Bryanston School Halloween Photo-Shoot

Posted by on Nov 1, 2014 in My Blog | No Comments

Bryanston Fire BallTHANK YOU very much to all involved in last nights Bryanston fire sculpture photo-shoot at Bryanston ,my old school and my eldest son Zanti’s current school. The weather spirits where out on “the hottest Halloween ever” as we set fire to two of my recent fire sculptures on the round pond in front of the school.

Greatest gratitude goes to the benevolent estate bursar, Jon Mortimer, who caught the spirit of my request and made available this dream location for my Bryanston fire sculpture.

Supreme thanks also to, the very professional , photographer Mark Pickthall ,”Ace of Darkness”(!) who digitally documented the sculpture burn with cool confidence.

An abundance of appreciation to Dave Jones, the Bryanston grounds manager and James the tire-less tele-handler driver who worked so efficiently to maneuver my heavy steel sculptures into and out of the pond .

Thank you Bryanston

A lot of circles were completed for me last night and visions I have had for many years were fulfilled. It felt very natural to be back in a space that had such an influence on my teenage years. I imagine it was the subliminal effect of my time at Bryanston and the classical beauty of its environment that helped inspire these sculptures. The themes of chaos and nature conquering order and culture , may not be entirely representative of my school days, but there was certainly an element of this in my Bryanston experience. The anarchistic pleasure of placing a flaming steel cube on point and burning an up turned pyramid in a perfectly round and reflective pond gave me a powerful sense of accomplishment ! It is fun mixing the elements of fire and water, light and darkness,gravity and weightlessness, reality and reflection. Stirring together emotions of awe and danger inspired of beauty and delight…they did last night!

The thank you is only complete with the full acknowledgment of my strong family back up crew, cousins Giles and Adam, who supply such superb support it is hard to quantify. Finally an important thanks to Zanti… Him self a endless source of inspiration to me .He is such a sold right hand man to work with on these occasions.

Let it be known that this photograph is NOT the shot of Mark Pickthall. I will publish an album of his pictures shortly.