Blog
Moonstone
I’m looking forward to this evening, when the new moon, or ‘supermoon’ will show itself in the night sky. Because of our planetary positioning it will apparently appear larger to us here on earth than it has done for many years, in fact since 1948. To ward off cloud-cover I’ve taken my moonstones out […]
Kirkbymoorside Christmas Fair
Watching the first snowflakes fall the other day, and seeing Autumn turned white, stirred flickers of excitement and glee! It brings the feelings and childlike anticipation of Christmas and memories of sledging, collecting holly, long walks and snow-ball fights – there’s a particular way snow sticks to mittens, I can smell the snow-sodden wool […]
Keeping Cosy
After the blast of cold and snowy weather, my thoughts turn to log burning stoves and lighting candles.
Is it a pear? … & Edinburgh Art Fair
It is a question I get asked about my ‘pear-shaped’ sculptures – I didn’t think about pears at all whilst carving, but it is a shape, full of roundness and curves, that I love. The texture of the skin is gorgeous too, like some browny-green, golden fine-grained stone. The sculptures were a direct response […]
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 […]