|
|
|
The Alphabet Angel was create through a community project involving a group of young people working with the sculptor Ross Wilson. The aim of the project was to look at identity. At this time the Ulster Scots heritage of the community had not been explored in any depth.
Several leading authorities on the subject came to speak to the group including James Fenton whose poem is engraved in the pathway. The sculpture became the first physical marker to the Ulster Scots tongue in Europe, and perhaps the world.
It is placed in the heart of the community where the tongue is still spoken and heard. Money from one of the funders, a local tourism development body, was initially refused because the figure was not out on the Main Street. The project team stuck to their guns and appealed the decision twice on the grounds that the sculpture came from, represented and therefore belonged in the heart of the community where the tongue is rooted.
The bronze work reached a new level of quality and presentation for community art. A pathway leading up to the sculpture has a poem by James Fenton engraved into the stone which reads: Here a stan, lukkin tae this waitin lan. Whar yince a hirdin weetchil stud loast a wee atween dreams an sa, or dreamin sa, Streetchin braid afore him, anither ree, Anither flock braid gethered, thranger far. This lan that cried tha dreamer bak, for this is hame.
|
