'Axis of Earth' was situated on the path which cuts the corner of the forest road, along the south-east side of Bogle Crag. A spherical bamboo web-like structure with a spike sticking out of it, this impressive sculpture stood by the side of the footpath for roughly a decade.

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Masao Ueno was born in 1949 in Nagano, Japan, where he studied bamboo craft at the age of eighteen, before an apprenticeship under famed master craftsman Honma Kazuaki. Ueno went on to study at Oita Prefecture's School of Bamboo Craft and his double-header at Grizedale was one of his earliest public works.

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Ueno describes the feelings evoked during his 1990 residency in 'The Grizedale Experience':

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"When I arrived in Grizedale in April, it looked like a forest in the northern mountain area of Japan where I was born. But after a month I found Grizedale was entirely different.

I liked to walk through the Grizedale Forest with a compass in my pocket. When I came to a viewpoint, I took my compass and map out of my pocket. To feel the orientation in the forest is to feel the earth. At this stage of our civilization it is important to feel the earth. I am not pessimistic about the future of the human race. But the earth is the only one and it is difficult for us to live without it."

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Also by this artist

Polar Star 1990