Sculpture

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 […]

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  

Calm after the storm

  We seem to have got away with it quite lightly here – though the tin roofs of the workshop were well rattled!  Happily they stayed in place. Today by comparison is beautiful and I’m working outside on a piece I started some months ago – commissions, orders and my exhibition meant I had to […]

Can I sculpt the sky?

  Sometimes all the conditions contrive to make the start to the day feel incredibly good.  This is one such morning – frost, mist, and cloud burst through with a gold and copper sun.  It made me stand still and look – feeling awe. This is the view from my workshop, if I take a […]

A Water Vole called Plop

  My Water Vole sculpture was inspired by encouraging news from a number of Water Voles re-introduction programmes, where there is evidence of thriving colonies, and some waterways where this elusive mammal has gained a stronghold.  Regular monitoring of these also suggests that the species remains vulnerable to further decline and extinctions.  Long-term habitat loss, […]

The Serpentine Gallery

  Whenever I think of the Serpentine Gallery – I think of the beautiful colours and patterning found in Serpentine stone, and the texture of it polished and the feel of it as it is carved.  A gallery full of carved Serpentine sculpture. But actually the gallery is what used to be a Tea Room […]

Two for Joy

  Recently, in exploring ideas about collecting, and whether this was a natural instinct in us – I thought about the Magpie and its reputation for collecting – or stealing – bright objects.   Indeed, all of nature and all the animals for whom collecting is essential to survival.  It is often seen in caches […]

Scraping my name from the wall

    On Monday I took down my exhibition The Museum as Muse – it happened much more quickly than the time taken to set up!  Soon I was trundling back to the workshop with my sculpture. It felt rather sad in a way, the vinyl lettering spelling my name and announcing the exhibition, scraped […]

Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure

    While all the fires burned and fireworks dazzled on November 5th, there was serious business going on at the Impressionist and Modern sale at Christie’s New York. Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure came under the hammer and found a new home – selling for $6,101,000.  This particular piece is in bronze, marked 2 of […]