Opening Day

Thanks to everyone who came to the opening. It was great to see so many people there. If you have any  photos or comments please send to me and I'll post them up on the blog.  See link below for local press coverage: New Sculptures unveiled at Nature Reserve

Mayor of Waltham Forest, Richard Sweden opening the exhibition

Jonathan O'Dea and the Mayor of Waltham Forest Richard Sweden unveiling the site specific sculpture: Intervention

Visitors making their way down to the sculpture site

Notes from a a hanging

Q) Congratulations. It's all hung and ready to go. Apart from the sculpture how many works did you end up producing and are you happy with the way things look?

Thanks. I ended up with a total of eleven wall mounted works now hanging neatly in the Waterworks! Given the size constraints of my studio, it wasn't until the day of the hanging that I could actually see the eleven works together in a large enough space for them all to be visible. So I was really quite nervous about how things would work out and whether the individual pieces would cohere as a single conceptual show within the space.

So I am very happy and relieved at how smoothly the hanging went and how the show looks. It is great to finally be able to see it all together but I have to say a huge thanks to Neil Irons who helped me to hang the show.

There are a whole list of people I would like to thank actually so here goes.... 

• Arts Council England for funding the project 
• All the team from the Waterworks Nature Reserve and Lee Valley Park Authority especially Angela Oliva, Manager at the Waterworks and Dave Farthing, Waterworks Park Ranger (who is now an expert in conceptual art!) 
• The ODA who gave me access to the Olympic Park which helped inform the development of the  project 
• Neil Irons who continues to be a positive critic of my work and ensures I don't mess it up totally! 
• Valerie Grove who has done a brilliant job in conveying the project and the artwork through this blog 
• Tim Bennett Goodman who has always been a very good friend and support to me, and the wider cultural community of Waltham Forest 
• Thomas Hardy for his support and advice and for being a big fan of my work. 
• Andy Rogers, the Irish Embassy in Britain and also the Irish World Newspaper for support and encouragement
• Fiona Audley and Malcolm McNally from the Irish Post Newspaper 
• George Nott from the Waltham Forest Guardian 
• And finally .....  Sarah Morgan, who has constantly been there for me. 

Thank you all very much and see you tomorrow!  

Turning on the Waterworks

The exhibition opens on Saturday and I was helping out with the hanging today so thought I would just give a quick profile of the Waterworks Nature Reserve especially in relation to art, artists and this exhibition in particular.

The Waterworks Nature Reserve opened ten years ago. Part of the huge Lee Valley National Park, the Waterworks has a team around it consisting of conservationists and experts in wildlife habitats,  woodlands and local history which includes the fascinating Middlesex Filter Beds. It also has a small but perfectly formed golf course and a lovely, quiet and comfy cafe!

Since 2010 the educational area of the centre has been opened up for artists providing a unique, local exhibition space in an area which has an almost complete lack of them. The person to thank for this is Angie Oliva who is manager at the Waterworks. I asked her about art, the Waterworks and Changing Spaces and this is what she said:

I thought we had a really nice building and that we could definitely use it much more for the local community as well as help to introduce a new audience to the Lee Valley Park. For me it's all about nature, the environment and expressing yourself ...... and I really like art! 

We are all delighted to be hosting Changing Spaces. Jonathan's work is very beautiful and I love the sculpture! I love that it's natural - that it's a whole tree - but I also love the fact that it's actually free. It's not entangled in anything and there's nothing else to distract you from it. You can just see it exactly for what is.

Valerie Grove

From Poplar to Sculpture

Progress Report by Valerie Grove 

Over the course of the past few months I have been closely monitoring the progress of 'Changing Spaces'. As well as regularly talking to Jonathan, I have made two studio visits and three sculpture site visits, all of which I have visually documented.

My three sculpture site visits have been very different. On the first visit I found a poplar tree trunk laying on the damp grass shedding its crumbly bark and soft wood along with a whole host of insect inhabitants.

By the time of the second visit it was obvious that the original plan for the sculpture (carving and inserting painted bricks) would have to be abandoned because of the unstable condition of the wood. When I arrived  at the site I found Jonathan already well under way with Plan B, which involved removing the most rotten parts of the trunk, wrapping the whole thing in wire mesh and stabilising it with steel straps.

Today was my third site visit and although the sculpture is not yet finished, it is now upright and in its final position. Getting it there was a complicated operation and involved  the assistance of several people and a mechanical digger to lift and move the sculpture, then lower it into position so that it could be placed upright in the hole dug manually by Jonathan last week.

The whole operation took about an hour and it would not have been possible without the actual physical and mechanical support of the team at the Waterworks Centre and the Lee Valley Park. At this stage it is very clear not only how much work has gone into creating the sculpture, but also just how collaborative the process has been.

I will do a final site visit to see the completed work shortly before the exhibition opens on June 16th.

Up close and textural

Here are a few images showing some of the textural detail in the materials. Some are from finished works and others were taken when the work was in progress.

Video tour of the Studio

Here is a short tour of my studio which gives a general idea of the work I have produced for this project so far. Not all of the pieces are finished but they are all well on the way leaving me free to focus on the on the sculptural piece I will be doing on-site in the Lee Valley Park. 

This video also shows just how much it is actually possible to do and to fit in a very small space!