The Tree of Life – School Sculpture

We were invited to design and make a memorial sculpture for a courtyard within a specialist school in Lincolnshire.

Over the years a number of pupils and staff had sadly passed away and the school wanted something to commemorate their lives. They were also looking for a way of using the sculpture as a tool to talk to their students about life and death.

 As a new extension had recently been built at the school, creating a courtyard, they decided to have an artwork with the title The Tree of Life, to be both a memorial and a sculpture representing the progress of the school.

We came up with the idea of using an apple tree as a theme, with the trunk and leaves being the school and its staff, while the apples represent the students they protect and nurture.

The design comprises of a tree within a tree. The main body of the sculpture has a stone cylinder for the trunk and a tear drop shape for the tree top. Within that is a circle with another tree, sitting in the arable landscape of Lincolnshire. This tree has glass mosaic, green leaves and red apples.

Running around the top of the trunk of the sculpture are larger red apples. These have the names of the people the school would like to remember engraved upon them.