Meteor is one of a series of wood sculptures by Dr Jon Roberts. It was an instantly recognisable feature of the Harris Garden until it was subjected to an act of vandalism at the beginning of this year.
Jenny Halstead’s book ‘An artist’s year in the Harris Garden’ (2013) contains three images of the piece. She describes her impression of it and its location:
‘the White Garden with Jon Roberts’s wooden sculpture ‘Meteor’ at its centre, which always reminds me of the skull of Triceratops.’ (p. 6).
I think I first encountered ‘Meteor’ in Jenny Halstead’s garden during the annual Whiteknights Studio Trail in June 2007.
In a recent interview in the MERL garden, Jon told me something of its history. He started with the origin of the wood.
A friend of a neighbour had inherited a sheep farm in mid-Wales, where the top of the hillside was littered with tree roots following earlier felling of larch and oak trees. The roots had been lying there, weathering for 40 years and, in Jon’s words, they had developed ‘wonderful natural shapes’.
Following a preliminary reconnaissance trip to mid-Wales, Jon and his son Dan rented a van and loaded it with some 12-15 roots, enough for Jon to work on sculptures of all shapes and sizes for at least three years.
The farmer was given a generous payment.
Most of the roots needed little attention, just cleaning up, mounting and the provision of plinths.
The piece of wood selected for Meteor was a product of the thin soil, resulting in the root spreading out in a fan shape, finally leaving a flat, distorted disc embedded with fragments of slate.
Tentative plans to turn it into a coffee table came to nothing and Jon bided his time, spending months contemplating the shape and making minimal changes. When first cut, the larch wood displayed an intense deep red colour (see image below). The wood was brittle but hard (larch wood had once been used for pit props ) and Jon used gouges to produce the surface pattern (see image) and a handmade French Auriou rasp to shape the curves and edges. The wood was too brittle for a heavy mallet so a light alternative was used instead.
Meteor’s plinth was from an entirely different source; it was originally part of a tidal groyne in Swanage that was being replaced. It was made of greenheart, a tropical hardwood that is extremely hard, heavy and resistant to water and insect damage. Jon heard that the wood was to be thrown away and contacted the site engineer for permission to remove a piece.
In May 2011, I saw the sculpture in the Harris Garden for the first time. It was in what was then called The White Garden. In 2015 this became The Meteor Garden thanks to generous sponsorship from the Friends of the Harris Garden and a layout designed by volunteers.
By 2013, some of the deep red colouring had started to look more weathered:
And by 2020 it had almost completely faded:
Then early in 2024, a senseless piece of vandalism snapped the sculpture off its plinth and broke off one its edges. Fortunately all the pieces were salvaged and safely stored by the Grounds Staff.
Even better is the news that, thanks to the help of staff in Art Education on the London Road Campus, Meteor is being relocated. On 10 July this year, it was delivered into the safe-keeping of Dr Suzy Tutchell of the Institute of Education who is arranging for its repair and a new plinth.
Post Script
Regular visitors to the Harris Garden will probably have been aware of another piece by Jon Roberts that he called his ‘Natural Sculpture’. It is another of the hillside roots. The image below shows it in its heyday in 2011. Over the years, however, it has suffered from the natural process of disintegration and collapse, such that little remains of its original shape although its components can still be made out in the undergrowth.
Jenny Halstead’s Book
Halstead, J. (2013). An artist’s year in the Harris Garden. Reading: Two Rivers Press.