The Holding Space project has been developed by craftsman and artist Johnny McShea. Formally trained as a wooden boatbuilder, Johnny’s work ranges from the artistry found within functional boats to abstract and conceptual forms of expression through sculpture.
Holding Space emerged during a period of personal transition and reflects an exploration of what it means to cross from the first half of life into the second. Rather than offering answers, the project seeks to create the conditions in which questions of identity, attention and value can be encountered through direct experience.
The project shifts attention away from the objects themselves and from the admiration of craft. In doing so, it leaves space for a quieter intention: to act as a mirror through which something of the viewer’s own experience may be recognised in the act of encounter.
The circles themselves are simple forms that resist fixed interpretation. Their deliberate placement within the landscape, and their connection along the trail, invite curiosity and questioning. Whether the encounter brings comfort or discomfort, wonder or indifference, visitors are invited simply to notice their own response.
Whilst the expression of skill has been intentionally understated, the circles have been created with careful attention to material, method and place. They are constructed from Devon-grown oak using the traditional technique of steam bending to form the continuous circles, held together in tension with copper nails. These materials, and this method of construction, have been at the heart of wooden boatbuilding in East Portlemouth and Salcombe for centuries. In this way, the work quietly acknowledges both the history of the place and the traditions from which it has grown.
The trail has no prescribed beginning or conclusion. Whether encountered deliberately or by chance, it offers an invitation to slow down, attend more closely, and discover what emerges through your own relationship with the work, the landscape and the everyday.
Holding space 