Ammanford

2005

Ammanford Town Council wanted to commemorate the coal mining industry that was once such a feature of the area, being at the eastern edge of the rich South Wales coal seams. Rather than make a bronze statue of a coal miner, I chose to create a more thought-provoking sculpture that serves as a focal point in the pedestrianised area. Working with Ammanford poet Einir Jones, local school children and ex-coal miners, I created two columns of sandstone with interwoven layers of slate strata on which the culture of the area is revealed by inscriptions of poems and mining terms. 

The two columns stand over 5.5 metres high and are mainly constructed of small sandstone blocks, reminiscent of the lines of railway wagons evident in many old photographs of collieries. The top of each column is intersected by a circle cut through the structure, sloping at the same angle as the tunnel down into the local Bettws mine. At one particular viewing position the two circles align with one another, like two headings meeting. Throughout the layers of sandstone there are bands of rougher stone, hinting at the bands of strata under the earth. Bands of dark Welsh slate suggest the seams of coal trapped within the sandstone: small veins higher up, closer to the surface, then gradually thickening down the column. It is on these strata that the poems and mining terms are engraved, for it is the coal seams that shaped the culture of Ammanford and surrounding valleys. 

Walking between the columns gives the viewer a sense of walking into the mountain. The smaller column leans towards its larger partner, creating a feeling of claustrophobia and the earth closing in as the sky recedes. The curving faces of the column are suggestive of the meandering flow of the river Aman, the river that shaped the valley. The subtle difference in the alignment of the columns and the opposing tilt of the strata is an echo of the faults running through the earth beneath our feet in Ammanford. 

From the outset the sculpture resonated with the ex-coal mining community and over the years has become a symbol for the town, now featuring on regional publicity.

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