The Question of the Tipsy Sprite

The picture of the week on 17 November was a puzzle - a bronze sprite who I said probably millions of people have seen since I photographed her back on the8th of May 2003. But where is she to be found, that dizzy, bespectacled sprite?

I promised an answer and that answer may be obvious to followers of this blog who remember the original photograph at the header. She is at the Eden Project, Cornwall and lives in the Mediterranean biome along with a dozen other amazing sculptures, all part of a group in Dionysian frenzy in the vinyard!

Here is one of her companions, a wolf-masked musician with a drum and trumpet. The central figure of the group is a huge, rampant bull.

Since I took these photographs, the grapevines in the vinyard have grown a lot, this amazing group are not all as visible as they once were, but they are still there. They were commissioned by the Eden Project and are the work of local sculptor Tim Shaw, a man with vision, his group of figures show how marvellous it can be to blend art and science.