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Statue of penniless "bag lady" made from one mln pounds worth of bank notes
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A statue of a homeless "bag lady" crafted out of one million pounds worth of old bank notes from the Bank of England has gone on display this weekend at the Museum of Liverpool.
The art work, called "Eleanor", is inspired by a chance encounter between Liverpool-born artist Leonard J Brown and an elderly lady, and a character from one of the most famous songs by the pop group, The Beatles, called Eleanor Rigby.
Brown said the aim of his creation was to depict wealth and poverty. The old woman is described as a "bag lady" -- a name given to a poor and homeless woman.
The 1.57 meter work depicts the bag lady who, according to the Beatles song, died "without a penny to her name."
The artist said, "The sculpture serves to show people that money isn't the only way to make you happy and we should all be thankful for what we have."
"There are people in every town and city like Eleanor Rigby who live a lonely life and whose only worldly goods are kept in the bags that they carry."
"I asked the Bank of England to supply me with a million pounds worth of bank notes basically, and after many emails and telephone calls I was invited to the bank to collect it," said Brown.
It took six months to create the sculpture, using old 10-pound, 20-pound and 50-pound bank notes.
After successfully negotiating the handover of the banknotes with the Bank of England, Brown was eventually given the notes in the form of shredded pellets. Around 300,000 pound of the pellets were used to fill the sculpture's chest cavity, while the remainder were mashed and moulded to a steel frame.
The new sculpture has made its debut this weekend in the atrium of the Museum of Liverpool where it will remain on show until January, 2015.
The song, Eleanor Rigby, was included in The Beatles' 1966 album, Revolver, and was also released as a single.
Paul McCartney said he got the name "Eleanor Rigby" by combining the name Eleanor from an actress of that name who appeared in a Beatles film, with the name of a company he spotted by chance, Rigby and Evens -- hence Eleanor Rigby.
Beatles' fans prefer the more interesting version that the song was inspired by a tombstone bearing the name Eleanor Rigby, standing in a graveyard just yards from where McCartney was first introduced to the Beatles' lead singer, John Lennon in 1957. The tombstone of Eleanor Rigby remains a 'must' on Beatle tours around Liverpool.
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