Blog
By Hand in Masham
What a lovely day on Sunday – I arrived early at Masham Town Hall to set up at the Crafted by Hand event to be met by a band of volunteer helpers who carried boxes full of stone pieces and my plinths to my stand. The sun shone and it was busy, visitors flowed […]
Stone Carving Workshop
On Saturday I was at the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes running a stone carving workshop. It is lovely to see when someone starts to get the feel of the mallet and chisel, and gains confidence with their carving. I saw lots of this from nervous starters, imagining they would damage the stone, […]
Dove Sculpture
The Dove sculpture I’ve been working on is now finished. I’ve spent many hours of sanding and polishing to remove any tool marks visible and leave the stone surface as clean and pure as I can. Alabaster is so inherently beautiful in terms of depth and richness of colour, veining and patterns that polishing […]
Domboshawa Bird
Domboshawa is a village north of Harare, Zimbabwe. The village is named after a large granite hill near the village and there are several rock formations at the top of the hill which have been created by natural erosion. One of these ‘balancing’ rocks is known as The Whale, because of its whale like […]
Crafted by Hand in Masham
This weekend, on Sunday 2 July, I’m exhibiting at Crafted by Hand in Masham. The event is held between 10 am and 4 pm in the Town Hall in the centre of Masham, where there will be around 40 stalls, including jewellery, ceramics, glass, sculpture and printmaking. The theme for the event this year […]
Dove Sculpture in progress
At the moment I’m making Dove shapes in Alabaster. I love the curves and contentedness of resting birds, the softness and calm. Alabaster I think is a good stone to convey this – allowing light, but not in detailed shapes, to pass through. Dove form diffused.
Wildlife Moments
Watching the busy birds and animals at my workshop and in the surrounding fields and countryside fills me with pleasure. Sometimes I’ve dedicated hours to it and seen nothing, and at other times everywhere I turn there’s spectacle and revelation. Those days of wildlife moments fill me to bursting with inspiration, with energy, to […]
Limestone Country
Limestone Country is a meditation on how people live in a landscape, how they alter it, and how the landscape, in turn, shapes them. It is also a love letter to a sedimentary rock, exploring how different communities around the world are bound together by their shared geology. Over the last few weeks of […]
North Yorkshire Open Studios 2017 comes to a close
This morning I’m packing up and reflecting on the last two busy weekends of North Yorkshire Open Studios 2017. Your visits and comments have made me very happy – thankyou. So many of you have talked of ‘wanting to touch’ and the ‘huggability’ of my stones – which is a lovely thing – and […]
Sculpture in the Garden – a map
This afternoon I’ve been putting together a map, showing the locations of my sculpture in the garden – so if you’re visiting Nunnington Hall you won’t miss any! Just as I finished I got a call from a lady to say she’d been round the garden today and loved her visit, especially coming across […]