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A beautiful memoir, travelogue, and meditation on stone and the transformative power of craft, by young stone mason Beatrice Searle. It is also a treatise on human relationships, to places and to other people; and the meaning these relationships will always hold in a person's life, even when severed. I cannot recommend this book enough, and encourage anyone with a love for art, nature, history, and philosophy to give it a read. Writer, artist and stonemason Beatrice Searle and artist and designer Ellie Orrell reflect on their work and the transformative and healing power of art and craft. Diana Darke The Ottomans: A Cultural Legacy Bodleian: Divinity School 12:00pm Mon 27 Monday, 27 March 2023 See this event
Dennis Grube Why Governments Get It Wrong And How They Can Get It Right Weston Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Mon 27 Monday, 27 March 2023 See this eventSearle is an excellent storyteller... [and Stone Will Answer] make[s] for gripping reading... it's the human spirit that emerges triumphant in this sparky blend of memoir and travelogue... Above all, this is the story of a young woman's astonishing feat of endurance Herald At the age of twenty-six, artist and Cathedral stonemason Beatrice Searle crossed the North Sea and walked 500 miles along a medieval pilgrim path through Southern Norway, taking with her a 40-kilogram Orcadian stone.
Beatrice has recently become a stone mason and after finding out about the myths of footprint stones - stones carved with foot prints on them, which are said to have magical properties to transport saints and kings - she decides to carve her own. The stone she divines is hers weighs 40 kilos. Once done, she then takes it from Orkney where it was found and carved, across the sea and on a 500 km pilgrim trail across Norway. Serendipitously, Orkney was just then preparing to mark 900 years since the death of its patron saint and the Islands Arts Council agreed to embrace (and part-fund) Searle’s project within its year-long anniversary programme. And in spring 2017, she strapped herself into her custom-designed harness and began pulling her stone along the first leg of the recently opened St Magnus Way pilgrim route. Fascinated with the mysterious footprint stones of the ancient world, Beatrice follows pathways forged by travellers, saints and kings in an astonishing feat of human endurance.A story of dedication and tenacity that is deeply moving and utterly captivating. Stone Will Answer is a truly remarkable book, a beautifully crafted tale of an artist's extraordinary journey. Searle seamlessly contemplates the meaning of craft, ancient myths, the mutability of stone and the transformations within her own life. Its rare to read a story of such artistic integrity. I felt bereft when I finished but also buoyed by a new found fascination with stone and all its many meanings. Sally Huband, author of Sea Bean It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories. Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Esme Young Interviewed by Sophie Ratcliffe Behind the Seams: My Life in Creativity, Friendship and Adventure SOLD OUT Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Mon 27 Monday, 27 March 2023 See this event
Her journey has been inspired by the stories she is told of Magnus Erlendsson, the Patron Saint of Orkney, by her stonemasonry college tutor, and a mason’s banker mark found on stones in both Lincoln Cathedral, where Beatrice is an apprentice, and Nidaros Domkirke (Trondheim Cathedral), which starts a conversation between the masons at each. How can a stone be a boat? The chance discovery in a book, given to her by a stonemasonry tutor, of ‘a monochrome photograph of a knobbly and scratched stone boulder, containing two carved footprints’ spurs her on to investigate the phenomena of ‘footprint stones’. These are typically associated with saints and kings. The one in the photograph was the one that St Magnus, the former Magnus Erlendsson, twelfth-century Earl of Orkney, reputedly sailed across the Pentland Firth, his footprints magically remaining on its surface. If surfing saints seem slightly more interesting and relatable than the ones traditionally associated with gruesome endings then you are in good company as they are too for Searle, who sets out to find it, uncovering a treasure trove of folklore, as well as connections between boats and stones, as she does so. Beatrice Searle and Ellie Evelyn Orrell Chaired by David Isaac The Power of Art: Stone Will Answer and An Indigo Summer Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Mon 27 Monday, 27 March 2023 See this event Giles Sparrow Introduced by Martin Rees Phaenomena: Doppelmayr’s Celestial Atlas Weston Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Mon 27 Monday, 27 March 2023 See this event
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