Mar. 25th, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Sound and Silence, and things that are lost
Last week, my friend Jen Bell got in touch to urge me, as a local bell ringer, to contact our local art centre, MAKE Southwest. She said they were planning an exhibition about bells, and maybe I could get some of our local ringers involved. So I dropped them a line, only to realise the next day that the exhibition was opening the following week, not enough time to plan anything. Last night, as I was sitting in The Bell Inn after practice with my fellow ringers, I remembered the show was opening and decided to pop along to it in the morning, Sound and Silence: an exhibition of contemporary bells.
At the entrance to the gallery, there was a collection of small beater sticks, with a sign encouraging me to take one, and use it to strike certain bells marked out. Interactivity, that's nice, I thought, and took a stick.
At first, I quite liked it; anyone who can cast big shapes in bronze is pretty cool. I dinged the marked bells, and avoided the unmarked bell shapes made of breakable materials.
But within a few minutes, a feeling of sadness came over me, and got greater and greater until I left with a very heavy heart. The exhibition felt so... lost. It felt like a window into a society that no longer understands itself, or understands what things are for. Like archaeologists who pick up a piece of carved bone, don't know what it is, and so say, Ah, it must be a ritual object.
For me, learning how to ring bells has been one of the most valuable ways I've been able to become a part of this community here in Bovey. I've always loved the sound of church bells, but it was only when I moved to Devon that I really understood that they're rung by a whole band of real people, not some machine. And that they're wrapped in a countrywide network of friendships, shared purpose and companionship. Ringers take great care to train up other people to ring, and nurture them through what is a quite difficult process of learning to handle a bell so they don't get hurt. After that, the novice goes along to practices where they learn to ring the basics of what's needed for Sunday morning, weddings and funerals, where one person calls out each change. And then the experienced ringers introduce them to an even more difficult level of learning the patterns, where no one calls the changes, everyone just knows what to ring. If you look at the patterns (or 'methods'), they look like knitting patterns, and each has a name, starting with the simplest, Plain hunt, moving on to Grandsire and Plain bob. And then things get even more complicated, reaching to extraordinarily difficult methods, such as the ones shown here in our Bovey tower captain Mike Wigney's handbook, Bristol Surprise Maximus and Orion Surprise Maximus.
I doubt I'll ever be able to ring the more complicated methods, but it makes me glad that there's always more to learn, and that there are people out there who really can do these highly-skilled things. They don't look down on novice ringers like me, they'll ring simple things with me, too, and they know we're all in it together; if they don't train up new ringers, the art form will die out. Ringing appeals to people who love company, a group of friends to go to the pub with, but it also appeals to people who struggle in company, people who are shy, or neurodivergent. It's a skilled activity we can do together without having to make small talk, and no one will judge you harshly if you simply do your best to ring your bell. It's a blessed haven for all sort of wonderful oddballs, geniuses and eccentrics, which is something I love about it. We even have a method composer who lives in Bovey Tracey, Robert Brown, who has his own tiny ring of bells in his garage. (Yes, Bob, if you're reading this - you're a lovely eccentric.)
But back to the exhibition, the description at the front reads:
When did you last hear a bell ring?
Perhaps it was Big Ben announcing the 6 O'Clock news, or maybe church bells on a Sunday morning inviting people in?
Bells have been made and rung since 1600 BCE, and continue to be used across every culture to signify immportant events and to mark time. Bells are traditionally metal, but as this exhibition shows, they can be made from almost any material. The sound of a bell is created when it vibrates, usually as a result of being struck.
Bellfounding is recognised as a critically endangered craft in the UK today. This exhibition showcases 4 different UK-based contemporary bellmakers who work on different scales and in different materials, using a wide variety of approaches, from traditional to experimental, often encompassing digital technology.
And then it lists the four contributers: Marcus Vergette, Cooper Sounds, David Snoo Wilson and Emma-Kate Matthews.
As I wandered around the exhibition, it felt very much like the 'contemporary bells' in the title were meant to say, we've moved on now. Bells used to be for churches, but now we have deconstructed and modernised them; look, how wonderful. But instead of being a celebration, it felt like the heart had been taken out of the bells, the whole reason for their being. Many of the bells didn't even ring, and some of the ones we were invited to pick up and ring had no clappers inside, they were hollow.
People could go around and ding the bells with their little sticks and think they were ringing, but that erased all the elements of what really go into ringing and made it seem easy and facile. Random 'bongs' sounded around the gallery from mechanical striking devices which moved in listless fashion.
These felt like a nod toward AI, as in, we no longer need bell ringers, we have devices that can do it. Just like our country no longer needs artists, because our work has been scraped and mechanised. Which misses the whole point of both, the purpose, the joy of creation and the warmth of doing something together with other people. I wrote about this in an article for The Author magazine, how, in the face of AI, I see my way forward by embracing the local aspect of making art.
Which was another thing, the exhibition felt strangely non-site-specific. The gallery sits in the Devon heartland of bells and bellringing, and didn't have any real nods toward that ongoing tradition. I suspected they would have found art made by bell ringers - and even tower ringing itself - too low-brow, and again, I think that's the point of bell ringing. Ringing's not highbrow, anyone can do it, and it's always mixed manual labourers with more upper-class people.
And then I felt that sense of lost purpose, not only in creating community, but in calling people to church. Not all bellringers are Christian, tower bands tend to be a healthy mix of believers, non-believers, people who only come along to ring and people who stick around for the service. But by regularly going along to these beautiful old churches, even non-believers develop a respect for the care and craftsmenship that have gone into making these buildings and these bells, and many have a gentle care for them as historic places of worship.
But in the exhibition, it felt like they didn't want their bells to be tainted with any signs of that historic Devon Christianity, that we have moved on. But that's not to say it didn't feel religious. Instead, there was a sort of made-up folkloric look, both to the image on the poster and a mannequin with bells slung around it: Here's what we have, as a substitute. It felt rather... silly, or facile, in this context, just like the dinging bells which weren't really being rung.
I should add that I went back a second time with a friend and, knowing what to expect, enjoyed the show a bit better that time, banging on the bells and having more of a laugh. (The engraving exhibition in the other gallery has lovely work in it.)
The exhibition called bellfounding a 'critically endangered craft in the UK today'. But I don't think making bell shapes is going to bring it back in any real way, by reviving the famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry, for example, which has recently descended into dereliction. It felt more like a 'thoughts and prayers' sentiment, with nothing behind it. To bring back bellfounding, bells would need a purpose, and ringers, and people who would be willing to put a lot of time and money into making and looking after them. (They still exist, but yes, they're endangered.)
Overall, the whole exhibition felt hollow, like those bells without clappers. It reminded me of a Bible verse that most older ringers would recognise: If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. That was it, the exhibition felt lacking in love. The kind of love you get when people come together and help each other struggle to learn something difficult. The kind of love you get when your tower captain is paralysed from the chest down and you all work together to make sure he can still get up the tower to ring his beloved bells. The love you find when you visit a different part of the country and join in almost any ringers' practice and find a readymade group of friends who take you along to the pub after.
I'm not bashing the artists, who have put lots of work into making the pieces for the exhibition. Their difficult, skilled processes involved aspects of community, but that wasn't what was highlighted in the exhibition. Rather, it was a spare, clean gallery setting, focusing on the material itself, and our simplistic interactions with the bells and bell-like objects.
But I'm not disparaging MAKE Southwest either, I wouldn't necessarily say it's a poor exhibition. In the sense of it being very of-the-moment, and contemporary, I think it's spot-on. It reflects the way our culture has lost its appreciation for and understanding of itself. And the way people want something 'religious', but only things that look and feel cool and folklore-ethnic, with no real grounding in our own faith traditions. So I'm not saying it's bad, what I'm saying is that it made me feel profoundly sad, and I don't think that was the exhibition's intention.
I used to think I'd become a member of MAKE Southwest when I moved here, but I realise I'm too lowbrow. I think I might want to embrace that, if lowbrow means love, purpose and local community. I don't want to deconstruct things, I want to construct, and explore why people do the things they do, and why they may have done them for hundreds of years. It's odd that this would make me feel like an outsider artist.
I go to church. I ring bells. I haven't moved on.
My artwork for the cover of The Ringing World, a weekly print magazine that our tower captain subscribes to.
At the entrance to the gallery, there was a collection of small beater sticks, with a sign encouraging me to take one, and use it to strike certain bells marked out. Interactivity, that's nice, I thought, and took a stick.
At first, I quite liked it; anyone who can cast big shapes in bronze is pretty cool. I dinged the marked bells, and avoided the unmarked bell shapes made of breakable materials.
But within a few minutes, a feeling of sadness came over me, and got greater and greater until I left with a very heavy heart. The exhibition felt so... lost. It felt like a window into a society that no longer understands itself, or understands what things are for. Like archaeologists who pick up a piece of carved bone, don't know what it is, and so say, Ah, it must be a ritual object.
For me, learning how to ring bells has been one of the most valuable ways I've been able to become a part of this community here in Bovey. I've always loved the sound of church bells, but it was only when I moved to Devon that I really understood that they're rung by a whole band of real people, not some machine. And that they're wrapped in a countrywide network of friendships, shared purpose and companionship. Ringers take great care to train up other people to ring, and nurture them through what is a quite difficult process of learning to handle a bell so they don't get hurt. After that, the novice goes along to practices where they learn to ring the basics of what's needed for Sunday morning, weddings and funerals, where one person calls out each change. And then the experienced ringers introduce them to an even more difficult level of learning the patterns, where no one calls the changes, everyone just knows what to ring. If you look at the patterns (or 'methods'), they look like knitting patterns, and each has a name, starting with the simplest, Plain hunt, moving on to Grandsire and Plain bob. And then things get even more complicated, reaching to extraordinarily difficult methods, such as the ones shown here in our Bovey tower captain Mike Wigney's handbook, Bristol Surprise Maximus and Orion Surprise Maximus.
I doubt I'll ever be able to ring the more complicated methods, but it makes me glad that there's always more to learn, and that there are people out there who really can do these highly-skilled things. They don't look down on novice ringers like me, they'll ring simple things with me, too, and they know we're all in it together; if they don't train up new ringers, the art form will die out. Ringing appeals to people who love company, a group of friends to go to the pub with, but it also appeals to people who struggle in company, people who are shy, or neurodivergent. It's a skilled activity we can do together without having to make small talk, and no one will judge you harshly if you simply do your best to ring your bell. It's a blessed haven for all sort of wonderful oddballs, geniuses and eccentrics, which is something I love about it. We even have a method composer who lives in Bovey Tracey, Robert Brown, who has his own tiny ring of bells in his garage. (Yes, Bob, if you're reading this - you're a lovely eccentric.)
But back to the exhibition, the description at the front reads:
When did you last hear a bell ring?
Perhaps it was Big Ben announcing the 6 O'Clock news, or maybe church bells on a Sunday morning inviting people in?
Bells have been made and rung since 1600 BCE, and continue to be used across every culture to signify immportant events and to mark time. Bells are traditionally metal, but as this exhibition shows, they can be made from almost any material. The sound of a bell is created when it vibrates, usually as a result of being struck.
Bellfounding is recognised as a critically endangered craft in the UK today. This exhibition showcases 4 different UK-based contemporary bellmakers who work on different scales and in different materials, using a wide variety of approaches, from traditional to experimental, often encompassing digital technology.
And then it lists the four contributers: Marcus Vergette, Cooper Sounds, David Snoo Wilson and Emma-Kate Matthews.
As I wandered around the exhibition, it felt very much like the 'contemporary bells' in the title were meant to say, we've moved on now. Bells used to be for churches, but now we have deconstructed and modernised them; look, how wonderful. But instead of being a celebration, it felt like the heart had been taken out of the bells, the whole reason for their being. Many of the bells didn't even ring, and some of the ones we were invited to pick up and ring had no clappers inside, they were hollow.
People could go around and ding the bells with their little sticks and think they were ringing, but that erased all the elements of what really go into ringing and made it seem easy and facile. Random 'bongs' sounded around the gallery from mechanical striking devices which moved in listless fashion.
These felt like a nod toward AI, as in, we no longer need bell ringers, we have devices that can do it. Just like our country no longer needs artists, because our work has been scraped and mechanised. Which misses the whole point of both, the purpose, the joy of creation and the warmth of doing something together with other people. I wrote about this in an article for The Author magazine, how, in the face of AI, I see my way forward by embracing the local aspect of making art.
Which was another thing, the exhibition felt strangely non-site-specific. The gallery sits in the Devon heartland of bells and bellringing, and didn't have any real nods toward that ongoing tradition. I suspected they would have found art made by bell ringers - and even tower ringing itself - too low-brow, and again, I think that's the point of bell ringing. Ringing's not highbrow, anyone can do it, and it's always mixed manual labourers with more upper-class people.
And then I felt that sense of lost purpose, not only in creating community, but in calling people to church. Not all bellringers are Christian, tower bands tend to be a healthy mix of believers, non-believers, people who only come along to ring and people who stick around for the service. But by regularly going along to these beautiful old churches, even non-believers develop a respect for the care and craftsmenship that have gone into making these buildings and these bells, and many have a gentle care for them as historic places of worship.
But in the exhibition, it felt like they didn't want their bells to be tainted with any signs of that historic Devon Christianity, that we have moved on. But that's not to say it didn't feel religious. Instead, there was a sort of made-up folkloric look, both to the image on the poster and a mannequin with bells slung around it: Here's what we have, as a substitute. It felt rather... silly, or facile, in this context, just like the dinging bells which weren't really being rung.
I should add that I went back a second time with a friend and, knowing what to expect, enjoyed the show a bit better that time, banging on the bells and having more of a laugh. (The engraving exhibition in the other gallery has lovely work in it.)
The exhibition called bellfounding a 'critically endangered craft in the UK today'. But I don't think making bell shapes is going to bring it back in any real way, by reviving the famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry, for example, which has recently descended into dereliction. It felt more like a 'thoughts and prayers' sentiment, with nothing behind it. To bring back bellfounding, bells would need a purpose, and ringers, and people who would be willing to put a lot of time and money into making and looking after them. (They still exist, but yes, they're endangered.)
Overall, the whole exhibition felt hollow, like those bells without clappers. It reminded me of a Bible verse that most older ringers would recognise: If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. That was it, the exhibition felt lacking in love. The kind of love you get when people come together and help each other struggle to learn something difficult. The kind of love you get when your tower captain is paralysed from the chest down and you all work together to make sure he can still get up the tower to ring his beloved bells. The love you find when you visit a different part of the country and join in almost any ringers' practice and find a readymade group of friends who take you along to the pub after.
I'm not bashing the artists, who have put lots of work into making the pieces for the exhibition. Their difficult, skilled processes involved aspects of community, but that wasn't what was highlighted in the exhibition. Rather, it was a spare, clean gallery setting, focusing on the material itself, and our simplistic interactions with the bells and bell-like objects.
But I'm not disparaging MAKE Southwest either, I wouldn't necessarily say it's a poor exhibition. In the sense of it being very of-the-moment, and contemporary, I think it's spot-on. It reflects the way our culture has lost its appreciation for and understanding of itself. And the way people want something 'religious', but only things that look and feel cool and folklore-ethnic, with no real grounding in our own faith traditions. So I'm not saying it's bad, what I'm saying is that it made me feel profoundly sad, and I don't think that was the exhibition's intention.
I used to think I'd become a member of MAKE Southwest when I moved here, but I realise I'm too lowbrow. I think I might want to embrace that, if lowbrow means love, purpose and local community. I don't want to deconstruct things, I want to construct, and explore why people do the things they do, and why they may have done them for hundreds of years. It's odd that this would make me feel like an outsider artist.
I go to church. I ring bells. I haven't moved on.
My artwork for the cover of The Ringing World, a weekly print magazine that our tower captain subscribes to.