WORK has finally started on casting Truro's long-awaited bronze sculpture.

A grand unveiling of the piece, which depicts a drummer on a ball standing more than 15ft high, is expected to take place on the Lemon Quay in June.

Sculptor Tim Shaw with his piece, which it is hoped will take pride of place on the Lemon Quay this June, two years after it was commissioned.
Tim Shaw with Mark Kennedy, the owner and director of the Bronze Age foundry, in Limehouse, which will be casting the giant 6ft 3in ball.

Carrick District Council originally commissioned sculptor Tim Shaw to construct the £90,000 bronze statue in 2009.

Since then he has been working on creating the piece at his studio in Mabe.

The artist recently transported the moulds to the Bronze Age foundry in London, where it will take workers four months to cast.

He had hoped it would be made at the world-renowned Morris Singer metal foundry in Essex, which had done works by Dame Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, but his plans were scuppered when the firm went into receivership.

Crucible

However, former employees of the foundry, who have set up on their own, are to cast the giant ball, with a 6ft 3in diameter, which will be made in the UK's largest crucible.

"It has been a massive task getting the figure looking as if it is teetering on the edge and the ball looking as if it is about to move," said Mr Shaw.

The work is inspired by Cornwall's mining heritage and isolated position.

In a statement, released for the first time, the artist explained how the region, and in particular the "haunting" photograph of miners taken by JA Buckley has influenced the project.

"The image is both haunting and austere; the men peer sternly into the camera lens.

"It is perhaps the men and boys that mined tin for generations in the heat and darkness below ground level and the fishermen that battle against sea, that best exemplify a spirit of "steely resilience". It is this that the Drummer celebrates as it slams down a mighty blow upon the drum."

The ball suggests both a sea buoy and the globe across which a great many Cornish migrated to find work. The quay's circular paving design throughout the piazza refers to the tidal water beneath it, he said.

Last year eight miners, many of whom spent time down Camborne's South Crofty Mine, replied to an appeal in the West Briton asking for workers to pose for the sculptor.

"I spoke to most of them about their experiences. I used one of the men, not as a direct portrait, but more as a way of informing the work in an abstract way," Mr Shaw said.