feature Matthew Lane Sanderson Designer of the New Road Cemetery Gates www.sanderson-sculpture.com
Matt working on the Corpus Clock. Inset: The clock outside Corpus Christi College Cambridge, created with Dr John Taylor
I love making sculptural pieces through which people ❝ can travel. I have an early memory, from perhaps a school textbook, of a car driving through a giant redwood tree. I dislike the idea that anyone could cut into such a tree, but loved the scale of the feat. I design natural forms, but also, I am not wholly concerned with copying, I enjoy the natural symmetry and balance nature creates and use this to influence my designs. Gates can be such a simple concept, but require much engineering and proportional balance. I use these structural factors as the basis of my designs, rather than being limited by them. In 2009 I was engaged by Melbourn Parish Council for a rare commission, the design and construction of the cemetery gates. I sort the professional advice of Dr Anne Taylor, representative of Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology. Our aim was to work as a team, historians, residents and artist to realise a unique, sensitive and robust wrought iron structure that will mark the entrance and purpose of the new cemetery at New Road. Anglo Saxon remains and historically valuable artefacts are due to be re-interred in the site, and it is these and many other period features that I used as an inspiration for the metal work. The new gates – 8 metres wide and 3.5 metres high – will allow a horse drawn hearse to enter. The gates are hot forged, riveted and hot dip galvanised for long life, excuse the pun!
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www.melbourncambridge.co.uk
Matthew is a designer, metalsmith and sculptor currently engaged upon a number of public art projects across the U.K. His company, based in Cambridgeshire began making ‘Focal Points’ for permanent display and temporary exhibition in 1994 and has become well-known for producing highly crafted, unique and ingenious works in original settings. Although he is a designer it is perhaps his root’s in sculpture that maintains his very selective project choices. He maintains that the quality of design and craft take precedence above all and couples this with an enormous amount of energy and what he calls “playing furiously” in the early stages of research and “physical pressure” in realising the final pieces. Although the works always involve a great deal of labour intensive activity, he somehow maintains the spontaneity and grace of the original concept. Perhaps it is his training in silversmithing and jewellery making that helps maintain the delicacy and beauty in his use of industrial materials and varied choice of scale. He alone designs and builds the sculptures, as they often require the design and manufacture of unique equipment to realise the designs. He is in love with making. His pencils are steel wires and his dreams come with instructions. Although some of his projects have stretched more than seven years, Matt is incredibly prolific, with over 50 permanent works installed, and many smaller private pieces obtained through his bi-annual shows. Matthew believes that ‘Public Art’ is more successful when people can discern that skill and honest hard work have been employed coupled with originality such as the ‘Corpus Clock’ created with Dr John Taylor. His favourite studies describe either ‘kinetic or potential energy’. This choice of scientific wording, an indicator of why he is so often employed to work upon SCI-ART projects. His current projects include an enormous ‘Copper Veil’ structure resembling a clipped box hedge over two storeys tall whose organic structure supports the viewer literally by hand rail as they climb the stairs around it. The foliage comprises 2000 glass rondels dappling the stairwell and entrance foyer of the new Pegasus Youth Theatre in Oxford. St Faiths’ School gates, Trumpington, Cambridge
