Client: South Tyneside Borough Council
Artist: Richard
Kindersley
Nationally acclaimed lettercutter Richard Kindersley was selected to create a major piece of artwork for a landscaping scheme for Westoe Village Gateway in South Shields.
The finished commission comprises 6 works – a large standing stone of 12 feet height, 2 six foot standing stones and 3 smaller pavement pieces.
All the works have been lettercut with texts which relate to the subject of the Sea, which was chosen to link to the history of Westoe Village, South Shields as a sea port and the wider global connection and significance of the sea.
The main text is carried on the largest standing stone and is Blow The Wind Southerly - a Northumbrian folk song probably best remembered being sung by Kathleen Ferrier, herself a famous English singer who came from Westoe Village. One verse and one chorus are intertwined alternately down the face of the stone, with the verse in capitals and the chorus in lowercase lettering.
Other texts refer to communities, life experience, boyhood and discovery, mortality, and ship building. These are by Philip Larkin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henrik Ibsen, Sir Issac Newton, Alcaeus and Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
