Artist hoping for golden touch with Midas statue at Oswestry's British Ironwork Centre
First there was the Spoon Gorilla, then the Knife Angel. Now the British Ironwork Centre is hoping it has the Midas touch with its latest statue of the greedy king.
The tourist attraction near Oswestry has commissioned a sculpture of the king made from the new, £1 coins.
The Myth of King Midas sculpture depicts the King's gift of turning everything he touches to gold, a wish that turns out to be a curse when he turns his beloved daughter to gold.
Theatrical designer and set maker Debbie Rees Deacon has been commissioned to create the sculpture from 1000 coins.
She will be project managing the design.
"It is the most unusual and most costly singular object that I have worked on to date," she said.
The face of the statue will be designed by Debbie's friend Andrew Blake, a theatrical prosthetics and masks specialist with Mormid Masks.
Clive Knowles, chairman of the British Ironwork Centre said: "The crown that will sit on the King Midas statue’s head will be encrusted with £2 coins."
The statue is expected to be ready for visitors to see at The Ironworks Halloween Spooktacular on October 27.
Another creation being worked on by the centre staff at the moment is a bust of The Queen that is being created from thousands of tin cans.
Pupils from across Shropshire and beyond have been saving tin cans as part of recycling projects at school and donating then to the centre.
Visitors to the attraction have become used to seeing a collection of the weird and wonderful.
Spoon bender, Uri Geller commissioned the sculpture of a gorilla made from thousands of donated spoons and flew into the Ironwork Centre to unveil it.
The most poignant statue is that of the Knife Angel which was created from tens of thousands of blades confiscated by police or handed in during a nationwide amnesty.
Craftsman Alfie Bradley turned the knives into a mesmerising statue of an angel looking down at the world with outstretched hands.
Some of the blades have been engraved with messages from police chiefs and from the families who have lost loved ones as a result of knife crime.
A new guns amnesty is now underway with the Ironwork Centre hoping to use decommissioned weapons to create a plinth for a second anti-weapons statue.
A sculpture park at the Ironwork Centre also includes statues of wildlife, from giraffes and elephants to a massive spider which will take pride of place in the Halloween event.
