Bury Sculpture Centre

I've just returned from the opening of the Bury Sculpture Centre.

Sculpture Centre Floor

I can honestly say, it is stunning. It is a large white space with spectacular flooring. I heard tonight that the under lit glass tiled floor, set into a parquet floor, had been discovered when the carpet had been taken up. It was covered in 10mm of screed that had to be carefully removed. The underside had been painted so it was quite a restoration job.


There has been a lot of controversy about the Sculpture Centre, as the floor space was part of the library. Changes to services had to be made due to Government cuts, and Arts Council England gave Bury a huge grant towards setting up the centre. Bury was seen to be ideally placed for such a project, not least because of its proximity to The Irwell Sculpture Trail. Tonight there were protesters outside, but I would say "give it a chance". The space was being changed anyway and I truly believe it will attract more visitors, which has to be good for the town.

Text Festival

The opening exhibition is The Text Festival. Along side this is The Drawing Shed, where visitors can use a variety of old  typewriters, with their writing later being incorporated into the exhibition space.

I listened to speakers from Arts Council England and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (one of my favourite places) speak about how they were working with The Sculpture Centre, and how the people of Bury should be proud to have such a centre on their doorstep. It may take a while, and I'm sure critics will be doubtful about the opening exhibition. However, I visited Musee du Quai Branly in Paris last October and I found The River, which was a moving display of text, amazing.

I love art and sculpture, even though I know nothing about it! For years I took Mr Tottington Life

The Drawing Shed

around fabulous art galleries wherever we visited. A turning point in our relationship came when we were coming down the steps after visiting a gallery in the centre of Cologne (I think it was Museum Ludwig). I had been in awe of the huge Andy Warhols. He declared he actually hated being taken to places like that, he always had done, and only tagged along to keep me happy! Since then I've tried to limit art gallery visits (we still go) but sculpture tends to keep us all happy because such a lot of it is outdoors.

I really hope The Sculpture Centre is a huge success. People don't realise that this isn't the first innovative art idea for Bury. For over a year art has been taken to exhibitions as far away as China. The people at tonight's opening show that there is interest and Bury is being taken seriously. This is this week's article in the Manchester Evening News.