Sun & Crows
2022
The artwork forms part of The Terrace Pocket Park and is positioned to the front of the park between two ornamental trees either side.
The materials incorporate several attractive and varying metal finishes to lift the whole location – graphite for the local iron industry and a real sense of forged iron; polished stainless steel for gentle reflectivity and light; real gold for gleam and radiance.
The Terrace Pocket Park is located on the corner of Manor Royal Road and London Road and forms part of the wider Gateway 2 area in the south-western corner of the business district.
Gateway 3 (Red)
The public artwork titled “Sun & Crows” was created by Fire & Iron, a team of local artist-blacksmiths based in Surrey, and features dramatic crows in flight around a rising golden sun. Commissioned during lockdown in 2020, its themes are many and complex, but the overarching sense is one of energy and hope.
The placename ‘Crawley’ means ‘crows in a clearing in woodland’, and the combination of trees and grassy open areas with this new artwork brings this ancient origin back into a modern setting.
Artist: Fire & Iron
Fire & Iron are a family of blacksmiths descended from Henry Gratwicke, born just south of Crawley in 1420 and the Quinnell family were ironworking in Sussex and Surrey from the 1400s creating an interesting connection between this project, what it represents and to local history.
The significance of crows is also interesting and relevant, beyond the meaning it has for Crawley. Many American Indian tribes saw the crow as a wise adviser and the spirit of wisdom and the law. The Norse god Odin used two crows -- Hugin and Munin, representing thought and memory -- as his daily observers of the world.
