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Posted on 12/03/2002 5:16:19 PM PST by dighton

A writer has received a £2,000 grant to spray-paint the words of a poem on the backs of sheep.

The money was handed out to Valerie Laws by Northern Arts, who said the project used “the basic framework of quantum mechanics: randomness, the influence of the observer and the observed, and duality”.

Translated, that means that the poem would be able to be read in many different ways as the breeding ewes selected for literary stardom at Whitehouse Farm, Morpeth, Northumberland, moved around.

Originally the poem read:

Clouds graze the sky
Below, sheep drift gentle
Over fields, soft mirrors,
Warm white snow.

She explained that it was an artistic experiment designed to break down the boundaries between her two loves - literature and quantum mechanics.

Meanwhile Northern Arts made no apology for investing in Ms Laws’s unconventional attempt to marry artistic and rural endeavour. “She is a respected, published writer in the north east of England,” a spokesman said, perhaps a touch defensively.

“If an established writer comes to you with an idea, you have to have faith in them,” he said, adding swiftly that no animal was harmed in the project.

Donald Slater of Whitehouse Farm, the owner of the breeding ewes, was sceptical about his flock’s new-found status at the cutting edge of artistic endeavour.

“Our shepherd is really embarrassed by it,” he said. “He will never be able to hold his head up in the agricultural community. But the industry is very depressed up here and we needed something to cheer us up.”

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