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, but when polished becomes deep black with a throng of dramatically contrasting, paler coloured component marine and plant fossils.  Each one a beauty in its own right, but together, a rich and fascinating badger’s back!

Badgers are a lovely subject for carving in stone, and I think the weight, solidity and texture of stone suits them.  It was such a pleasure shaping the heavy body and large feet – the stone just lends a helping hand in achieving the look of compact power, rigor and tenacity – an unwavering firmness of character, action and will.  Oh Badger.  Oh stone.