With Passing Ships

Newport City Council's Pillgwenlly Regeneration Framework included initiating a series of art commissions supported by the Welsh European Funding body. I was awarded by Pill Regen the commission to redevelop the Old Town Dock site in Pillgwenlly. It was my intention that this project supported the sustainability of Pill and Newport's local businesses and art practitioners. Collaborations, construction requirements, artists and materials were sourced locally where possible.

Newport artist Stephanie Roberts created With Passing Ships from the very essence of Pillgwenlly. Through historical research, exploratory walks, artistic collaboration and through immersing herself in the community, Stephanie has unearthed a multitude of stories stretching back to the very birth of Pillwenlly. These stories form the core of With Passing Ships and in retelling them, Stephanie has revealed Pill's rich, vibrant and multi-layered essence.

Through the initial collaborative design process with artisan blacksmith Nick Jones, the concept of a schooner ship sailing the River Usk was developed. A series of three sails would depict Pillgwenlly from its foundation, through its triumphant industrialisation to its current position as an exciting cultural and creative force.

Stephanie took inspiration from many sources. The work’s title was extracted from Newport poet WH Davies’ poem In May:

Full of sweet books and miles of sea,

With passing ships in front of me.

From this tranquil beginning, explorations into the docklands and industrial heart of Pill revealed the materials which would influence the look and spirit of the piece. Railway sleepers, telegraph poles, steel, fauna, wool, nails provided a rich palette from which Stephanie could illustrate the stories collected through community workshops, research and her daily encounters with the people of Pillgwenlly.

In his design of the main solid steel mast, Newport blacksmith Nick Jones has paid homage to the toil of Newport’s steel men and dockers who forged the foundations upon which the town’s fortunes grew. Dramatic hammer blows along the mast honour the work of the blacksmiths invaluable to the docks whilst exaggerated details of rivets and pins indicate Newport’s status as one of the world’s major industrial ports. “I felt it important to represent the old way, of how it continues to hold up the new fragile way of our throw away world, how it sits quietly in the background without fuss, calmly holding everything together”

Artist Chris Wood fashioned three robust masts from telegraph poles, using skillful chainsaw techniques. From this dramatic marriage of steel and wood hang the sails.

The sails themselves were an assemblage of materials and the result of collaboration with Newport artists, painstakingly arranged by Stephanie in clear cast resin.

Each sail is adorned with an iconic face, each representing a particular stage of Pillgwenlly’s development. These faces loom large, illustrating the broad themes but closer scrutiny reveals hidden treasures within the mosaic of information, stories entwined with the area’s past slowly unravel to expose the communal foundation upon which Pill is built and continues to grow.’