The best laid plans go west – 2010
welded Corten steel. 18000 x 2400 x 800 mm.
Located in Connells Bay, Waiheke
Information and images about the making of this work, and its installation, can be seen here.
Top Shelf Productions made a doocumentary on the Connells Bay project. It can be seen below. The video has been positioned to start 25 minutes in to one of the sections where the work is shown being installed.
The best laid plans go west is my largest work to date and the only large scale work I’ve done using text. It was commissioned by John and Jo Gow for the Connells Bay sculpture park with the only condition being that it was to be a work in corten steel. After a number of alternatives were proffered and then abandoned I settled on this piece which is based on a poem I wrote ruminating on the idea of the unattainability of perfection…
The best laid plans go west …
at best they surpass all expectation
but expectation sees them coming
and has already got other plans
the accident took us all by surprise
the ground opened up
a perfect void
…I should say that I do not regard myself as a poet .. I use stock phrases and cliche as a means of remembering an idea , a mental shorthand I developed when I was labouring…
my contention is that the accident is a perfect event…but not wishing to portray an accident (which would be no accident) I portrayed the best laid plans going west …