Angel of the North creator Anthony Gormley's view on his masterpiece

A YOUNG Antony Gormley had a decision to make while travelling in India: should he become a Buddhist monk - or try to become a sculptor? He had been studying Vipassana meditation with guru SN Goenka, which involves sitting still for 16 hours a day "to see what happens".

Equipped with only a bag, a blanket and small stove and some pans, he travelled extensively around the Middle East, getting himself arrested by the Iraqi secret police for two weeks while living in the Kurdistan mountains.

He first went to India in 1969 after the draw of Eastern mythology was popularised by The Beatles and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Gormley returned five years later after saving up money by haring around England on a motorcycle with a box of spray cans on the back doing murals for five shillings per square foot.

A Cambridge art graduate, it was his experience travelling and meditating that prompted him to return to England and become a sculptor.

"It gave me an understanding of where we come from by meeting people who are very different and have different systems of eating, dressing, singing, dancing and sheltering," he says.

"I was living in the Himalayas at the time and it was a choice between becoming a Buddhist monk or a sculptor. I chose the latter because I had always liked art and wanted to do something physical. I had a Meccano set as a child and was always making things."

After returning to the UK, Gormley showed the education department at Greater London Council his Indian influenced work and was able to do a second degree in fine art at The Slade art school.

Impressed by his final show, Nick Serota, now head of the Tate, offered a show at Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, where he was the director. Gormley says his inspiration still comes from his Eastern experiences with meditation.

'THE idea is about making an image of the body, not how it looks but how it feels. From someone who was a slow but diligent student in a classic British education system, through meditation you realise you can analyse you own consciousness through the bare attention to the physical basis of existence," he says.

"It was a complete revelation. In the West we think art comes from copying something. I am not so interested in that, I am more interested in how something feels from the outset."

Work picked up for the sculptor and in 1994 he won the Turner Prize, but the piece that would put him - and a North-East industrial town - on the map was just around the corner.

Gateshead has undergone something of a cultural revolution since the council granted planning permission for the Angel of the North ten years ago.

Gormley remembers being offered £120,000 initially to create a structure that would give people something to identify with Gateshead, but told the council it would need far more money.

With grants from the National Lottery and the European Regional Development Fund, the total cost came to £800,000.

But the visitors who now flock to see the Angel were not always so keen on the idea. Gormley remembers being pilloried in the local press for how much the ambitious idea was costing.

A petition of 7,000 signatures was collected by Liberal Democrats as part of a campaign to Stop the Sculpture.

Anthony Gormley at the site as the sculpture is put in place (Image: North News)

"It was very, very discouraging. They were saying that the Labour council was erecting a sculpture in their own glory rather than looking after the needs of its electorate.

"But the council said they were determined to have it and they were solid. The people behind the project were very intelligent and knew what they wanted to achieve. It is quite incredible that the majority of people were opposed to the idea but now the majority of people love it.

"They see it as a sign of home and that is an extraordinary thing. It is very difficult to criticise something like that. It has a real function and reinforces a sense of belonging.

"The idea was to show we are living in times of change from an industrial past to the information age. It is an expression of the burden of the past and optimism and hope for the future."

He admits it was the drive of the council and the engineering expertise of Ove Arup and Partners and the welders at Hartlepool Steel who ensured the project was completed.

The arrival of the Angel in 1998 was the catalyst for the artistic and economic regeneration of Gateshead, a precursor to the opening of the Baltic art gallery, the Millennium Bridge and more recently the Sage music centre.

"Gateshead is a success stories in terms of a community celebrating its own potential through a consistent imaginative engagement with art. The Angel of the North was a declaration of intent," he says.

Gormley followed up the Angel by getting even more close and personal with people of the North-East for his work Domain Field. Hundreds queued to allow him to make plaster casts of their naked bodies, which were then displayed as stainless steel structures at the newly opened Baltic, a converted flour mill.

He has just become one of the Baltic's trustees, so the region may not have too long to wait before being able to see more of his sculptures.

"People in locker rooms, pubs, bars and clubs are talking about things that they would not have talked about before and I believe there has been a huge change in people's interests in all forms of contemporary art," he says.

"I really love it up here in the North-East and if I can continue to help with the evolution of the art that is on display then that is something I would really like to do."

The making of a landmark

The Angel of the North has become one of the most famous artworks in the country.

The 54-metre wingspan makes it almost as big as a jumbo jet and it stands 20 metres high - akin to four double decker buses. It is believed to be the largest angel structure in the world.

It is seen by 90,000 drivers a day on the A1 - more than one a second - and by passengers on the East Coast Main Line.

The Angel is anchored by massive concrete piles 20 metres below the surface and can withstand winds of up to 100mph.

The original body castings were scanned by the geometric department at Newcastle University and precise co-ordinates were plotted to create an electronic 3D virtual reality angel.

This data was then used to enable computer profilers to cut the main body into ribs following the exact curves of the artist's original castings.

It was made in three parts - two wings and the body. The core of the sculpture is a hollow steel tube containing a series of cylinders and cones, mirroring the shape of the body.

The lower body ribs welded directly to the core - a revolutionary technique devised by Hartlepool Steel Fabrications, which built the Angel.

The Angel is made of weather resistant steel that contains a small amount of copper and forms a surface that mellows with age. It is expected to last for more than 100 years.

Huge sections of the Angel - up to six metres wide and 25 metres long - were transported to the site overnight by lorries with a police escort.

In February 1998, a 500-tonne crane lowered the body into the ground. The plinth is held to the ground with 52 three metre bolts.

After the wings were added they were bolted in place and finally welded together before the official unveiling in June 1998.