root & cause

 "One of the pleasures for me during the last year has been to visit Paul and to trace the evolution of his engagement with the Cathedral through the drawings and models, the bits of writing and the stacks of books that have gradually accumulated around his studio at Three Cocks Lane.

Norman Chatfield
Residentiary Canon

"He has used the opportunity of the Residency to immerse himself in the life of this great mediaeval cathedral, its past as well as its present.  His close, almost daily contact with the fabric of the cathedral has deepened an already incipient interest in mediaeval art and architecture as a reflection of mediaeval thought.

Professor Peter Wheeler

quotations from Root and Cause, published by Sarah Myerscough Fine Art

The Beeston 'Stump'

 

Water-Head, Beeston, 2025

I've written before about the difficulties faced by artists making 'public sculpture'. With a substantial number of commissions Paul Mason was all too familiar with both the processes and controversies surrounding the installation of works.  None more so than the above 'Water-Head' commissioned by Nottinghamshire in 1988.  Right from the start there were substantial issues around the piece and its original location in this satellite of Nottingham.  In the first instance, like Leaf Stem in the city centre, it was envisaged as having a fountain through its core that would see water cascading gently over its surface.

Original location - photo credit: Akhtar Khan/Art UK

And like the work in the City Centre, that was decommissioned in the early 90's as UK winds whipped the water off the surface and onto passers by adding a physical dimension to viewers aesthetic displeasure!  However despite it all the work remained in place for quite a time but redevelopment saw its future very uncertain.  Step forward Tamar Feast, a local resident and (since 2018) Trustee of Beeston & District Civic Society).  Tamar first contacted me in 2012 when she wrote in The Beestonian newspaper a passionate defence of the work outlining its history and kickstarted a campaign to have it re-sited rather than thrown on the scrapheap.  

So all credit, to Tamar, first & foremost, abetted by fellow trustees, local government officials and members for the re siting of the work adjacent to the Hoton - City Centre Tram line that now sees Paul's work at two locations (the other being a black marble work outside Lakeside Arts Centre by the University of Nottingham campus).  As I write this I'm getting set to go to a re-dedication of the piece this very day!  And here we are...on Saturday 25th January at 3.30 pm.  Introduced by (on left) Mervyn Brown, Hon. Sec & Trustee of the Beeston & District Civic Society, myself (centre) and Tamar Feast (on right).

 

Leaf Stem

In the mid 1980's Mason was one of a small group of locally based artists chosen to create public artworks for an initiative jointly stimulated by Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County councils.  With support from East Midlands Arts, through advice from the Visual Arts Officer David Manley, City Technical Services Director John Haslam selected a number of proposals for consideration.  Paul Mason had produced a small maquette in marble for a large work that he envisaged in the same material that would take the form of a fountain. 

Original maquette

This was chosen (alongside pieces by Richard Perry & Hilary Cartmel) to be in the vanguard of an ambitious scheme of re-envisaging the city (to include better street furniture, plantings and surfaces) along the lines of other Continental cities that Haslam had seen on recent excursions to Germany and elsewhere.  For Mason it required a deal of research and the eventual contracting of an Italian marble quarry to supply the stone.  As importantly it further stimulated an interest in Italy and particularly in the marble quarries and the Apuan Alps region of northern Tuscany.  

Following initial visits the artist dispatched the maquette to the workshop in Italy where a phone call suggested the masons there "might rough the stone out" following the form from the piece sent through to them.  The artist was therefore surprised to arrive in Italy to find the piece very nearly completed!  The photo above shows the stone when the artist arrived in the yard...and the one below as sited in Nottingham.  Mason recalled that the workers in the yard told the story of Henry Moore similarly finding a piece virtually completed.  On that occasion the press were invited and with a photo of the 'maestro' about to be taken of him 'finishing' the piece with chisel in hand...the master carver of the yard stepped forward advising that he was holding it at the wrong angle!  Anyone who has visited Carrara, Massa or Pietrasanta and seen some of the exotic pieces carved from this material will see just how complex some of the work can be. 

marble Fiat!

The sited work has been controversial from the beginning.  Like the Beeston piece Water Head, it has been much discussed.  My contribution to this can be found here, in an interview with Tamar Feast.

Leaf Fields

Leaf Fields, 1985

In a published interview at the time of the exhibition The Cutting Edge curator Rebecca Morris asks the artist Paul Mason  “do you think you have an important role to play in making works for public places”?

“Yes, very much so. There was a time when sculptors worked with planners and architects as a matter of course.  Recently though, there has been a resurgence of interest in putting works out-of-doors and in public places, which has been very exciting.  It is much more interesting to go into a place where there is sculpture as long as certain formal criteria have been considered such as the scale of the work, its texture, colour, how it relates to the surrounding space, etc.  These are qualities that sculptors are dealing with all the time.  I think the work of sculptors can encourage movement in and around and though a site, so rather than people rushing through a space and not pausing, a sculpture can slow them down, make them pause for thought and hopefully also enhance their lives.”

The passage of time and the seemingly endless disturbances in many urban environments nowadays can play havoc with the siting, condition and context of contemporary sculpture.  Taken together with the medium’s capacity (still) to stir up controversy these conditions often impact adversely on work made for public sites.  Mason’s work is no stranger to such events.  Indeed several public commissions, all less than forty years old, have been either re-sited or, worse still, destroyed in the recent past.  However, from time to time, some have been rescued from relative neglect and either restored or re-sited through the sensitivity and determination of supporters. 

Cllr. Frances Leonard, Mayor of St. Albans, with (to her right), Chris McIntyre, University of Hertfordshire

On 9th May 2017 one such - Leaf Fields - was rededicated in St. Albans through the combined efforts of initial commissioners and supporters, current public officials and determined lobbying from the Dean of Cultural Affairs and Director of University of Hertfordshire Arts Chris McIntyre.  Sandy Walkington, one of the original commissioning group spoke to the controversy that attended the selection of the work at its initiation - through financial support from the Hertfordshire Association of Architects (the local branch of the Royal Institute of British Architects) and told of the circumstances of its siting in St. Albans - allegedly the first such work in the city.

The passage of time makes its mark on the work too of course. Especially so with a material like Clipsham limestone.  Mason was at pains to carve pieces to sit against the grain of the material so that a degree of protection is afforded to those surfaces that have not been polished.  But such open surfaces as those where the evidence of the plug & feather marks remains are especially vulnerable to colouration and colonisation by lichens.  In Leaf Fields these are visible on the undersides of the ‘prow’ of the piece as it is positioned in the raised bed.  Whether or not the piece would benefit from significant restitution is debatable though some delicate removal of the organic material would reveal and restore the artist's intentions for the work.

Tarn Hows

This is a pastel drawing from 1986 on a sheet of T. H. Saunders 190gsm watercolour paper (56 x 76 cm.).  It was exhibited in 'The Cutting Edge' exhibition at Bolton Museum & Art Gallery (that subsequently toured to Wolverhampton and Lincoln) and is in a private collection.  Tarn Hows is a small tarn (mountain lake or pool) not far from Hawkshead, the centre for Grizedale Forest and its arts project.  Paul undertook a short residency there in 1981 and the resulting works were made and exhibited in the forest for some years (the extract below from A Sense Of Place - Sculpture in Landscape, Ceolfrith Press No. 73, 1984 shows them in situ).  In his commentary Paul talks of revisiting Grizedale over successive autumns following his residency with students from Loughborough College of Art where he taught on the BA (Hons) programme.  The drawing above is the fruit of one such expedition. 

In A Sense Of Place Paul remarks "It is difficult to assess what changes [in his practice] are due to Grizedale Forest. I have visited it each autumn for several days with students, discovering new sculptures and different parts of the Forest. Re-orientating past and current perceptions each visit.  The sharply contrasting pace of life and environs leaves an endless series of images and spaces."

Courtyard

Courtyard, marble, 21 x 26.5 x 2.5 cm., dates from 1985 and was commissioned by Harlow Council.  It sits in the Gibberd Gallery within the Civic Centre.  The Essex town also houses Vertex, Mason's first commissioned public work and his first major work Hinge purchased by Sir Frederick Gibberd.  It was chosen to celebrate Alan Mead's service to the town as its Treasurer.  Sir Frederick Gibberd, the town's Master Planner, stimulated the collection and placing of works of contemporary art throughout the town.

Piece for Lakeside

This is a piece made for, and recently re-installed, at the Lakeside Arts Centre at Nottingham University following the extensive tram developments.  Its an elegant work in black marble and dates from the period following the artist's relocation from Cheltenham to London following the residency at Gloucester Cathedral.  When originally sited next to the small pond at the city side of the Centre the sympathetic mature shrubbery around it shielded it from the busy dual carriageway.  At present it is a little more exposed, however the replanting should take care of this as it develops and the work benefits from good views from the passing tram.

Ideally the piece might also benefit from re-gilding though given the age of the work it has stood up to the elements quite well.

Tarpey Sculpture Garden

Three pieces of Paul's marble sculptures are going on display in the newly created Sculpture Garden at Leicestershire's Tarpey Galleryhttp://tarpeygallery.com. The opening of the garden takes place on Saturday 11th July, 2015 from 2 to 6pm.  One is from the period of his residency at the Tate St. Ives and two more from the early 2000's in preparation for the exhibition at Quay Arts on the Isle of Wight in 2005.

Hinge

Hinge is a piece sited in the Gibberd Garden in Harlow, Essex - established by Sir Frederick Gibberd and continued after his death by his wife Lady Patricia.  She, in particular, maintained a relationship with the artist and collected additional pieces alongside those her husband had purchased.  Hinge is the largest work in their collection.  Carved from Locharbriggs sandstone it measures 60 x 60 x 38 inches.

The Internal Sea

This piece, 'The Internal Sea', (1996, limestone, pigment) was shown in the entrance alcove at Tate St. Ives during the residency exhibition in 1996. The artist said of the work that it

is a return to the metaphysical nature of being the physical self possessing infinite capacity for feeling and expression within the very specific limits of our bodily frame. The blue broken surface, suggesting an interior quite different to what is expected, at the same time itself such an obvious "surface" is full of paradox, irony and contradiction.

National Stone Centre

This work - Landle, from 1989, carved from Ancaster Limestone (29cms high) was featured in an exhibition that Paul curated for the opening of the National Stone Centre, Ravenstor Road, Wirksworth, Derbyshire initiated by East Midlands Arts in 1989. It was a part of a short period of residency by the artist at the Centre. In the small publication that accompanied the exhibition Paul wrote:

When I was a student at Wolverhampton Poly in 1971, I collected some stone from the small quarry of Ancaster in Lincolnshire. I left the main road and headed across a field towards a spinney of trees. I drove down a winding, narrow, heavily rutted track which eventually opened out to reveal a broad golden wall, the land mass laid bare, earth and soil stripped back, the ranks of regimented drill marks standing to attention in the early sun.

This short statement in turn revealed that the artist's (as I wrote in the introduction to the publication)

professional reputation and career is rooted in the use of stone, but he is also a passionate enthusiast for stone as a material in any context.

Alongside Paul's work he selected other pieces by Christine Angus, Michael Farrell, George Kennethson, Liz Lemon, John Paddison, and Richard Perry. In addition specially commissioned photographs of the topology of the centre were shown by Oded Shimshon.

Stone Landscapes - A Geometry of Fracture

This exhibition took place at the Quay Arts Centre, Isle of Wight in the summer of 2005. In my introduction to the catalogue 'The Fruit That Grows In Man' I wrote:

In the first place there is something noble about bringing nature indoors, or of using it as a principle by which to structure an interior space; as an artistic engagement with the natural "order of things". In the second there is the sense of place, or more accurately places. For Paul Mason has been traveling again; Hoy, Malham Cove in Yorkshire, here in the Isle of Wight. Such travels open up places in his eyes and then ours, Malham Cove is a huge curving amphitheatre shaped cliff formation of limestone rock with a vertical face about 260 feet high. The top of the cove is a large area of deeply eroded limestone pavement, of a strange pattern rarely seen in England. No direct reference to this in the works but so many rich and pointed associations.

In this new work one is immediately struck by the close resemblance between the handmade marks and the depictions of leaves and branches, rocks and grains of sand, suggesting that there is a symmetrical relationship between nature and those who seek to order and shape it. And an imperfection here or there, for it is these that make perfect our imperfect view. The artist speaks of the 'binocular vision', how touch trades punches with what is visual. Not only on this occasion in stone sculptures, but in paintings, drawings, torn paper collage and wood relief too.

Whether in an Enlightened or a Romantic spirit, perhaps after Ruskin and following Stokes, every effort to order the natural environment is an act of deciphering, of a close and attentive reading. The work of Paul Mason offers a kind of second-order reading, a reading of the way we read nature. It's as simple and as complicated as that. The things that stand in the artist's study or decorate his walls are the things that evade his attempts at categorization. The rest is an uncharted wilderness.

Jean Arp, a constant source of inspiration for Mason, insisted that his sculpture was 'concrete' rather than 'abstract', since it occupied space, and that art was a natural generation of form: 'a fruit that grows in man', as he put it. How apt.

The work illustrated is a small marble work from 1996 entitled 'Wrapped Earth'.

Introduction

This is a site devoted to the collection and dissemination of material related to the life and work of the sculptor, Paul William Mason (1952 - 2006). Perhaps best known for his public works of which Leafstem, pictured above, is a notable early example this site is intended to collect together the majority of his works over a career that began in the 1970's and continued until his untimely death and covered a wide range of sculptures, drawings and other media. Leafstem was commissioned by Nottingham City and County Councils under the direction of the City's farsighted Director of Technical Services, John Haslam in the early 1980's.