At Kermaria, a small hamlet on the North Breton coast at Lanloup near St Brieuc, stands a typical stone church built in 1240 by Henri d'Avanpour. Erected as a thanksgiving for his safe return from the Crusades, it is dedicated to Mary , the mother of Jesus and called Itron-Varia-an-Isq. Which translated from the Breton means Mary, who gets us out of Difficulties. Among other treasures in this lonely chapel is a marvellous series of wall paintings.

These frescoes of the Danse Macabre were painted between 1483 and 1501 are directly inspired by murals in the arcades of the cloisters of Charnier, Paris which date from 1425. There are several examples on a similar theme in France and continental Europe, but so far none discovered in Britain. Here in Kermaria, between the beams high up on the walls of the nave, prelates and kings dance together with emaciated figures in an eternal dance.
Whitewashed and hidden these frescoes were uncovered by Charles Taillard in the mid nineteenth century. Sadly they are now beginning to deteriorate and the text is very difficult to decipher.

My project has now been started. Combining reproductions of the frescoes with cameos of footballers dancing with skeletons, I have tried to give a modern twist to this theme of mortality. What more ephemeral is all the pomp and circumstance of the footballer's world? How fleeting is the pride and ambition of clubs and their managers?

The limited edition artist's book which I have started is printed on Italian Fabriano paper with the French poem which accompanies the figures on the church. A poet, Giles de la Bedoyere from Tunbridge Wells, has translated it into contemporary English and this will be printed beside the French. There will be two full page illustrations of footballers printed with the sequence. The whole is set and composed using metal type in my studio in Tonbridge.

OWEN LEGG Woodcraft Press, Tonbridge