A CONCEPT piece from a former Coleg Llandrillo student has been selected for Colwyn Bay’s new creative initiative, Imagine Sculpture Trail.
20-year-old Abi Dearden, from Kinmel Bay, entered her unique octopus ice cream sculpture into the competition, which was soon selected out of dozens of candidate pieces.
Dubbed ‘Lady Penelope’, the result of a naming competition held at the town’s Station View Café, the piece has become a key component of the trail and adorns a wall holding up a “to the beach” sign, pointing with one of the tentacles.
Lady Penelope’s frame is made from donated offcuts of heating pipe, her eyes are fishing floats and her skin is re-used bubble wrap, painted and covered in UV-stabilised clear tape.
The traffic cone and fishing net were washed up on the beach and fashioned into an ice cream cone.
The Imagine Sculpture Trail has been developed as part of the Imagine Colwyn Bay Heritage Fund Great Place Scheme.
The project aimed to involve young people in creating playful and engaging public art with strong, locally based environmental and heritage themes.
The ideas for the trail were developed through workshops and engagement with Coleg Llandrillo’s Foundation Art & Design students.
After Ms Dearden’s design was chosen (along with several other designs), representatives from Ceredigion-based Small World Theatre were commissioned to work on the projects, setting about turning the concepts into reality using salvaged materials.
Small World Theatre has a proven track record of creating exciting, stimulating commissions and public art spectacles.
It makes articulated sculptures, automata and giant lanterns using a mind-boggling range of recycled, repurposed and found materials.
Talking about her time at Coleg Llandrillo, Ms Dearden said: “My experiences throughout the Foundation Art & Design course were amazing – I made a lot of friends and picked up a lot of new skills that I now use every single day at university [where she studies Illustration].
“Having completed this course, I feel like I am ahead of the game with the work I am doing now.”
A selection of Abi’s work can be viewed at https://jdart.grillust.uk.
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