The Listening Lady _1
Sculpture: The Listening Lady ~ Bronze
Sculptor: David Annand
The Listening Lady is in the memory of Geraldine Roberts who died of cancer.
The work of art formed part Marie Curie’s Living Rooms Appeal project and received a significant donation from Bangor woman Muriel Roberts, whose daughter Geraldine, was cared for at the hospice before her death from cancer in January 2006. the Listening Lady is a peaceful resting place for patients and visitors at the Marie Curie Cancer Care Hospice, Knock Road, Belfast.
The Listening Lady _3
Geraldine was such a great listener and a very warm person so the name of the sculpture is a tribute to her very nature – The Listening Lady even wears a pendant with Geraldine’s initials, GR.
The Listening Lady _4
The seat is also inscribed with a short poem penned by the late Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney.
Still
Still yourself, take time, be at rest.
Enter the circle, unalone, a guest.
Seamus Heaney
David Annand describes his work as:
My work has grown out of a tradition of figurative representation exploiting the plasticity of clay. It deals with vitality, balance, gravity and irony. It is very important that my work should remain accessible to everyone i.e. realistic human or animal subjects, observed and modelled with discipline, set in a slightly incongruous composition, using the site as a plinth and often involving an abstract element in the composition. Think of a Richard Thompson song. It can be sentimental or traditional but then it is spiked with a guitar solo that is so abstract it is at the very edge of the genre. I wish I could achieve this in my sculpture. Everything is abstract. Looking back at my sculpture you`d think I am obsessed with giving gravity a hard time and taking my materials to the limit. It`s easy enough to make life-like sculptures, but, by nudging them off balance, in an awkward place – it makes them vulnerable, precarious; they get an urgency to be alive.
It’s a great sculpture, and I hope many people have spent a few minutes at rest as Seamus Heaney suggests.
There is a wonderful feeling of calm in that garden, Nick.
It’s a very interesting sculpture. The connection to Madame Curry is also interesting. I had to do a little extra research to understand the connection. With her work in the development of X-ray devices, I can see the connection.
Mike, You will here of her again on Wednesday next.
What a gorgeous sculpture! I am glad you had a good time with your friend.
It was a great day of simple pleasures.
I bet a number of people have cuddled up to her…she looks like she needs a warm wrap though – watch out for yarn bombers 🙂
It is a private garden, I doubt there will be any yarn bombers. The feeling of peace and calm in that space reaches right through to the heart.
It’s beautiful – and also makes me sad. I lost my mother 18 years ago September 1; she was well cared for by hospice workers. I’d like to go there and hug the statue and cry a bit.
Spiders, I can identify with you, my mother doed nineteen years ago and my husband, seventeen years ago. I always found a great feeling of comfort and calm wash over me as soon as I entered the hospice. Tje feeling was still there last week.
Big virtual hugs to you, my dear. Two huge losses in a few years… It never gets easier, does it. This place… it did give me comfort. My mom would have loved it!
Thank you.
she reminds me of the hymn ” be still and know” serenity in place, thank you for posting this.
Brighid, ‘stillness’ is a good description.