Abandoned coal mine turned into 55-acre land art

It's uplifting to see eyesores and environmental burdens transformed into services of a wholly different kind.

The above image shows us the work of well known landscape artist Charles Jencks, which has turned the ruins of an abandoned open cast coal mine in Scotland into a magnificent cosmology-themed park. Jencks' previous work includes the Garden of Cosmic Speculation in Dumfries, and the Beijing Olympic Park's Black Hole Terrace.

Dubbed "The Crawick Multiverse," the 55-acre landmark in Upper Nithsdale looks like a modern-day Stonehenge that is expected to attract a diverse range of visitors, including art and design enthusiasts. Materials found on the site, from tonnes of earth to some 2,000 large boulders, were used to create the majestic land art.

The £1m project is operated by a charitable trust and paid for by the Duke of Buccleuch, who owns the largest private landholding in the United Kingdom. The construction of the cosmic landscape began in 2012. It was officially unveiled last month at a launch ceremony featuring a cast of 30 artists performing music and poetry.

[h/t: Contemporist]

Comments

Print out and fold your own paper cameras

Totally want to make some of these Olympus mirrorless cameras with my daughter this weekend. They don't take pictures, but they sure would make my little girl very happy. The Japanese company has a webpage for kids , and you can easily create three-dimensional paper models of the OM-D or the PEN Lite by printing and folding those PDF templates in the papercraft section . Enjoy! [h/t: Pop Photo ]

Stone horsemen invade River Thames

It's not uncommon to see huge art installations on River Thames: a giant fiberglass sperm whale , a floating house , a massive wooden hippo . If you happen to be in London, head down to Nine Elms, on the south bank of the waterway, any day this month, and — if it's a low tide — you'll see a group of stone horsemen by world-renowned underwater sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor , rising above the riverside beach. The artwork, titled The Rising Tide , is part of the Totally Thames arts festival and is the first of its kind to be installed in the famed river. Four three-meter tall working horses with riders are shown — two of the riders are businessmen and two are children — though horse heads have been replaced with oil pumps. The sculptures are on display until the end of September.

Yoskay Yamamoto blends his Japanese heritage with urban pop art

I have a bit of a soft spot for ceramic sculptors here at FINDING CAIN , having featured many artists in that genre before: Jason Briggs , Brett Kern , Orly Montag , Toshiya Masuda , and James DeRosso , to name a few. A few days ago, I discovered yet another artist working with ceramics named Yoskay Yamamoto . Born and raised in Japan, Yoskay is now based in California. He also draws, paints, creates street art and makes toys, but his sculptures, carved figurines, and installations are the ones which caught my eye. I did some digging, and found out a little bit more about this amazing talent. On his bio, it reads: "A self-trained illustrator, Yamamoto's artistic tastes expanded as he fell in love with the urban culture of the West coast. Yamamoto discovered a way to fuse the two different cultural backgrounds together into his work. Yamamoto nostalgically blends pop iconic characters from his new Western home with traditional and mythical Japanese elements, balancing his...

finding cain

Search This Blog