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Morecambe Bay is a vast expanse of sand on the northwest coast of Britain and is an important wildlife site and bird sanctuary. Bird species which migrate there include the Turnstone, Knot, Ringed Plover, Oystercatcher, Black-tailed Godwit, Whooper Swan, Pink-footed Goose, Wingeon, Pintail and Teal.
An equally extensive array of government agencies, arts organizations, artists and designers, and fabricators descended on Morecambe to collaborate on an extraordinary public art project. The resulting “Flock of Words” pavement, an environmental art piece, forms part of an initiative by Lancaster City Council to revivify the area and will be open to the public by the end of the year.
Six years in the planning, revising and making, “Flock of Words” is a 300-meter long typographic artwork constructed from granite, concrete, steel, brass, bronze and glass. The text rendered in this path is a collection of poems, song lyrics, and sayings relating to birds. It incorporates excerpts from The Book of Genesis, and quotes from Shakespeare, Spike Milligan and local poet Laurence Binyon among others.
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The path runs from the railway station and car parks and leads to the seafront offering locals and tourists a visual and verbal meditation relating to the Bay. The project is a continuation of the Tern regeneration scheme launched by the Lancaster City Council in 1992. Its mission is defined as “to physically refresh and re-image Morecambe,” and, of course, to attract tourists.
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“Flock of Words” brought together long-time collaborators, artist Gordon Young and design firm Why Not Associates, who worked together on an earlier Morecambe project—a tribute to local hero, British comedian Eric Morecambe—and other environmental installations throughout the United Kingdom.
Young had the initial idea of text relating to birds and this was followed by extensive research, the process of selection, and seeking permissions. The design challenges for this project were multiple. Why Not’s Andy Altmann recalls that the first designs were deemed too costly and had to be reworked and “simplified” to comply with a revised budget.
The typefaces were an easy choice: those designed by Eric Gill. Gill had done the interiors of the local Midland Hotel which Altmann describes as “an Art Deco masterpiece.” (The hotel was originally slated for extensive renovation, but now may be demolished.) Altmann also adds that there was an aesthetic appropriateness to the use of the Gill typefaces, a quality of timelessness since “Flock of Words” is anticipated to last for a century.
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The width of the path was problematic at 2.55 meters which Altmann says, “is so narrow, it is like designing a long roll of toilet paper.” But design they did, and delivered the complex typographic pattern and color choices in Freehand files.
The next challenge was the transition from digital to “real” and “safe.” Some of the letterforms were lasercut, water cut (high powered jets of water), or chiseled into stone. Colors also had to be tested since, Altmann says “the colors in my head were not going to be the colors in concrete and granite. There is a palette of granite, concrete, metals.” He adds, “Some of these materials come into their own when it rains. A gray, for example, turns to a deep black.”
The team played with models and the design. How would people walk, stand, read the text, stop? Two parallel sets of poems read front to back, back to front so that the viewer can peruse them walking to the seafront or away from it.
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Altmann says that the artistic and logistic interpretation using complex materials is the forte of Gordon Young. “This is where Gordon comes into his own. He invented some of the methods used here.” Altmann adds that Young recruited fellow artist Russell Coleman, who works in stone as well as other materials, to train the various builders who were not specialists. And all had to factor in safety precautions in all weathers for anyone walking on this path.
A focal point of this path is a nine meter, three-sided, tapered column with encircling text from The Book of Genesis rendered in galvanized steel.
“There is a massive learning curve on a project like this,” says Altmann. “We had to deal with a physicality, another dimension, and a permanence most design will not have.” For Young, the experience is also about the current state of art. He observes, “We share a (sometimes relaxed) desire to move the definitions of what an artist or a designer is or to turn a blind eye to what they currently are ... the art, the design, and what constitutes it is as to how we, the practitioners, define it through our work. We found there can be a shared language; there can be equal collaborations (we have different talents and different strengths). And fortunately, there are jobs and clients willing to be in the territory of the ‘not sure what it is.’”
Margaret Richardson
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