There are
many wonderful parts and places of Sheffield. I love how many parks
there are and how nearly every bit of grassy mound will be home to
someone's appreciative posterior. I love Sheffield's thriving poetry
and music scene, and it's DIY and independent attitude to Art and
commerce like the Forum shops or Access space or new Roco building,
or how the old Woolworths is now an art centre.
I could
have written in length about the glorious and inspiring views from
Norfolk park, or the elegance of Western park or the splendour of Dam
house but instead I've decided to write about the carrot sculpture
near Firth park.
Before
I get to that I wanted to mention a sculpture in Sheffield that for a
long time stood at the bottom of my street. For many years I have
lived on Ellesmere road in Pitsmoor and one Autumn I gleefully
discovered on my journey to work at the bottom of our street that a
tree stump had been carved into a Human head. This certainly beat the
usual street art offerings of abandoned Sofas and mattresses that
aspiring Tracey Emmins left.
This was a
skilfully crafted head and it had apparently sprung up from no where,
with no warning or big reveal just appearing one day out of the blue.
Every day I would walk past it and it would make me smile a big
Chesire cat smile, and it really caught the imagination of the street
to. He became the street's central figure for festive celebrations.
For Halloween they placed pumpkins around him and at Christmas they
attached a Santa's hat and beard. It was great.
Unfortunately
the council came along one day and had it removed, maybe thinking
that we couldn't be trusted with art as it might lead to some anti
social watching of the culture show. I was sad to see it go. Not only
because it was a beautifully made head but also because I found it so
strange to find it at the end of my street and not in some art
gallery that no one visits.
But then I
discovered the big carrot in Firth park. Or at least I think it's a
carrot, it could very well be a tomato. I have never been entirely
sure. It's a sort of mutated vegetable that has been tunnelled into
by large hungry worms. However, it's not so much the carrot I like
but its location. It's just lumped right in the middle of a slab of
pavement on the street and seems completely at odds with its
environment, as you're left wondering why is it there? Is it a relic
from an old park that they now have built houses on, or is it an arts
installation by a well meaning local artist or was it health campaign
to remind you to eat your five a day?
Yet, it
is its incongruity that makes it so great. If it was in a playground
or a park it would be insignificant. It would simply be another play
apparatus that would be overshadowed by a slide or a roundabout. But
here just in the middle of the street it occupies a place majestic
wonder. It turns the street into a playground, into an unusual world
of giant vegetables, the grey and dull into something fun.
I think
it's a fantastic quirky sculpture and in many ways I don't really
want to know why it is there. I'm happy for it to be forever shrouded
in mystery.
Some might
find me flippant for choosing a carrot sculpture as my favourite
place in Sheffield but it's this and other quirky things that make
Sheffield for me, such a fantastic place to live.
There are
so many wonderfully odd sights that so often go under the radar.
Places
like the amphitheatre behind the train station, which you can't look
at it with anything but complete disbelief that it really exists. As
you question why you have never found yourself there before and why
when you tell anyone about it they look you up and down like you've
snorted Horlicks and reply 'An amphitheatre in Sheffield, behind a
train station, yeah right, good one'.
The City
is full of strange buildings and curious anomalies in bizarre places;
like the huge coloured brick, half moustached, Minor opposite the
COOP in castle market, or Sheffield's own Arc di triumph in the
Whicker, or the fact that our Morrissons is a castle.
This to
me, makes the city what it is. Beautiful and intriguing but always
humble to the point of being afraid of showing of it's own brilliance
incase it risks turning into Leeds or Manchester, a fate worse than
many deaths.
So, I
suggest we all continue to find more giant carrots and tree stump
heads, they are the treasured gems of the city just don't expect to
find them in the likeliest of places.
Stan Skinny is a poet, comedian and
writer that has lived in Sheffield for 10 years. His new spoken word
show 'Tell me the lies about Love' (part of the Off the Shelf
festival) is on the 2nd
of Nov at the Sheffield University Union building. Alongside this he
runs the Shipping forecast a nautical themed poetry and comedy night
at the Riverside on the last Thursday of the month and a weekly
comedy quiz Quizarama-rama also at the Riverside every Monday. You
can visit his website www.stanskinny.co.uk
to find out more or follow him on twitter @stanskinny
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