Abstract Thursday: Colourful

I had my second ever awayday to Rotherham today. "Why?" - Well the explanation is on my blip page for my first trip there back in April 2017, here. The lad who is on that course is doing well as I expected, but he needed a face-to-face assessment done.

Of course I took my camera, and as I walked back to the station afterwards for my train home, I was looking for a suitable blip. I'd noticed that Ingeborg's chosen theme for Abstract Thursday today is "Colourful" so I wanted to find something suitable in the time I had available. This photo is a bit of a fiddle - as far as its "abstractness" is concerned it's SOOC (straight-out-of-camera), but the problem was that it's made of shiny but silver-coloured metal. Rather than using Photoshop to tint it I tried out one of the art filters built into my camera (I very rarely use them) so this is the result and it's still "SOOC" in a way!

If you're puzzled as to what it is, it's a close-up of a sculpture which stands in front of Rotherham Minster (aka All Saints' Church - rather appropriate as tomorrow is, of course, All Saints' day). I'll add a photo showing it in front of the Minster as an extra. (Did you know that Rotherham had a Minster? - I didn't, it's quite impressive.)

You'll see that the sculpture is of a heart, made of multiple steel tiles, so you won't be surprised to hear that it's called "Rotherham's Heart of Steel"! It's part of a project to symbolise Yorkshire's association with the steel industry but is also linked with the British Heart Foundation to raise funds and also raise awareness of heart disease and try to reduce its incidence in the region. I've read that there's also going to be a Man of Steel sculpture in due course at Meadowhall in Sheffield which will "compete" with the Angel of the North at Gateshead (and will be higher than the Angel!).

Rotherham's heart has 5 time capsules under it, placed there when it was installed in 2015. The time capsule project was undertaken by local schoolchildren based on a variety of themes related to the Heart of Steel - past, Present, Future, Community, Identity and Pride. The capsules contain memorabilia about the town as well as a small defibrillator pacemaker.