This coincidence was compounded by the artist’s discovery of a particular detail on Hereford Cathedral’s 13th century  Mappa Mundi, where the Clee Hill itself was represented by a tiny squiggled drawing. Cox’s intention was to engage with the landscape in a meaningful way and he started to plan a representation of the Clee Hill that would use its own geology to realise a ‘portrait’ using the outline of Mappa Mundi’s squiggle, which was actually quite a faithful representation. He approached the company exploiting the quarry who were wonderfully responsive. Working in close collaboration with the quarrymen, the artist selected blocks and stacked them into shape. These 25 tons worth of blocks were then reassembled in the meadow gallery where the  Meadow Arts was born, at Burford House, at the very Southern tip of Shropshire. The Clee Hill commission was shown amongst a dozen other existing works by Cox, including the large installation Boats, where 95 stone pillars of different height supported 2 long stone boats, floating over the waves. Looking back over the decades, it’s probably fair to say that Meadow Arts’ debut as a commissioning organisation were quite ambitious.

Image: Stephen Cox, Clee Hill (2004). Image courtesy of Meadow Arts.

 

About the artist

Stephen Cox

Stephen Cox exhibited in Mappa Mundi, 2004, commissioned by Meadow Arts.

Image: Stephen Cox, Clee Hill, installation view, Mappa Mundi, Burford House, 2004. Images courtesy of Meadow Arts.