THE BENCH

The Bench has a colourful history. It lived in the garden of a psychiatric rehab house in Bath for many years. When the place was closed down in 2003, staff (including me) were redeployed & the bench came with me. It spent the last 5 years looking tired, grey & scrappy, but it always had the potential to be more than an ordinary bench.

Inspired by a love of Gaudi, mosaics and eccentric art, I set about transforming the bench. Most of the glass used in the design was sourced from the Reclamation yard in Devizes and some was liberated from old stained glass panels from broken doors. The lead was stripped off and the glass cleaned, painted & smashed & used for mosaic. While working on this project, I have researched bench art & feel that the most striking examples do not detract from the form & function of the bench, but leave these intact while adding a new dimension through the addition of colour and design. Many examples of benches depicted in visual art over the last couple of centuries represent it as a space exclusively used by women & children. I would like to contribute to raising the status of the humble bench by demonstrating that it is not an item that needs to be relegated to the back garden for domestic use, but instead can be the starting point for a vibrant and exciting piece of art, and the bench remains one of the few places in the 21st Century where strangers can sit together simply to relax and enjoy the view.

The Bench has now led to the creation of Groovetastic Mosaics which offers mosaic workshops where people can create their own piece of work with a variety of materials and, with the assistance of my daughter in the school holidays, we are now on a mission to bring the delights of mosaic work to everyone, young and old, across the South West - and beyond!

Angie Rogers,
14 Silverlands Road,
Rowde,
Nr Devizes,
Wiltshire, SN10 2BF.