Green Pebble Magazine

Dancing Sails Liven Up Supermarket

Wander over to the new Tesco Express store in West Mersea near Colchester and you will find a 2.75 metre high aluminium set of ‘Dancing Sails’. The driving force behind this new sculpture, which was erected in the spring, was local West Mersea artist Lesley Carruthers, who produces abstract sculptures, mostly in aluminium, in a studio behind her house on the outskirts of the village.

Commemorating the maritime history of West Mersea, this project came with its own particular set of challenges. Because the finished height of the sculpture, plinth design and budget were already fixed, Lesley was more constrained than usual.

‘In designing the sculpture, my aim was to create an impression of the movement of sails in the wind. I started experimenting with a single simple sail shape, and finally settled on three linked sail-type forms which appear to interact or ‘dance’ around each other,’ she explains.

Once she settled on the shape, the next challenge was to resolve several complex practical issues: The stresses of the structure, weight, aerodynamics, health and safety aspects, and whether it could be produced within the constraints of the budget. The latter was resolved by having sheet aluminium rolled on huge factory rollers, rather than using her traditional method of casting in a foundry from a polystyrene original.

The various administrative hurdles were also systematically overcome – the Tesco board approved the design, and the local planning department not only approved it, but asked that it be 30cm bigger than their original stipulation, meaning that all the practical issues had to be revisited and re-assessed.

Specific problems included finding someone capable of welding together the thick 3m high, curved sheets of aluminium, and handling and manoeuvring the work in progress, since each unit weighed 90kg and needed three people to move it.

The finishing processes of grinding, sanding and waxing were further complicated by the mid-winter temperatures, but finally, with the help of an engineering firm, all difficulties were eventually overcome and the sculpture was successfully installed in time for the opening of the new store.
Although the sculpture is large – 3.85 metres from pavement to tip of sails, and 4.5 metres along each arm of the plinth, Lesley feels it quietly fills its allocated space without dominating or overwhelming its immediate surroundings.