{"id":34235,"title":"Tour of Britain National Land Art Winners 2022","description":"From chat to \u2018Spike on a Bike\u2019It all happened during the course of a \u2018Drop in and Draw\u2019 art session, given freely by artist Liz Waddell up at Abundance one sunny Saturday morning in August. The three of us, that is to say, Tracey Lloyd (Abundance), Liz Waddell (Artist) and I were sitting around drinking juice and dabbling in art and suddenly we got on to the topic of the Tour of Britain.   Tracey said she\u2019d been trying for months to get interest to create some Land Art and immediately both the ears of Liz and I pricked up!  Yes, said Tracey, I\u2019d been thinking about maybe a hedgehog theme to reflect the work in the village of Keyworth Hedgehog Highways","content":"

From chat to \u2018Spike on a Bike\u2019<\/strong><\/p>

It all happened during the course of a \u2018Drop in and Draw\u2019 art session, given freely by artist Liz Waddell up at Abundance one sunny Saturday morning in August.<\/p>

The three of us, that is to say, Tracey Lloyd (Abundance), Liz Waddell (Artist) and I were sitting around drinking juice and dabbling in art and suddenly we got on to the topic of the Tour of Britain.\u00a0 Tracey said she\u2019d been trying for months to get interest locally to create some Land Art and immediately both the ears of Liz and I pricked up!\u00a0 Yes, said Tracey, I\u2019d been thinking about maybe a hedgehog theme to reflect the work in the village of Keyworth Hedgehog Highways.\u00a0 Again, we drew closer.<\/p>

Wow, what a great idea I thought, but suddenly eyes turned to Liz.\u00a0 If anyone could turn this idea into a visual, in triple quick time, Liz could.\u00a0 You see, Liz has been hedgehog artist for Wild Things Keyworth since the early days and she was now used to painting all sorts of beautiful hedgehogs and wild things to reflect the natural world and like us, help give it a voice. But she\u2019d never done anything like this before.<\/p>

So, within a matter of days, two A4 pieces of artwork with ideas and also suggestions for materials were lovingly crafted by Liz.\u00a0 The one that impressed us by far, was the one of a hedgehog sitting on a bike, waving.\u00a0 Wow, that is brilliant.\u00a0 All three of us loved it.<\/p>

But how on earth were we to go from Liz\u2019s design on an A4 piece of paper to roll out a project plan and execute it within a matter of weeks?<\/p>

The next key stage was to get permissions. I contacted the Parish Council and said we have this idea, the artwork needs to be 100m from the course, visible by helicopter and suggested different locations that it could be, our favourite being Keyworth playing field.\u00a0 I was delighted when they came back almost immediately and said yes you have our full backing to use Keyworth playing field! What a coup, the perfect spot and right near Keyworth Abundance too, exactly where we\u2019d discussed the idea to start with.<\/p>

I then registered the idea and location of the artwork with the Tour of Britain itself (they need a W3W address) and wrote about the reasoning behind the installation.<\/p>

At first, Liz will tell you, that we thought we could make the hedgehog out of loads of plant pots, somehow fixed together. She said: \u201cLooking back that would have run into thousands!\u201d<\/p>

At one point I thought I could do the writing with hay bales, but Tracey suggested they would be exceedingly heavy, good call!\u00a0 Then at another point we thought the whole bike could be made up of assembled school children in different coloured clothing to represent different elements of the bike.\u00a0 Again, we were limited as few of the schools were back from the summer holidays for rehearsal and those that were, the heads generally wanted the children to watch the race as it went by. \u00a0<\/p>

So, like any good plan, we revised and tweaked until we came up with what we did actually use.\u00a0 One of my favourite lines from Tracey after I had a eureka moment with using towels for the Keyworth lettering and proudly sent a picture of my first effort was: \u201cIf you think that looks like a K!\u201d \ud83d\ude0a <\/span>\u2013 but that is exactly how we improved and eventually the writing with all the helpers too, was indeed legible and got an extremely important message across.<\/p>

So next Liz said to me, I\u2019m going to need a huge space to practise the hedgehog.\u00a0 We racked our brains, could it be the village hall, the parochial hall or somewhere else? I suddenly thought to contact a hedgehog friendly neighbour who has also been helping with hedgehog supportive items and making gap surrounds and put it to him. Could we use his garden? Maybe for a few consecutive days? \u00a0\u201cYes of course\u201d he said,\u201d You can also have the use of my workshop.\u201d \u00a0So, this was the start of 3 days hard work in Paul\u2019s garden, and multiple trips up to Moores Nursery to get spare wood that had been offered to us through Liz\u2019s enquiry.<\/p>

A first incarnation of Spike was created using the old bits of wood and I liaised with Cllr Rob Inglis and his drone to arrive to meet Liz and I at Paul\u2019s one evening.\u00a0 The time had come to see what Spike really looked like from above.\u00a0 And wow! It was already impressive. Infact Liz is quoted as saying: \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone quite believed how good Spike was!\u201d Liz had done an amazing job of scaling up her drawing and laying out old bits of wood to form the outline of spines, skirt, face, legs, nose, using things like a dustbin lid for the eye.\u00a0

From the air, it was evident that it was a hedgehog, but then I suddenly spotted a visual flaw.\u00a0 All the wood was quite camouflaged on the grass and as such I remembered my days working at a heliport and realised that guaranteed visibility from a helicopter would mean us painting the wood white and making the lines a bit thicker.\u00a0 So that was the next step and Liz and her husband spent a lot of time getting this done.<\/p>

In the meantime, I had another deadline to meet and so I also had to continue our \u2018drilling gaps for hedgehogs\u2019 on Dale Road, for Britain\u2019s Biggest Hedgehog Street competition. Whilst on Dale Road I made an impromptu visit to another \u2018hedgehog lady\u2019 I\u2019d been alerted to on the road opposite.\u00a0 There I met Joiner Pete Harrison for the first time and we chatted about wildlife and hedgehogs. A few days later when I was racking my brain as to who may have a vehicle big enough to help transport the wood, I knew that as a joiner in the village, Pete had access to a big enough vehicle that could help us, so I enquired on the off-chance and he said yes! Fantastic!<\/p>

Liz packed up Spike into recognisable bundles for different sections of the artwork.\u00a0 She went about doing the labelling and transferring it from the back of the house to the front of the house ready for collection \u2013 a big job in itself.<\/p>

So one Sunday morning, the store was opened up for us at the Keyworth playing field so that we could locate Spike in multiple wooden plank form to free Paul of his hosting duties \u2013 there turned out to be 260 wooden pieces (as counted and verified by youngster Alfie)<\/p>

We had a couple of practise days after that, which looking back were really key.<\/p>

We practised part of the writing with the towels and part of Spike\u2019s bum and legs.<\/p>

We practised full writing and realised that we\u2019d need many more towels.\u00a0 I put an appeal out on Radio Nottingham, Spotted Keyworth, my own page and 4Life tri club page. It was local people who came forward in the end and also Cllr Shelley\u2019s charity contacts. It got to the point where every towel, piece of carpet, curtain or fabric of any description made the difference.\u00a0 Again after our first test, it was light or white coloured fabrics that stood out best from the air.<\/p>

The three of us, Tracey, Liz and I did a live report on Radio Nottingham on our dress rehearsal day. We were actually standing in the artwork live on BBC Radio Nottingham. It was most bizarre but also fabulous to do this and a great memory. From the ground the artwork looks completely different as you can imagine - its all about perspective.<\/p>

I also contacted BBC East Midlands about our amazing project to see if we could get some more exposure for Spike.\u00a0 They created a wonderful news piece of Liz describing her A4 artwork and how it all came together and also there were three local school children, Alfie, (Keyworth Primary) Jasmin and (her friend) Willowbrook (my old primary) who were interviewed and were extremely confident in front of camera.\u00a0 I specifically asked for these children as I knew they were big hedgehog supporters already doing their bit as young people in the community and asked for their special dispensation from school, accompanied by parents.\u00a0 <\/p>

I knew this would be a moment that would stick with them for a long time, a historical moment for Keyworth. It\u2019s not everyday you get to form part of a unique piece of Land Art with such a strong message. \u00a0The vision of which gave rise to this comment by Hugh Warwick, spokesperson for the BHPS. \u201cIt must be the biggest hedgehog in the world.\u201d<\/p>

Tracey\u2019s bike seemed to come together in no time and was extremely effective.\u00a0 Some materials were available from the Keyworth show lock-up, like the orange mesh fencing turned out to be ideal for the frame. Doubled up gave the frame a deeper colour. \u00a0But Tracey\u2019s vision of multiple plant pot trays for the wheels and tyres really turned out to be a fantastic idea which also gave the bike tyres \u2018tread.\u2019 The seat, the pedals, the drops, all the proportions really worked. All these materials were gathered as found or borrowed objects. Nothing new was bought for it and most was returned to its original state.<\/p>

Again the drone footage gave us valuable feedback.\u00a0 All told, the drone went up to help us 5 or 6 times on different occasions.<\/p>

When the live ITV4 helicopter came over on Thursday 8th September 2022 at 11:30am, three of us were in the Land Art, Liz (with Spike) Alfie (on the drop handlebars) and I was in the writing. \u00a0I knew the helicopter had seen us as it hovered and came back to get another view.\u00a0 Soon someone was running and telling us that it went out on the live broadcast! Something that they can\u2019t guarantee, so we were absolutely delighted.<\/p>

Four weeks of hard and intense graft! On the day, although we started at 6:30am, we were finished way ahead of schedule, simply because that morning lots more people in the community responded to the call out for help and turned up and we had built in extra time for all scenarios.<\/p>

Thanks so much to all the villagers and those who came over especially from outside of Keyworth who supported us.\u00a0 The result was one amazing, unique piece of Land Art, to be remembered for generations, the likes of which has never been seen before on such a scale, and all hand done either by eye or tape measures. No GPS.\u00a0<\/p>

It took up two thirds of the Keyworth Playing field in Nottinghamshire and one of my favourite quotes in the live footage on ITV4 by presenter Ned Boulting was: \u201cIs that a hedgehog on a bike?<\/p>

Yes! Yes, it is!<\/p>

Keyworth will always be remembered as home to the winners of the AJ Bell Tour of Britain National Land Art Competition 2022.\u00a0 We are delighted for the hogs! Tour of Britain | 2022 National Land Art Competition winner crowned<\/a><\/p>

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