Horses for courses

Deborah Pipe's miniature monumental relief has found a home in the Abbey Gate. 

Horses for Courses
 
I sit at the back
of beyond.
 
And, yes,
the horses came
 
but left again –
as in some mid-century
 
relief
by Kenneth Armitage,
 
or reminiscent of
a poem by Edwin Muir –
 
pre-dating Bill Viola’s
visitors from another world. 
 
This is (clearly) sculpture –
having all the qualities,
 
all the hall-marks, (hoof marks),
of process
 
demonstrating the elements
that went into its making –
 
even more than painting –
more evocative than reality,
 
as art can be.
Or like Chinese Warriors,
 
newly discovered,
half buried in earth,
 
in their own history,
like memory –
 
the back-end of course –
like the back-end of a horse
 
disappearing,
8 horses, of course –
 
the four horsemen
of the Apocalypse
 
and their doubles
nowhere to be seen –
 
8 being a nice round number –
arranged in this
 
marginally
rectangular frieze.
 
Melting into
(their own) history
 
of silence, a wall –
as if running away
 
from life itself,
or something beyond.
 
Beyond words –
representing mystery –
 
beyond meaning –
recognising memory
 
as a dance
or play without
 
plot or words.
This poem (also)
 
about leave taking,
about absence,
 
about images
in the fog of history,
 
about disappearances
or simply disappearing.
 
Phil Barrett

Deborah Pipe focuses on the dynamics of clay and considering the responsiveness and tactile opportunities of other 3D materials. She is currently investigating the often grotesque images and marginalia found in early manuscripts and in architectural features. After a career working in mental health services she is highly conscious of art as a media for social change and a form of self-expression and healing. The multi-disciplinary and responsive nature of groving and opportunity to make social comment made the invitation to join this project particularly attractive and exciting.

Phil Barrett taught art for 27 years, then retired to his home county of Norfolk where he concentrates on writing. He teaches creative writing, in schools and libraries across North Norfolk. He has won prizes and commendations in national competitions, and has been published in anthologies including In Protest: 150 poems for Human Rights (2013), Word Aid Anthologies Did I Tell You? (2010), and Not Only The Dark (2011), the Ink, Sweat and Tears webzine, and Poems in the Waiting Room in 2016 and 2019. In January 2017 he published a book of poems, Writing Me, about growing-up. ​​