methilhill

Fife council approached and asked me to create this feature wall for the entrance to the village of Methilhill. I visited the primary school and met a group of primary 7 pupils in the head teachers office. They had been working on an art project to generate the images of their village to include on the carved panels. Their drawings were great and included a lot of the local buildings. The school itself is of an unusual modern design, with two sets of four open plan classrooms each grouped around an indoor atrium. The atmosphere in the whole building was very positive and the art group were clearly a bright and focused bunch of kids enjoying their school work. I decided to make a street scene across the four carved stones and went for an exaggerated, topsy turvy cartoon feel. I put the school at the centre of the community, which is essentially one huge glass roof. The other buildings depicted are, from right to left, one of the local pubs, the village grocery shop, the credit union, the ladies british legion club and the bowling green. I put bowlers out playing on the green and pigeons perching on the edges. A lot of the mining communities have pigeon fanciers and lofts, and the kids had included drawings of these birds. There was also a picture of the school minibus, so I included that too, driving down the street. The names Pirnie, Muiredge, Wellesley and Cameron are the houses the pupils are divided up into and also the name of the four local pits, now shut. The segment of the circle they are carved round represents the winding wheels, long since dismantled.