Beauty in the Contrast. A tale of two sculptors

While running the risk of seriously offending William Peers, I love the juxtaposition of two discoveries yesterday from the world of sculpture.

The first was on the walk at high tide. Someone had chosen this rock to do their own free balancing stone sculptures, all lined up looking out to sea. On their own not that impressive, but as a group, they added something unique. I looked up rock balancing and discovered there were four forms.

• Pure balance – each rock in near-point balance
• Counterbalance – lower rocks depend on the weight of upper rocks to maintain balance
• Balanced stacking – rocks lain flat upon each other to great height
• Free style – mixture of the two above; may include arches and sandstone.

The second discovery was a video on local sculptor William Peers. Not many people will have heard of him or know of him locally, but his work is internationally known

I was lucky enough to visit his workshop a few years ago when he was doing a project, 100 days making one sculpture a day out of marble. Through friend Jane, a local headteacher at the school his children attended, he was allowing people to go and see them before they went off to the bright lights of an upmarket gallery in London.

These bigger pieces leave me speechless and I have tried to find adjectives to describe his work, but none give enough meaning or weight to how they make me feel, so watch this short film made for an upcoming exhibition and decide for yourself.