RUN OF THE MILL - Ruskin Mill Trust

Sculptures
in the Lakes
at Ruskin Mill
In September 2009, whilst helping a textile artist who
was exhibiting at Ruskin Mill, artist Simon Packard had
the idea of siting a stainless steel sculpture in the lake at
Ruskin Mill. To begin with it was just one sculpture; from
there the idea grew until there were three. Simon had
made the stainless steel sculptures some years before they
found their home here. When he came to the Ruskin Mill
valley, site specific ideas started to develop and he found
that there were places in the water that would suit the
sculptures.
The cylindrical sculpture in the lake at Ruskin Mill is
called ‘Totem’. It is a model of a six metre high tower
that Simon was commissioned to make that is sited
in Brentford, London. Its sister piece, ‘Liquidity’ is a
gateway sculpture at the entrance to the Grand Union
Canal on the River Thames that can be seen from
Kew Gardens. Both these sculptures are stainless steel
lanterns, lit from within, like ‘Totem’ at Ruskin Mill.
The single screen that sits among the reeds by the Monet
bridge was originally made for the Daily Telegraph garden
at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2007. This commission
came about after Simon installed a plasma cut stainless
steel screen in the garden at the Henry Doubleday
Research Association, and he was asked for a similar piece
for Chelsea. The surface of the screen is embellished
with trails of weld that catch the light; it looks like icing.
Weld is not usually used for this purpose and would look
black if the metal were not treated to a further process. If
you could touch the screen it would feel like the surface
of a seed head. All the sculptures
have been electro-polished which
makes them very shiny. The metal
is immersed in a bath of acid
through which runs electricity
and all the dirt just falls away. It is
the opposite process to chroming
where the chrome is attracted to
the metal. The company that does
this uses the same process for these
big sculptures as it does for tiny
surgical scalpels.
Simon Packard
Photography by
Alex Caminada
The pair of screens in the lake nearest to Horsley Mill
was made as a full size mock up for a design for a garden
at the Henley Festival. Although you cannot see them,
there are hinges and the screens can be moved.
The title ‘Black Flour’ was inspired by an obituary of
the celebrated Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever in the
Guardian newspaper in March 2010, which quoted the
line “midnight’s black flour” from a poem by Sutzkever.
Simon Packard felt that these words go some way to
describing the marriage of sculpture and the location
where darkness is not polluted by urban light. In the
Horsley valley the stainless steel sculptures punctuate
the darkness that rests gently over the water, framed on
either side by woodland. Beautiful during the day, they
come to life at night as the bespoke lighting reveals their
cut patterning.