Public Art on the Black Country Route



Jamie McCullough 1996

 

"House of Birds May 1998 34Kb

 

Jamie McCullough's "House of Birds "

Pressure treated softwood and cedar shingles
The main trunk is composed from a number of laminated timber beams
 

 

Close up of "House of Birds"  May 1998  30Kb

 

"House of Birds"

 

House of Birds" with crane 32Kb

 

"House of Birds" under erection

 

 

"House of Birds" in Factory  with Jamie 1995 35KB

 

Jamie McCullough constructing the House of Birds at Cowley Structural Timberwork

Jamie is facing away from the camera

 

Jamie with components and the model 30Kb

 

 


Jamie spent a number of months working with us on the proposals for this part of the Road. He started designed this sculpture on a computer using AutoCAD, then he made a physical model to work out some of the problems and returned to finish drawing the working drawings in CAD. Because it is a complicated form many of the design details had to be resolved during construction.

The "trunk" of the sculpture is a laminated timber beam with galvanized plates let into the base. The houses have plenty of space for birds, so far they have not nested but seem to perch on the roofs quite a lot.

On this sculpture Jamie spent a lot of time working on the detail construction of the houses at Cowley's factory at Wallingford near Lincoln.

The sculpture is sited on a large mound to the side the Black Country Route adjacent to a footpath and cycle way. You can go right up to the base on foot.

Jamie's thoughts on this and the reasoning behind his other work and inspirations for a number of other artist's briefs are set out on the Jamie's thoughts page.

Jamie's thoughts

Jamie's Bilston Oak

 


Tribute

I would like to pay my personal tribute to Jamie McCullough , Artist, Craftsman and Polymath who died suddenly on Saturday 4th April 1998 in hospital in London. My colleagues and I had the delight of working with Jamie in our office for a period of three months in 1995. Jamie's ideas made the "Magic Forest" and he contributed two major sculptures to this final phase of our work on the Black Country Route. More recently we worked with Jamie on major elements of a new landscape project at Wednesfield (also part of Wolverhampton). The trellis towers that form part of this work were erected in June 1998.

Jamie had a lot more to do in this world. I hope that the work we did with him will act as a small memorial. I know that the people in the community of Bilston that he met and talked to will remember him with affection and take pride in his work.


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