I
The ‘fizz’ and ‘clink!’ of the Solent’s waves gently tickle the storm-smoothed stones of Chesil tombolo. This percussive rhythm is laced with the sounds of a choir singing, swelling up from nearby Quiddles Café. I listen to this duet composed of voice and tide, a soundscape that ebbs and flows.
The soloist soprano waivers above the haunting ‘ooo-wooo-ooo’ of the altos before the song breaks like a wave cascading into the depths an octave below.
Overhead, seagulls launch their cries into the partially sun-less sky. From this drone’s eye view, Dorset’s little Isle dangles from the sweeping coastline like a tiny earring or pendant charm. Meanwhile, the wind – whipped by salty dregs of spray – sends hats whirling, raincoats flapping and long hair slapping. A Summer’s day on Portland.
‘Written In Stone . . . Our Island Song. . .’ the choir voices proclaim, now in unison. This melodic transition harmonises with the shifting stones cackling along the tide. A melodic transition to the wind’s lonesome howl.
Performed by Island Voices, Chiswell’s celebrated community choir, this impromptu recital is the perfect prelude for viewing John Maine’s ‘Chiswell Earthworks’. With the tune of a raucous sea-shanty lilting through the soft patter of raindrops, I stride up West Weares slope to study Maine’s monumental work of art in more detail.
II
Five dry stone walls rise up from the ground, running parallel to the tideline several hundred meters below. Facing outwards and towards the choppy whitecaps of the sea, the ‘Chiswell Earthworks’ span roughly an acre at the far end of Chesil Beach and hold back the sloping, slipping land of West Weares.
Like lines etched into the verdant landscape, these hand-built trails follow the topography of the land, its riffs and gullies. The longest wall is 55 yards long and each one acts as a retainer, a structural component protecting against erosion and weathering.
Bending. Curving. Twisting. The walls’ gentle undulations stalk the slope like slithering snakes of stone. Droplets of rain mix with sea spray, glistening slivers of silver on their grey flanks. The walls seem to breathe, to move, to dance along to the Island’s Song.
Maine’s sculptural forms not only echo the curvaceous rise and retreat of the Solent’s steely hue, but the agricultural technique of terracing slopes to grow crops. The artist alludes to paddy field platforms, to climbing olive groves and even layered cliff-top gardens, almost offering an exotic appeal to this pocket of northern-hemisphere shingle.
The varying heights and staggered intervals of the ‘Earthworks’ also recall Dorset’s ancient strip lynchets, a stepped field system once commonplace in this area over 4,000 years ago.
Each terrace is made from Portland Limestone extracted from the nearby quarries. Although several of the quarries have been retired and lately revitalised as nature reserves and educational resources, the heft of stone which make up the ‘Earthworks’ gives an indication as to the scale of the mining industry on the Isle of Portland.
Forming a sort of visual timeline spreading out across the cliff, each wall is made from a different layer of geological rock strata. The primary wall of Slat represents the topmost layer of Portland Limestone; the second wall is made from Topstone and the third wall is of Roach. Whitbed, which has a slightly lower content of shell, has been utilised for the fourth wall and the fifth and lowermost wall is made of Basebed, the deepest type of Portland Limestone mined in the quarries.
Installation of the ‘Earthworks’ began 1987, however difficulty securing workers for the project meant that members of the local community came forward – volunteers, students and even prisoners – to help lay each stone, one by one. Although many doubted that the ‘Chiswell Earthworks’ would ever be completed, the last stone was finally laid in 1994.
III
Maine’s Earthworks are not just an artistic commission in stone. They are the very flesh and blood of the landscape. Excavated. Disembowelled. Shaped and reorganised by human hands. The innards of the Island laid out in organised lines, as though organs or intestines ready for inspection. A quarry dismantled and deconstructed. History is unravelled to form a visual time-scape we can climb, sit and walk on.
Revealing an embodiment of place, the artist has put a magnifying glass up to ‘slow time’, like peeling back the layers of an onion – the skin of the Earth’s crust. The accumulation of sediment and ooliths across millions of years is dissected and distilled. We are presented with a pictorial narrative of prehistoric geological processes in recognisable, structural forms.
Carrying the bulk of the centuries and the roughness of the elements, the ‘Chiswell Earthwork’ stones evoke thoughts of permanence and impermanence. A poetic otherness which although physically tangible, is almost incomprehensible relative to human lifespan.
Celebrating locality, identity and the passage of time, the artist transforms a beachside cliff into a scene that could be set in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’, or paralleled by the lonely remains of Shelly’s ‘Ozymandias’.
IV
As I stride up the slope from Quiddles Café, my heart beating a little faster, I choose a path heading to the right, where the wildflowers have been disturbed. A human sheep trail. Dodging brambles and the occasional stinging nettle, I come close to one of the mid-walls. The sculpture changes perspective, the walls concertina into each other as the uppermost terraces suddenly disappear.
A dog bounds in front of me before being called to heel by its owner. My chosen trail continues, winding its way to loop back at undulation in the wall. Long grasses shake their golden heads, Morning Glories carpet the blocks of stone enthusiastically; poaceae seem to bury the ‘Earthworks’ so they take on the personality of a great fortress or ancient burial complex from a bygone age. Whispers of ancient civilisations – from Hadrian’s wall at the opposite end of the country, to the Great Wall of China – find their voice within this assembly of Portland stone.
I continue heading lengthways, towards the far end of this ‘Earthwork’. The immense block-like forms echo the 1920s oblong beach huts emerging from the Island’s mist-cloaked viewing point. A large piece of stone at the end of the wall forms a sort of stepped ‘seat’. A ‘look out’ – a natural armchair from which to survey the sea and sky. Wild grasses, heads heavy with seed pods, jitter in the breeze. A butterfly briefly settles on the ledge as though to bask in the sun breaking through the clouds.
This modern-day Mayan-like structure honours the sea wall built to protect the village of Fortuneswell from tidal flooding. Margaret Somerville, a local Gallerist, came up with the idea of a large-scale artwork to commemorate the completion of the sea defences and promenade as a way to reinforce the identity and sense of place on Portland.
The Earthworks were commissioned by the environmental arts organisation Common Ground as Part of their New Milestones project. This initiative invited communities to embrace landscapes of the everyday, to appreciate the scenery on their doorstep and to care for the environment of their local surroundings through permanent, and often large scale, art interventions. From its inception, the commission involved the local community to ensure their support and interest. Margaret Somerville offered a sculptor’s residency and John Maine emerged as a firm favourite for the project owing to his strong ties to the quarries on Portland.
V
From the reinforcements along the US – Mexico border; the boundaries dividing Gaza, the West Bank; neighbourhoods in Belfast; to those in Cyprus and the frontier fence splitting India and Bangladesh, John Maine’s ‘Chiswell Earthworks’ could be considered a premonition for the current border and barrier concerns of this decade. The recent proliferation of walls across the globe as statements of authority and hostility have been built and reinforced at great human, financial and ecological cost.
Yet here, on the Isle of Portland, walls of stone instead become their own place. A place where people come together, where fauna and flora thrive. John Maine has provided habitats for animals and a lasting solution to the landslides and erosion at West Weares through engaging people and place.
Even the use of Portland Limestone – which we are typically accustomed to seeing in its gleaming white form – the tiny indentations of ooliths occasionally interrupting the smooth and regal-looking surface of the streamlined Cenotaph, the magnificence of St Paul’s Cathedral and the UN Headquarters. Associated with refinement it is perhaps at first a little daunting to see Portland stone . . . at home. Its rugged, unpolished appeal more akin to the weathered skin of a Medieval drystone wall.
But it is this unexpected element which perhaps makes the ‘Chiswell Earthworks’ so memorable – so familiar to this land and yet also so striking, considering it is birthed from beneath our very feet!
Celebrating the generations of quarrymen and masons, the craftsmanship and heritage of the Isle of Portland – along with its connection to stone and the sea – the artwork itself becomes part of the fabric of the environment and the community. The upper terrace, between the first mosaic-like wall of Slat and the second wall of larger Topstone pieces has been clipped and manicured to provide an easily accessible area for social and community gatherings. Friends and families can enjoy picnics, children play and sun-seekers can appreciate the light as wave-watchers take in the views.
A landscape of the everyday has been transformed by John Maine’s ‘Chiswell Earthworks’. A song in five parts which resonates through the ages – beside the sea, beneath the sky – of, and amongst, the stones.
KEEP CONNECTED & INSPIRED
PENDOUR PICKS
Pas de Deux : A Dance of ‘Art & Life’ – Barbara Hepworth at Fondation Maeght
PENDOUR CULTURE
Linda Bell
