Hilltop Sculpture Park - Update 2023
Dobrodošli u park skulptura u Bregu. Ako želite da čitate na ovom sajtu na srpskom, kliknite na ovaj link.
Grcic - Tija's birthplace from where the inspiration came, as do the Griffon Vultures featured in the section on Darko Petrovic.
It is now more than 20 years since we sponsored and helped the late Zoran Matic put on Prostor 2001, our entry into the system of artist colonies in much of the Balkans. Unsurprisingly much has happened since then. Sadly Zoran passed away suddenly very shortly after Prostor 2004 but we are delighted that his memories and wishes have been kept firmly in the forefront during those intervening years. As a brief but fitting tribute we include a section showing examples of Zorans' work held in our family collection displayed in the main house on the hilltop and in London.
The continuing inspiration 2018
Henry Moore - reclining bronze figure c.1970 London Exhibition admired by Tija and Noah.
Many of the original elements of the 2001 colony have survived the rigours of outdoor life but not without regular maintenance and some reconstruction. One or two have been lost to the ravages of time and the harsh climate particularly those pieces carved from softwood, but the images survive for the record. It continues to fulfil the wishes of Zoran Matic in bringing art and artists, whether aspiring or practicing, to the Hill – the Breg!
This is not intended as an instruction manual on how to set up and/or run a sculpture park, anyone with such ambitions should visit as many examples of sculpture parks as they can, where the often harsh realities both physical and financial quickly become apparent. Meanwhile I have had great pleasure in updating my early website but must clearly thank my son-in-law Neil Mills for rescuing the original from disappearing into cyberspace, and a long standing friend Steve Rochford who volunteered part of his retirement time to the efforts required to bring this project fully up to date.
Following the sad loss of Zoran, two major factors then shaped the evolution of the project going forward in which the original idea was to present another colony in 2007. After many years of lobbying and working with regional institutions, the local council and significant on the spot individuals, together with significant expenditure, the hill was lit up with the arrival of mains electricity which became fully operational in 2006.
Consequently the sculpture park has slowly moved on but in a more ad hoc manner the results of which are presented in this updated record including a plethora of images on the basis that a picture says a 1000 words! Nevertheless a few words are still necessary to back up the philosophy and ambitions of the park going forward and to give due promotion to participants over the ensuing evolution.
Perfection is impossible on top of a hill at 1117m covered with up to 2 metres of snow through a long winter, and often suffering drought during the hot modern summers in which climate change, cannot be ignored.
Initially the idea was to link up the sculpture locations with a winding path of reclaimed railway sleepers. Hindsight is 20-20 and had we purchased double the quantity at the beginning of the project we would not now be struggling to find replacements which were already some 40 – 50 years old when we started to lay the path 25 years ago. Time has taught us that not only the sculptures but also the path will not last forever but in 2021 a conscious effort to move towards Acacia as the wood of choice has ensured that as the path is slowly renovated and new sculptures take shape they will survive even the climate on the hill for hopefully another generation or two.
Similarly and perhaps unsurprisingly as a geologist natural local rock has also been extensively used not only to create sculptures, but also as one of the main boundary walls, along with further paths in a crazy paving style, guiding you through the woodland area. They were all locally sourced and transported to the hill from quarries and other locations pointed out by neighbours, our main stonemason Vidoje, who spent his first 10 years of active retirement erecting his own legacy. While I would have liked a classic dry wall structure, the nature of the available material did not lend itself to that type of construction and subsequently a minimal amount of mortar has been used, discretion being the better part of valour and safety being a major consideration throughout!
Initially once I was in a position to slowly recommence the project, we invited Tom Allen back for the first of 2 further visits in order to put in place a 'family tree'. At the time my son Misha's passing comment of becoming more monolithic re-emerged. Our initial contact with Zoran had resulted in him putting together a 'photo-fit' style image of Tija's mother who passed away when she was very young and no photograph had ever come to light. This image together with an identity card image of her father who died when she was a baby, were then transcribed to a piece of metamorphic diorite rock and shaped to imitate the near distant hill originally part of her fathers land.
Similarly unbeknown to me, during Prostor 2001 Tija had commissioned Slajf to continue with his talent as a painter, and produce under cover of a tarpauline, a landscape looking from our hill across towards Tija's late father's land in the near distance. In similar circumstances after one of Tom Allen's visits, he too turned his hand to producing a painting of 'Haystacks', a subject that fascinated him about the local landscape. Both these pictures hang in our home in London.
Meanwhile, locating the stone slab for Tom's next project took us to Ljubovija and introduced him to a memorial stonemason and his son Novice who have subsequently been involved in assisting with elements of the sculpture park. This included providing a large slab of relatively homogenous white marble from Prilep in North Macedonia which Tom Allen used to create his 'Solar Disc' as part of Prostor 2004. Tom continued to build his portfolio of sculptures at his Scottish based studio and attending marble sculpting courses in Carrara, Italy, the world famous centre since Roman times for marble sculpting.
In 2006 after presenting a maquette of a family tree following discussions between us, Novice was again approached and another slab of Prilep marble used for this project was completed by Tom immediately prior to the arrival of our mains electricity. It was manually mounted onto a granitic base and became the largest sculptural piece on the hilltop engraved with family names, past and present and is regularly updated by Novice with the arrival of partners for the children and each new grandchild, currently 5 at the time of this update.
Off-cuts from the 1st marble were hewn by Tom as pseudo Greco-Roman figures to further enhance the sculpture park mounted on bases provided by Novice and giving the hilltop a more eclectic style. An image of these 2 figures in the foreground, with an artist doing a workshop in 2020 in the background, highlights the ambitions of the sculpture park as an occasional open air studio.
No programmed plan for the sculpture park was committed to, instead additions developed on an ad hoc basis. With our interest in Inuit Art the ambition to construct an Inukshuk, literally meaning person substitute, was driven by the tradition in Inuit culture that every man should construct one in his lifetime. In 2010 as part of the launch of our book 'Tuvaq' at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, included a workshop with Andrew Qappik from Pangnirtung on Baffin Island in Arctic Canada. Andrew is a graphic artist and we had the pleasure of hosting him in our home in London as well as our involvement with a workshop he led in Cambridge at SPRI. During our frequent talks with him, the Inukshuk was a significant topic and we had hoped to have him come to the Breg to lead the construction of an Inukshuk. Unfortunately the funding could not be found but undaunted we worked with Andrew who instead sketched out a rough outline of an Inukshuk.
In 2011 as a 50th birthday present I was bought 25 new impregnated oak railway sleepers. Together with our main builder of many years and his team, Andrew's sketch and our ideas were turned into the structure now standing proudly on the hill symbolically representing the traditions of the Inuit and the aspirations of the continuing development of the sculpture park. The Inukshuk stands 3m high reinforced with 50kg of steel bars bolted for stability and safety throughout the structure, and is topped with a capstone taken from material acquired for the nearby boundary wall. It is regularly coated with recycled engine oil to maintain its integrity, and lit up as are all the other sculptures now that mains electricity is a permanent feature of much of the hill region.
Andrew Qappik
Drawing for Inukshuk
in London
'Inukshuk - inspired by Andrew Qappik' - 2012.
25 reclaimed oak railway sleepers reinforced with iron rods capped with local limestone.
Sadly in 2009 we lost two very close family friends and were pleased to plant alongside a native young oak sapling, a British oak, both in their memory. We later purchased two 3m oak tree trunk logs from a nearby small sawmill. The two logs were allowed to dry further for a couple of years before the first was randomly fashioned by our neighbourhood carpenter with a chain saw into a slightly abstract bench as a further memorial to a young family friend. This use of the hilltop to incorporate nature through visual and often large objects started with the planting of two trees, an English oak and a Serbian Pine planted in the mid 1990's above the memorial stone for Tija's parents, in turn in memory of Deda (my father) and Owen (my own art mentor and Tija's unofficial English guardian). Both trees are now maturing into the surrounding landscape and it is a pleasure to incorporate the oaks whether British or Serbian into the landscape as they are a major symbol for both nations, ensuring that these two trees were not simply randomly selected.
Foreground - Serbian Oak Bench,
Background - British Oak
(sculpted by Zoran Milutinovic 2015)
STEVKO – BOSNIA/BAJINA BASTA
The 2nd oak log was earmarked as a further addition for the beech wood area of the hill. It required a departure from Zoran's idea that invited sculptors should be acknowledged artists and not simply craftspersons. We had already discussed Stevko with Zoran during the time of the early sculpture colonies and saw over time that although he could be perceived as more of a craftsman than an artist without a formal art background, this often blurred boundary should not prevent his eventual inclusion for a commission. Black bears are native to the area, both in the nearby Tara national park and across the Drina River in Bosnia. Stevko had by then already been commissioned to produce sculpted life size wooden bears in local parks and landmark areas and he was keen to add one to our hilltop sculpture park, readily accepting the commission.
The size, timing and difficulty of construction meant he was unable to work in situ, so the oak log was transported to his studio/workshop in the nearby small town of Bajina Basta and a style/format agreed to include incorporating the bear mounted on a traditional Serbian cap (Sajkaca). On completion the bear was transported back to the hill and located in our woods. It continued the theme of presenting animals in the sculpture park which continues whenever possible.
Black Bear 'Gorana' on Sajkaca (Serbian traditional hat) - Oak 2015
By 2021 we had discussed the disintegration of 'Cuvar Kuce' the head that had stood guard on the hill created by Bogdan Vukosavljevic during Prostor 2004. In common with many other pieces the wood was not chosen carefully enough and despite attempts at renovation both the head and its plinth, it rapidly rotted. This had already guided us to selecting harder more resilient pieces of wood going forward, including the oak used for the bench and the black bear, and now to Acacia, recognising the importance of selecting heartwood and avoiding sapwood. However in keeping with the natural ambitions on the hill the new head was sculpted from a mature Beech (Bukva) felled within a few meters on the hill and then incorporated into a plinth of locally sourced Coralline Crag Limestone – Sedra, a material first utilised by two of the artists for Prostor 2001.
2022 saw Darko return to the hill for his summer break with his family and spend time on producing another highly symbolic composition, the most ambitious yet. We had discussed how to celebrate the life of Zoran Matic who left the original 'Him & Her' sculptures shortly before his passing in 2004. As with many of the early sculptures and parts of the by now 1 km of path snaking around the hill, the wood rotted over time despite constant applications of recycled engine oil. Zoran's piece was no exception and as it was the only known public piece of sculpture he had produced we wanted to commemorate a replacement in his memory. It was appropriate that Darko having started his artistic journey where Zoran once taught alongside Biljana, that we should invite him to produce a composition piece in the general style of an original idea that Zoran had talked about during Prostor 2004 and loosely sketched but did not have the time or tools to compose.
The traditional Serbian shepherd modelled on two older neighbours, resplendent in their caps (Sajkaca) was the result, carved from locally sourced acacia trunk heartwood, along with a ram and a ewe that Darko also sculpted from blocks of Sedra (Coralline Crag) that we had left from previous projects. The end result including tooling, positioning, preserving, lighting and mounting would not have been possible without our thanks to a team of assistants, all local friends and neighbours.
BILJANA KOVACEVIC UZICE – SERBIA
It is perhaps not a coincidence that Darkos' mentor in Uzice Biljana had been a colleague of Zoran Matic in the days when he also spent some time teaching there. Following his death, Biljana and other colleagues each produced a sculpture or print for sale, with the proceeds to be given to Zorans' family. We were delighted to be given the opportunity to buy the bronze 'mother and child' from Biljana which can be seen to have more fully drawn in our own circle of life. It is perhaps arrogant to elevate ourselves to the realms of Henry Moore's standard, but this website started through his inspiration and should continue in the same vein. Biljana's piece fits that theme.
Above the artistic input that is the sculpture park, it is nevertheless fitting that an image of a large glacial erratic boulder buried in the woodland near the black bear sculpture has both an inscription, done by Novice, and an explanation. It reads 'BECAUSE IT IS THERE'. Shamefully not original but taken from Mallory talking in 1924 (possibly the 1st man to climb Everest), it fits what we have achieved in Serbia on both the artistic and humanitarian front during our 35-year adventure. Enjoy.
Figure in Bronze - 2006
