I just had to go. More photos can be found in the photo gallery.

Find out more about the Rhino Mania! from their official website, facebook and twitter.

The giant pride of 100 individually decorated, life-size lion sculptures took up residence in Bath during the summer of 2010, I just had to go!

The Lions are due to be rounded up in October – when some of those that have escaped the city will hopefully be reunited with their friends. More photos can be found in the photo gallery.

Find out more about the Lions in Bath from their official website and Spot’s twitter feed.

Elephant Parade is a conservation campaign that shines a spotlight on the crisis faced by the endangered Asian elephant. Brought to you by www.elephantfamily.org, the event sees over 250 brightly painted life-size elephants (each is decorated by a different artist or celebrity) located over central London – I think I have found 53 so far (31st May)!.

They are due to be rounded up and on parade later in June – might have to go and see some of the 200 I have yet to find. More photos can be found in the photo gallery.

While walking the Southern Upland Way, I came across a seemingly abandoned arch on the top of Benbrack (during day 4 of the walk so I feared I was hallucinating from the exertion of walking).

Quite a while later it all clicked into place – it was better signposted from a road than approaching by walking!

Striding Arches is an artist-led project ‘which celebrates and interprets a little known area of Dumfries & Galloway in south-west Scotland’. Andy Goldsworthy’s red sandstone arches ‘stride’ around a natural amphitheatre deep in the Southern Uplands.

The Arches are formed from 31 hand-dressed blocks of red sandstone from a nearby quarry, each arch stands just under four metres high, with a span of seven metres, weighing approximately 27 tons, and is totally self-supporting.

So that explains it!  Glad I didn’t have to carry a piece up there.

Earlier in the month I got a postcard, it was a picture of a pig in Bath – and I just had to check it out.

King Bladud’s Pigs in Bath was a summer 2008 public art event to celebrate Bath, its origins and its artists. Over one hundred life-size pig sculptures turned into works of art are on display throughout the summer all around Bath and beyond. I managed to find 59 pigs – all of the photos are here.

All the pigs are due to be rounded up at the end of the month, and auctioned off in October.  I hope they will be herded into one area prior to the auction as I would certainly head back to Bath to check them out.

It ran for a number of years, though the project has now finished (and no new merks are going to be minted) some kists remain, and a couple had merks when I completed the walk.

I found most of the kists, though some were only remains…

Each kist and merk celebrates the heritage of the place in which is it hidden. All the merks were minted by hand from lead and copper, though it was said that some were minted in gold or silver.

The kists were all very close to the path, each one had a different design, and though never completely buried they are cleverly disguised and quite easy to miss (I did find almost all of them – though some were only remains and not worth a picture, or it was too wet to get the camera out). You did get some assistance, the word ULTREIA on waymark post meant a kist was nearby.

I met one of the Southern Upland Way Rangers on my travels, and he said that hopefully something will be developed soon to replace the waymerks. I hope it does as it really added to the experience of the walk.

On therteen hills stand therteen kists
In therteen kists sit hoards o’ merks
From ilka kist tak ane awa’
Bear on the merk, wha’ kens ha’ far

[View with PicLens]

I spent a really interesting day at the Eden Project, and had a very sociable time. There was not much time to take many pictures, and the weather was pretty lousy with heavy rain, sleet, hail and strong winds – I was glad to be hunkered down in an old china clay pit rather than on top of a moor.

The last time I had visited the Seed sculpture by Peter Randall-Page had yet to be lowered into place within the central space of The Core education centre. To see it in situ was great – it is quite a piece of stone!

More photos from the trip to Cornwall can be found here.

I managed to spend almost the whole day there wandering around the park, gardens and galleries – below are pictures of just a few of the sculptures I liked, including quite a few by Andy Goldsworthy. There was a special exhibition of his, which was just fantastic, in the various gallery spaces – which unfortunatly did not allow cameras inside :-(

Andy Goldsworthy – landscape pieces.

Skyspace – a space for cloud watching, and a wonderfully relaxing space built out of the old deer shelter.

Not sculpture…