Driving
through Blaenau I can’t resist peeking into the yard by the fire station where
the latest David Nash creations are underway. This week it was a tree trunk
carved to resemble (to me) a pile of standing stones. Or maybe an upright caterpillar? It was good to see the artist
at work on a cherry picker with chainsaw in hand. But which artist? Zoomed in
this was clearly not the grand master himself but no doubt he would have been
directing the operation.
Speaking of
his great works, has anyone seen the Wooden Boulder? It disappeared from the
mudbank on the river bend near Plas Tan y Bwlch about 18 months ago and I’ve
not seen it since.
In case you
don’t know the story it all started in 1978 with the base of a large oak tree
being carved into a sphere of one metre diameter, somewhere on the banks of the
stream that flows down through Coed y Bleiddiau. It was pushed into the stream by
the artist as a means of getting it to the lane at the bottom for onward
transport by van to his studio, but along the way it became a star in its own
right – the famous Wooden Boulder.
People came
from far and wide to see and experience the Boulder, to photograph and sketch
it as over the course of 16 years it was slowly propelled from pool to pool by
successive floods until in 1994 it was stuck by the bridge at Bronturnor.
On a mudbank near Plas Tan y Bwlch 2013 |
David Nash
hoisted it out of the stream onto the lane and addressed the boulder something
along the lines of. Boulder, shall I place you upstream on that waterfall back
there, or shall I take you to my studio or shall I place you back in the water
downstream of the bridge. To which the Boulder ‘answered with determined clarity. Going back upstream was entirely
wrong, against gravity and geography. Going to the studio it would dry out,
die, become a relic. Into the stream beyond the bridge it would have life,
dignity and freedom. So we rolled it down the road through Evan’s gate into the
field and back in the stream, where it breathed again with the elements’. (Extract from Wooden Boulder 1978 - 2003 The Whole Story by David Nash.)
For the next
8 years it stayed put until an exceptional storm carried it into the Afon
Dwyryd where it moved up and down the estuary until disappearing from sight in
2003. The furthest downstream that it was seen was somewhere near Portmeirion. Had it gone out into the ocean? Was it really
spotted off Land’s End? Or was it stuck in the sand and mud?
In 2013 a
large oak tree fell into the river upstream from the Maentwrog
bridge. I stopped to look and thought it was going to be difficult to clear,
but the following day it was gone! There had been heavy rain and a surge of
water washed it away. As it twisted and
turned it broke into large chunks making its way towards the sea and maybe
gouged the boulder from out of the mud? It was shortly after this that someone
tipped me off that the Boulder was on that mudbank by Plas Tan y Bwlch.
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