Blog
Otters
I’m still reading Otter Country by Miriam Darlington – and loving it! Early in the book she writes that after reading Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter she was so enthralled and spell-bound by otters, that ‘for months afterwards I felt like I was an otter’. It was so exciting to read this, as it […]
Otter Country
The book Otter Country – in search of the wild otter, by Miriam Darlington, I think may be my best Christmas present this year. As soon as I had opened it, I just wanted to settle down quietly, and disappear into the story. The reviews on the back cover heighten the anticipation – […]
Taste the Rain
I love walks on Christmas Day, fresh air after the excesses and excitements. I went for a walk on Boxing Day, and today too, despite the wind and rain. Today’s walk took me through Hagg Wood, a bank of trees snaking above the stream that runs through Lastingham village. Once amongst the bare tree […]
A Train of Jackdaws
This post might have been called Jackdaw-ation – a sort of mix between murmuration, but this time of Jackdaws, and it almost says adoration too – but instead we have a Train (the name for a group of Jackdaws). On these stormy, blustery days we’ve been having, the Jackdaws seem to gather for a […]
Weasel Sculpture
Wildlife is a constant inspiration for my sculpture – infused with the feeling of weasel after watching one bounding and zig-zagging in the field by my workshop, I wanted to carve one. I chose my favourite Yorkstone to carve the weasel, mainly because it is a stone I know well and all my energy […]
Stone Carving Courses 2014
My first Stone Carving Course for next year is already fully booked, and as I’m receiving more enquiries, I’ve added further dates for Spring 2014. Thankyou everyone for your enthusiasm! So, if you’ve always wanted to try your hand and put chisel to stone, there are places available on my next two day stone […]
Lichen and Butterfly wings
It hasn’t been a surprise lately that the ground around the old Sycamore tree has been littered with small branches and twigs, as the wind has been punishingly strong. The messy scattering of strewn pieces are gnarled, twisted and covered in lichen. I’ve collected them up and put them in the woodshed. At this […]
Emotional Stone
This is a drawing from around 1615 showing a stick wielding Inka encouraging the workers to pull harder on their ropes to move the great boulder of stone. I was reminded of it when thinking about Erratic Stones. The stone is called a Sayk’uska, which means weary or tired in Quechua, and refers to […]
Erratic Stones
And stones moved silently across the world hurled into an empty ship’s weightless hold folded into a glacier’s freezing mound quick-pocketed by tourists and children with an eye for things shiny and round. This is a poem by Alyson Hallett, from The Stone Library – and an extract below, where she is explaining how […]
Fine carving is …..
“…fine carving is when one feels that not only the figure but the stone, through the medium of the figure, has come to life.” — Adrian Stokes