The Remember and Rebuild Memorial
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Saxon Hall is a lovely Community Centre in Hereford that genuinely works to bring together a growing, diverse community. They have a beautiful, spacious garden tended with great care and skill by a range of volunteers.
Making a sculpture to celebrate the community was decided before the pandemic hit.
Our primary aim was that everyone involved will gain new skills, confidence, friendships and a sense of belonging. Our amazing group shared every step of planning and designing this memorial to create some thing much richer than any single person could make. It has been a very intense and wonderful experience with lots of tears, laughter and open-hearted honesty.
The Remember and Rebuild sculpture at Saxon Hall in Hereford is 2.2 metres high so you can stand inside it!
The base is our familiar 2 metre wide circle covered in a beautiful spiral pattern of handcrafted Mosaic Memory Tiles made by local people bringing together hand-made messages of kindness and warmth from all around Hereford that capture our community's memories of lockdown.
It stands by the Community Orchard in the beautiful Saxon Hall gardens.
You can read about the whole process here: https://ospreystudios.org/2021/04/25/the-remeber-and-rebuild-sculpture-for-saxon-hall-hereford/
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And you will also find links there to free, practical tutorials about making sculpture in clay suitable for any age or level of experience.
Modelling your ideas in Clay- Have a go!
Rebecca Buck has made a set of posts on her website at Osprey Studios guiding you through forming ideas and sharing them through Clay Models made in a small, convenient size ideal for designing larger sculptures. Discover more by clicking a button.
Making Small Sculptures in Clay ;
https://ospreystudios.org/2020/04/13/how-to-make-small-sculpture-and-models/
https://ospreystudios.org/2020/04/09/making-small-figures/
https://ospreystudios.org/2020/04/09/how-to-make-animals-using-clay-armatures/
We would like to thank Bulmer Gilmour Fund via Hereford Community Foundation for their support for our project launch.
With thanks to Herefordshire's a Great Place for funding the online design phase of the sculptures during Covid-19 lockdown.
'Remember and Rebuild' is funded by the National Lotteries Covid-19 Community Response Fund.
Herefordshire City Council kindly funded the clay and materials for the sculpture.
It was installed in Autumn 2021 with a planned celebration and launch in Spring 2022 when Saxon Hall Community Centre will reopen after being an NHS Vaccination Site.
In March 2020 we launched our 'Standing up for Peace Sculpture Project' at Saxon Hall, Hereford.
Then in July 2020, to mark and record our communities memories of lockdown, we began our 'Remember and Rebuild' monument.
Tutored by contemporary sculptor Rebecca Buck of Osprey Studios, workshop participants are exploring clay modelling.
With their thoughts on our themes of 'Peace' and 'Remember and Rebuild' being communicated through representative and abstract forms of special relevance to this local community and its social heritage.
Clay sculptures made during these community Workshops are inspiring and shaping the final architectural ceramic forms, garden landscaping and seating which will be placed at Saxon Hall on completion.
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You can catch up on her progress, by reading her diary, on the Osprey Studios website.
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Using clay is direct and easy - everyone can join in
Rebecca brought this third scale model of our Sculpture to Saxon Hall in mid-October. In early November, the Saxon Hall trustees approved the model design.
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The sculpture will be 2.2 meters high and a person can stand inside the internal space. The 'plinth' (which will be flush to the ground) has a flowing spiral on it, radiating from the form, which
is 2 metres in diameter: our physical distancing space.
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In January 2021, we began sending out Clay Mosaic Memory Tiles Kits by post, to residents of Hereford City and boundaries.
Stoneware Clay tiles returned to us for kiln-firing will be installed in a spiral around the base of the sculpture.
We have made some small clay models that will be set into the surface of the sculpture. And we are collecting drawings and writing to put on there too. There is still time to add yours!
Clay model with adult and child figures for scale
Sculpture is 2m wide, our distancing space.
there is a flowing plinth inside which forms a seat
Clay model with adult and child figures for scale
Saxon Hall is a lovely Community Centre in Hereford that genuinely works to bring together a growing, diverse community. They have a beautiful, spacious garden tended with great care and skill by a range of volunteers.
Making a sculpture to celebrate the community was decided before the pandemic hit.
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Our primary aim is that everyone involved will gain new skills, confidence, friendships and a sense of belonging. We are all getting good at doing that online these days because of the pandemic and lockdown.
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Being online does make it quick and easy to exchange ideas and information to wider groups of people than might have been possible, with workshops held at Saxon Hall.
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By pooling our ideas, art-work, research and images, our sculpture will have real relevance to the site. It will be a source of pride, status and inspiration.
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Everyone is welcome and needed including those who do not want to do hands-on art-work. Collecting local historical Archive photos and stories is hugely useful.
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Once the sculpture is ready, in the Summer of 2021, it will need people to help with the installation on-site and there will be a celebration and opening party to organise!
Modelling your ideas in Clay
Between Spring 2020 and July 2021, we asked you for copies of your research findings, writing, stories, sketches or photos of your ideas:
You helped provide:
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images and short text from local history about Saxon Hall and the local area especially if it relates to Peace, local people and the community
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short text like sayings, stories, memories that can be carved onto the sculpture's surface
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images of drawings, quick sketches, diagrams, photos, your clay models, notes or any other artwork that can be used to inspire and inform the design of the Sculpture and Mosaic Tiles
Many of these will also be carved into the surface of the sculpture to inspire the hope and feeling of belonging that we know matters so much.
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Think of the things that bring you comfort, where friends, safety, security and companionship helped
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Or funny moments that brought people together
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Or tender moments where you felt peace all around you
Peace is made of many factors and it can be elusive, even easy to take for granted. But we all know it and share the need for it.
The image shown below was done by local people, for a Memorial Sculpture telling the story of their Community.
"Join in with this very special project! Let's use our experiences of keeping our communities safe and well during this difficult and intense time to make an inspiring community sculpture."
Rebecca Buck, Contemporary Clay Sculptor, Osprey Studios.
We would like to thank Bulmer Gilmour Fund via Hereford Community Foundation for their support for our project launch. Funding applications to further develop this project during 2020-2022 are in hand. Please contact us for Sponsorship opportunities or offers of substantial individual Gifts.