The Light Shines Out of Me, Amethyst grotto, Jupiterland, Scotland
The Light Shines Out of Me is a new grotto/art work, conceived by Scottish artist Anya Gallaccio for Robert and Nicky Wilson at Jupiterartland, their home near Edinburgh in Scotland. It was completed in June 2012.
Discussing the work, Gallacio told the Times newspaper:“I wanted to make a contemporary folly or grotto, a nod to the great 18th century tradition of British landscape gardening. This is a sculpture but it is also part of a garden”.
The grotto was excavated 5m into the ground and consists of a 3m square chamber lined with Brazilian amethyst. It was assembled by two dry-stone- wallers. The amethyst cube is framed by a rectangle filled with 10 tons of obsidian glass, from Oregon and enclosed in a hornbeam hedge.
It took nine months and a large team to construct. By 2013 it will be covered with the ferns, which will have grown back so that the fencing will be almost invisible.
All the best grottoes lure you in with an equal measure of awe and wonder and The Light Shines Out of Me, will be no different. Gallacio says : “I would like it to be unsettling- and people to question whether they should enter or not. Then when they come into the space, it is very formal, grandiose but also intimate, a quiet place for one or two people.
The healing properties of amethyst are also a reference to Robert Wilson’s family company, Nelson’s [homeopathic remedies]. The Jupiterland estate has many commissioned art works and sculptures and is open to the public in the summer months. www.jupiterland.org
The Folly Fancier 
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