Blog
Visits and Anniversaries
This week I had a lovely afternoon with Virginie and Stephen from the White Fox Gallery in Coldstream, who visited to collect some of my sculpture for their next exhibition. They’d just been out walking on the moor and were rosy cheeked and full of smiles. It is rather a special occasion as it […]
Novemberish
I’ve carved a pumpkin for Halloween – all that plump roundness, and deeply ribbed skin – irresistable to sculpting hands. There seems to be a lot of folk-lore surrounding the pumpkin – they’re commonly carved into decorative lanterns, called jack o’lanterns for the Halloween season, I remember carving turnips and swede when younger. I […]
Gardens Illustrated Festival – Spring 2017
I’m very pleased to say that the team at Gardens Illustrated have just confirmed that I’ve been chosen to exhibit in their Shopping Marquee at the Gardens Illustrated Festival in March next year. To celebrate I’ve made this little pot – and will be making lots more designs for the Festival and sculpture too, […]
Dimples, pimples and wrinkles
Rugged beauty on the face of stone. Dimples I think these little hollows are caused by pockets of softer material in the sandstone (called upclasts) which has washed away over time – but also could be where grit or small pebbles have been caught in a hollow and washed around, abrading the surrounding […]
Stone Carving in Hawes
On Sunday I was at the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes running a stone carving workshop and was joined by very enthusiastic first time carvers. Throughout the day they worked non-stop, apart from a break for lunch, supplied by the Museum’s lovely Firebox Cafe (to whom big thanks – we were all hungry and […]
Stone, a bird, and a man in a top hat
This stone is an example of 19th century rock art (graffiti) at an ironstone industrial railway site in the North York Moors – it shows a man in a top hat, and a bird. Someone has spent time in carefully carving out this image, it is no idle sketch, there are charming details, feathers […]
Stone in some form
What a brilliant episode this week’s Gardeners’ World was (did you see it?) and quite a treat when Joe Swift visits Chelsea gold medal winner and stonemason Martin Cook to see how he uses contemporary rock sculpture within his Buckinghamshire garden. So much talk of stone – I watched eagerly – rockeries, incised stone, […]
Badger Sculpture
This is a recent sculpture in Kilkenny Limestone – a Badger sitting and sniffing the air, or perhaps just taking in his surroundings. It took almost as long to polish as it did to carve. Kilkenny Limestone is a hard stone and very dense. From the quarry it is quite a light grey colour, […]
Lousy Watchman
This morning I found a beetle on my workbench, quite a big beetle, about an inch in length and very magnificent. It isn’t alive – I suppose must have been caught by a bird, who either dropped it or decided not to eat it – there are slight crush marks on its black shell, […]
Shapes of Autumn
There’s a nip in the air this morning, and really for the first time this year I’ve noticed the browning and curling of leaves, ripening nuts and fruits, seedheads and a real turning to Autumn. My little garden area at the workshop has given so much this year with fruit, flowers and vegetables – […]