Monday 8 June 2009

The Willow Man: M5 Mascot


Motorway designers are pragmatic people. They want us to get from A to B quickly and safely, and other considerations - such as whether travelling is fun - tend to be put to one side. It’s unlikely that the engineers who steamrolled the M5 across the Somerset Levels ever imagined that one day a giant Willow Man would thrill millions of travellers and become an unofficial symbol of the West Country. But he does.

In fact those civil engineers of the 1960s and 1970s saw the motorway itself as an art form, a dream of speed brought to life in concrete and tarmacadam, but most art-lovers are more likely to lament the destruction of the landscape than to extol the aesthetic virtues of junctions. This being said, it’s difficult to approach either of the Severn bridges from the Bristol side without a feeling of awe. Whether you’re looking at the simple lines of the first suspension bridge or the swooping, snaking curves of the Second Severn Crossing, it’s hard not to admire the mixture of lightness and strength embodied in these splendid structures.

During the summer of 2000, travellers crossing the Somerset Levels had something new to look at: surrounded by scaffolding a giant figure was taking shape as artist Serena de la Hey wove bundle after bundle of black willow around a steel frame. Willow Man was commissioned by South West Arts (now part of the Arts Council) to celebrate Year of the Artist, no doubt with an eye on Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North.

“One aim of Year of the Artist,” Serena de la Hey remembers, “Was to introduce the arts to a wider public. So various people suggested I look for a site close to the motorway. Now thousands of people see the piece every day, whether they like it or not!”

A local resident with a decade’s experience in working with willow, de la Hey battled with the elements to get the sculpture finished.

"Usually on a Friday it was raining very hard and the wind was blowing from a north-westerly direction,” she said at the time. “It was pretty grim. But because we had set the deadline, it makes you work through those extremities."

Planned as a temporary work that would be in place for three years the 40’ figure survived less than one. As the funeral pyres of the Foot and Mouth epidemic burned across the region the following summer, arsonists destroyed the Willow Man. And because of the restrictions in place the artist was unable to get back on site until September of that year.

When she did, she immediately rebuilt the wicker giant, assisted by donations from local businesses and ordinary people who had been horrified by the mindless act of vandalism. The new version was protected by a moat, and has so far escaped human interference. A pair of buzzards made their home on its head, however, necessitating an expensive refurbishment two years ago. As things stand, the Willow Man is due to be decommissioned in 2011, but it has become such an iconic Somerset figure that it seems unlikely that this will happen.

“I do hear from quite a lot of people who say they enjoy driving past,” says de la Hey. “You don’t get feedback normally when you do a piece of public art – you just let it go and it becomes a different thing to different people – but I regularly get emails about the Willow Man.

“People drive past it so often that it becomes woven into their lives. There was a woman who used to go by when she visited her daughter at university in Exeter, and someone else who passed it on the way to visit her mother when she was in hospital. I suppose it’s become a little piece of different people’s stories.”

Other artworks now adorn this stretch of motorway, including Peter Freeman’s sculpture Travelling Light, a 50’ column covered in LED lights that change colour with the seasons and to mark particular events. Welcoming drivers to Weston-super-Mare, Travelling Light offers a more hi-tech vision of the South West, one that is more like the Severn bridges – amazing but not personal.

To the people who trundle daily up and down the M5, the Willow Man has become a familiar presence and not one that they necessarily revere as art.

“The truck drivers love him,” Serena de la Hey says. “They call him Alan, after Alan Whicker.”

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

my family and i love keeping alook-out for your willow-man as we drive down to cornwall every year. He is amaizing and we hope he survives for many years to come.

Mosaic Tree said...

Hi James. I would be grateful if you would be kind enough to give me permission to use your photo of the willow man in my blog where I'm doing a series spotlighting Somerset. Please see: http://mosaictree.blogspot.com/2011/03/hidden-somerset.html for reference. Its a lovely photo. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Just passed the Willow Man : reminds me of some great hols in Devon & Cornwall. Don't decommission him - looks very athletic - give him an Olympic torch and invite him to London 2012

Anonymous said...

I saw the wicker man last weekend for the umpteenth time. It's always THE landmark I look out for when travelling that way. But I was astounded at the building going on around him ! Not just a housing estate infront of him but a massive, must be Europe's biggest, warehouse in several tones of green behind him. Poor man he'll be so penned in :/

James Russell said...

It is quite shocking, isn't it? I go past regularly and the changes over the past couple of years have been extraordinary. I suspect that the development was planned before the Wicker Man was commissioned - in fact I remember the artist saying that the area was going to be developed...

I appreciate that people need jobs and that you have to have development in rural areas, but you have to wonder about the giant warehouses that are springing up alongside motorways. It's rather like ribbon development along main roads before and after World War II - we'll end up driving from Bristol to Taunton (and elsewhere) along a corridor of warehouses...

Tony K said...

Don't forget that a new nuclear reactor is to be built at Hinkley Point. This building looks like it may be part of that, as a staging point for materials, and a park-and-ride for construction workers. Whether there is a legacy use planned, I don't know. I wonder whether a siding from the rail line the other side is part of the plan.
If there's a good point, I suppose it is the colour scheme - shades of green arranged irregularly. It's not as intrusive as it would be if it was painted white.

Anonymous said...

I was sad to see the willow man is being allowed to disintegrate. He is such a welcome sie when traveling up and down the M5. What can be done to restore and keep this fantastic piece if art?

James Russell said...

Some good news: Artist Serena de la Hay is going to restore the Willow Man! Hooray! Unfortunately she can't unbuild the neighbouring warehouses and housing developments, but at least Alan will live a bit longer.