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CLEE HILL 2004 Black Basalt Dhustone Having recently moved to South Shropshire I was drawn to explore the quarry high above my new house on the Clee Hill. The stone I discovered is a black basalt known locally as dhustone, similar to a stone I have been using in India for 20 years. Dhustone is a badly fissured material but the advantages of a local source are obvious. This fortunate event was quickly followed by others. An invitation to exhibit at the Meadow Gallery nearby presented an opportunity to show a group of big works, together with a new commission reflecting local stimuli close to home. At about the same time, when viewing the Mappa Mundi at Hereford Cathedral, I was delighted to find the Clee Hill – already a fixture in my imagination – featuring prominently on it. At once this tiny ink drawing informed me of the shape that the commissioned work would take. Thus the poignant thirteenth-century squiggle was eventually transformed into a monumental piece of 25 tons. A mountain was created out of a mountain and homage also paid to the lasting place of landscape in British Art. © Stephen Cox 2006
