Kinetic

Driving along the seafront at Prestonpans I've always noticed this curious arrangement of shapes known as Kinetic or colloquially as 'the sculpture by the sea'.

At a distance, it's a collection of abstract shapes; pokey, pointy, curved. Antagonistic angles spitting out their edges over the sea.

On closer inspection, there are three individual, but interconnected metal shapes which huddle together on a concrete surface, a table of unusual and abstract shapes. Enhanced by their North Sea skyscape, they are evidently intentionally placed here and are supposed to be viewed in sight of the sea and sky.

The pieces seem separate, but are in fact interconnected through their purpose and place. Made in metal, I'm assuming bronze because of its blue-green patina, they are certainly sixties in style.

Kinetic has echoes of Joan Miró sculpture in its slightly surreal, standout form. Miró's work, seen here at The Yorkshire Sculpture Park and photographed by Jonty Wilde for Aesthetica Magazine in 2012, was known for its use of playful, almost childlike appearance, using unrelated everyday objects like tools, taps, coat hangers and materials he gathered on walks, which he later cast in to bronze.

Unveiled in 1968 by local man James Nisbit, who was the Provost of Prestonpans, our equivalent to a Mayor.

I caught up with his son Jim Nisbit who lives in Prestonpans, and was really informative and obviously very proud of his dad. Jim remembers the special day, when he was around 12 or 13, telling me his dad did a lot of work in the local community and, as such, was given the honour of unveiling Kinetic to his community. Jim cannot remember if the artist was there at the unveiling! Above, you can see his father with the sculpture.

The centre point from one angle looks like the sail of a ship and requires the horizon and skyline to give it context.

There's a clear sense of fluidity and movement and a definite seaside suggestion of high breaking waves to the left. Look at the piece to the right, like the repeated ripple of a lolling wave rolling into the sand, and the soft, gentle pull of the sea to the shore. From another angle, it could be a dorsal fin of some Scottish cetacean, or the open wings of a Shag, airdrying in the breeze, the green patina of the bronze like the metallic, almost oil-slicked green of its feathers. Is it a bird or a dolphin's fin, or waves on the hull of a boat for you?

Moving to the round-edged centre piece, it looks to me like a sextant, measuring the ship's latitude and longitude between the sun, the stars and the horizon, or a compass, seeking direction at sea. But look inside...right inside. There's a pick...and an arbitrary slice of brown bread. Someone's been feeding the gulls, or the gulls have been untidy diners and left their spoils on this sculpture.

Ironically, there is nothing kinetic about this sculpture. Its parts are pieced together of heavy metal and concrete, but the suggestion is there, almost as if the parts are waiting for an injection of wind, water, light or manpower to set them into motion. Who, for example, would swing the pick in the centre? Perhaps a man from the Pans, digging for coal.

Prestonpans was a hive of industry in the 12th century when monks from Newbattle Abbey established salt panning. The area also has a rich history of mining for coal, and the black stuff here was used to heat and evaporate the seawater, leaving behind the silver salt of Prestonpans, which salted the incoming herring, and was then exported all over Europe.

There is for me a feeling of both industrial and nautical about this sculpture, although this is all self-interpretation as I can find no information on either the sculpture or the sculptor other than it was designed by Leslie Frank Chorley, who lived from 1918 to 1981. Jim has captured it beautifully here at sunset. It must be nice for him to visit knowing his dad unveiled it.

The sculpture was repaired in the 1990s after it was unfortunately vandalised.

There is a public record of his drawings for the sculpture in East Lothian's Library MuseumArchive, which shows his faint pencil lines, angularly poised with small anecdotal script about materials to be used: bronze, brass and concrete. Other than this, he is somewhat of an enigma.

This image is from the John Grey Centre Website.

With a cinerama of the Firth of Forth gently propping up the piece, on a clear day, you can see across the sea to Arthur's Seat, balancing above the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. Closer to the shore, we watched sleeping Sandpipers like little sentinels on big stones in the sea.