Barry

Jackson Quay, a new housing development within the Barry Waterfront area, officially opened on June 10th 2011. With views over No. 1 Dock and a welcoming entrance sculpture by Angharad Pearce Jones, it is a great example of affordable housing.

Newydd Housing Association commissioned Angharad Pearce Jones to collaborate with the scheme architects Tony King Architects Ltd to create a sculptural landmark at the entrance to the site. The original plans for the pedestrian access to the site were put aside, to allow the artist a blank canvas and fresh look at the space. By combining her response to the style and scale of the architecture, local research about the history of the docks, as well as consultation with current Newydd Housing Association tenants, the artist developed her design.

Five stylised 'trees' stand along the curved edge of the pedestrian entrance area, looking out towards the direction of the town centre. (Their height means they can be seen from the Civic Offices) The tops of the trees are made up of sweeping, interlocking curves in a style reminiscent of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the tree trunks are more solidly industrial looking, reminiscent perhaps of the large dock stanchions. As with much of Angharad's work, there is a merging of the feminine with the industrial, to highlight that they are not mutually exclusive and make visible women's role in an industrial society.

It was decided to keep the area as open and welcoming as possible, so there is no fencing in front of the artwork. However, the housing on either side is fenced, and along these two sections of fencing, the artist incorporated a complementary curved design in keeping with the sculptures.

In parallel with the design development, the artist facilitated school workshops at Barry Island Primary School and Gladstone Primary School, to raise awareness of the housing scheme and introduce the children to the process of designing metalwork. Further workshops were held at Gladstone to enable the artist to create a permanent artwork for the school from the children's designs, which is now installed on the wall overlooking their playground.

High Street Family Practice moved premises in 2010 to a spacious new medical centre with state of the art facilities. The new centre is called West Quay Medical Centre and is located on Hood Road, less than 10 minutes from the old premises on High Street in Barry.

As part of the new build a percent for art public artwork was commissioned through their partners Matrix Medical, who were the developers of the scheme.
Artist Angharad Pearce Jones was appointed and consulted closely with the staff of the practice to select a theme and develop a design for the artwork. Many themes were discussed including medical themes and the industrial history of the area, which is in the Innovation Quarter of the Waterfront area of Barry. Angharad’s design combines the motif of the Tree of Hippocrates and the motif of a steam train wheel within a circle. Around the perimeter is a motto that the practice has used, “Working together in partnership with each other for each other”.

The location of the artwork is a circular area within the hard landscaping adjacent to the main entrance. Eight metres in diameter, the outline of the design was fabricated in metal by Angharad and laid onto a tarmac base. Sureset, a company specialising in resin bound paving, supplied and installed the colourful paving within the metal outlines. The paving is made from a variety of different materials to achieve the different colours. For instance, black is created with crushed coal.
The project on the Sureset website: http://www.sureset.co.uk/casestudies_medical.html
Angharad was excited by the possibilities of using coloured resin bound paving in an artwork and although she had previously used it to create a logo, this was her first project with Sureset on her own design (and possibly the first public art project to use this type of paving material).

This project also engaged more widely with the local community. Poet Phil Carradice facilitated poetry workshops at three local primary schools on the theme of physical and mental health and well-being. These workshops were supported by a grant from Academi.

The Vale of Glamorgan Council has a percent for art policy to encourage the commissioning of public art for new builds and regeneration schemes. In September 2006, The Business Service Centre opened to provide workshop units for units for new, fledgling and high growth local businesses. Although an integrated public art commission for the building was not possible, a series of artworks for key internal spaces within the building were commissioned.

Three separate artists were commissioned to produce a series of wall mounted works for the main reception area (the waiting area and reception desk) and conference room. Painter Andrew Smith, textile artist Rosemary James and photographer James Morris were commissioned with the brief to create new works specifically for the building, taking into account the building’s location within the Waterfront and the emerging context of the Innovation Quarter. The area has a rich industrial history and the artists were encouraged to fully explore the context of the Waterfront, its social and industrial history in deriving their conceptual approach to the work.

Andrew Smith painted a pair of paintings to hang on either side of the main entrance within seating alcoves. His shaped canvases fill the space and the abstract shapes and bold colours work extremely well in the modern space. Although abstract, many of the shapes and motifs found within the compositions have been inspired by figurative elements.
Barry 1 has the large orange sweep of the harbour wall, blue sweep of the skateboard park and as seen from the island the box forms of the containers at the Docks. The fences of the town and island feature as does the Docks’ ancient capstan hanging from the top left of the painting to form a red circle.
Barry 2 is about Barry Island and the climbing steps up and around, over and down to Nell’s Point. Andrew wanted to get a sense of the steps up to the island, the steps of the houses, and the red painted brick. St Illtyd’s pre-Romanesque monastery in Llantwit Major, features in the cross form in the lower part of the painting, a motif taken from one of the sculpted crosses in the abbey.

Rosemary James made a textile work stretched over a frame which combines the methods of silk screen and digital printing, hand and machine stitch. She has created a frieze of Barry characters against a backdrop of typical Barry landmarks such as the colonnades at Barry Island, the Town hall, Dock Offices, and the red Evolution sign from one of the rides at the Barry Island Pleasure Park. A typical street in Barry is also included to give a flavour of the town’s style of architecture. This lively and contemporary work is situated behind the reception desk and is the first work to greet visitors to the centre.

James Morris researched the immediate area of the Docks with his lens, capturing dozens of arresting images. He explored the historical and continuing relationship between Barry and its proximity to the sea – a relationship which has defined Barry’s existence and development. The images are extraordinarily detailed and work on both a macro and micro level where by the overall image and composition can be appreciated from a distance and by moving closer the fine detail can be observed in sharp focus. Five photographs were chosen to be printed and framed for the conference room.

This project is a celebration of the cultural diversity of youth activities in Barry both past and present. The Domino Club was established in Barry between 1947 and 1951, and involved young people in theatre, performance and carnival activities. The series of slate dominoes, edged in mirror-finished stainless steel have photographic portraits of ex-Domino club members as well as today’s youth, in place of the ‘dots’ on the dominoes. A poem about Thompson Street written by one of the Domino Club members is letter cut into the first domino. The artist Lulu Quinn researched the history of the Domino Club and met with current youth members of Area 41 youth club to involve them in making photographic portraits of themselves.

The regeneration of Barry Waterfront has to date seen significant residential development, the creation of a retail hub and the business and innovation quarter. The Thompson Street Footbridge is a key element in reconnecting the main retail centre of Barry with the Waterfront area. Thompson Street runs north-south from Holton Road to the new footbridge, which connects with the Waterfront area. The Holton Road shopping area was the first phase of town centre improvement works, which also included a public art scheme (see http://www.celfwaith.co.uk/node/1223).

The bridge and artwork were formally unveiled on May 10th 2010.

In the summer of 2008 the Vale of Glamorgan Council appointed artist Charles Gurrey and poet Gillian Clarke to create a roundel for the newly redesigned public space in front of the Civic Offices.

To the left of the path leading to the main entrance of the Civic Offices from Holton Road is the Merchant Seaman’s Memorial and to the right is a new semi-circular seating area. The roundel is set into the paving within the seating area.

The brief to the artists was to create an artwork which in some way interpreted the concepts of civic and citizenship and to reflect Barry – the town and its citizens. However, this needed to be done with very few words in order to fit the space and in addition the poetic text needed to be in both Welsh and English. Gillian Clarke devised the following succinct lines which curve around within the circle:

“Severn tides lap Harbour and Knap
coal, wind and sea
- our history”

“Llanw a lli a llongau glo
dros y môr
- ein hanes ni”

Charles Gurrey designed the letters which were cast in bronze and set into a single piece of granite. The shapes of the letters are bold and sculptural, contemporary and legible, and suit the meaning of the text – Barry’s current day pride in its history. The background to the letters has a green, aged bronze patina whilst the letters standing proud are a shinier golden bronze but with a rubbed texture which has also picked up the green patina.

Charles Gurrey
Following a BA in Philosophy Politics and Economics at Oxford and an MPhil in Philosophy at Cambridge, Gurrey completed a five-year apprenticeship as architectural carver and decorative sculptor in Dick Reid's workshop in York. He then remained at that workshop as Principal Assistant until 1994 when he became a self-employed architectural carver and sculptor. Gurrey’s commissions include several works for York Minster, the complete scheme of figurework in stone for the West Front of Guildford Cathedral, and a sculpture for Dunorlan Park incorporating text by Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate at the time.

This public art project is the first of many to be commissioned for Barry Town Centre in the next few years as part of the ongoing regeneration of the town centre. A transformation has already taken place with the refurbishment of the Town Hall, King Square and Central Park - the first phase of regeneration work.

A public art strategy for Barry Town Centre was completed by Celfwaith in the summer of 2007 and this paving art project is the first public art project to be implemented from the strategy. The second phase of regeneration was to widen the pavements of Holton Road and install new street furniture to give more priority to the pedestrian.

There are 120 paving slabs with art designs integrated into the pavement along Holton Road, located at the junction points. Artists Heather Parnell, David Mackie and Andrew Rowe developed the theme for the artwork with children from two local Schools - Holton Rd Primary and St Helen's RC Junior Schools. Shops past and present and the types of wares shown in window displays were researched and children drew objects they imagined would be sold at chemists, toy shops, green grocers, hardware stores, confectioners, stationers and haberdashery shops.

The artists created the final designs, which have an almost trompe l'oeil effect, to look like shopping bags dropped on the floor with the contents falling out scattered across the pavement. The designs were etched into the paving slabs and filled in with a tough charcoal coloured paint to look literally like pencil drawings on the pavement. Within each design there is also an item in bronze relief such as a pencil, an orange or biscuits, to add colour and shine.