Location: United Kingdom
It has always been wood. It began at college in Bristol when I made sculpture from timbers hauled from the river. A sojourn in Wales with goats, stone walls, and weather led to an escape to teaching woodwork in Hackney, and then an unexpected connection with Milton Keynes led me here to Gawcott where there were already too many carpenters.
Three things happened to get me back to art making and into making me a living with it. Firstly it was a gift from Mexico, a carved and painted wooden fish. I was struck by its crude vitality and knew I wanted to make things like this. Next, I spent a summer school week carving with Howard Raybould, whose work I had been admiring. Then, an Enterprise Allowance Scheme grant, got me started as a full-time woodcarver in 1985.
What am I up to now? Firstly I take pleasure in working with wood as a material, how it cuts with sharp tools, the smell of it. Secondly, I use relief carving to unite picture making with the physical deliberateness of carving, combine colour with the crisp use of light and shade, and play with shape, form, pattern, and textures. This is the language and material I use to make sense of all the things we celebrate and worry about. What comes out of this are all my wall mounted relief pieces. Thirdly, I carve dishes, bowls, plates, pendants and paperknives. So I alternate between making art with my carving and woodwork skills and working as a craftsman producing batches of useful carved, decorative objects.
My commissioned output ranges from large public art work such as signage for hospitals, and sculptural furniture; house signs; wedding gifts; and monuments for green burial sites. After twenty six years in a country manor house stone outbuilding I have moved to a very much smaller ex-dairy shed on a working farm. Instead of the fragrances of herbs and flowers, what wafts in through my workshop door are now the smells of sheep and pigs.
This is the medium I use for my art work
The third in a continuing series of circular relief carved wall-pieces. The title for this one came from a hand drawn placard seen during the People's Climate March that took place in London in September 2013.
The text is the key to this piece. I borrowed it from a hand drawn placard seen on the People's Climate March in London in September 2014. I celebrate the shapes and colours of leaves and flowers, the geometry and number in flowers and car wheels, and highlight a shared concern for the fragility of the planet we do live on. The butterfly carving is derived from a Comma butterfly I photographed feeding on ivy flowers, September 2014.
Size : H 86 cm x W 86 cm x D 5.5 cm
When made: February 2015
A big roundel that celebrates the still void from which the nucleus of creation forms with encircling number and geometry resonances explored through flowers and car wheels. This piece follows the first Greening the Wheel.
The first of a series of roundels connecting concerns about reducing carbon emissions with cars and fashion desirables, and celebrating number and geometry in flowers and leaves.
In this series I intend to explore and celebrate number and geometry in plants and leaves; some flowers have five petals, some four, and some have lots and lots. Leaves have many shapes, pentagon based leaves being very common. As for the roundel as wheel this links to our reliance on it for getting around and to the variety of spokes and geometrical layouts they have
A variety of themes, ideas and subject are treated here. Relief carving is to me is what brushes and canvas are to painters.
Carved Wood Relief Panel.
Carved on cedar, I made this piece for my own pleasure, during a period of creative doldrums, although the drawing I used did come from a series of sketches for some commissioned carved 'mermaid' mantel shelf supports. The colours used are derived from a very quick, spontaneous watercolour sketch in which I just happened to paint her blue. Apparently mermaids are beings who convey dead souls into the underworld.
Size : L48 cm x H34 cm x D2.5 cm
When made: August 2013
A second version of the Blue Mermaid, still carrying the souls of the dead to the underworld, but less menacing, more friendly, and maybe prettier! Carved from cedar, painted with water colour, finished with spirit varnish and beeswax.
In the process of developing ideas for a "mermaid" commission I have several pages of sketchbook research on mermaids. Seeing the pew-end carving of the mermaid in Zennor Church was seminal and reference to M.W.Tisdall's "God's Beasts" suggests that mermaids are evil creatures and that the fish in each hand are Christians who have met an unfortunate fate in the hands of the Evil One, or have been lured away from the straight and narrow path. I wish to convey a more benign creature without evil intentions. If sometimes they appear menacing that is because they are doing their job assisting the dead into the underworld.
I am continuing to make a series of small relief panels about flowers and plants, currently wild flowers of the UK. They will mostly be just eight inches high and four wide, while some designs call for larger or square format.
I am continuing to make a series of small relief panels about flowers and plants, currently wild flowers of the UK. They will mostly be just eight inches high and four wide, while some designs call for larger or square format.
Carved on lime, painted with watercolour with acrylic varnish finish. Size 8" x 4" x 1" thick
carved on lime, painted with watercolour with acrylic varnish finish. Size 8" x 4" x 1" thick
Carved on lime, painted with watercolour, finished with acrylic varnish. Size 8" x 4" x 1" thick
“We Can't Live on Mars”
“Greening the Wheel Two”
“Greening the Wheel Two”
“Blue Mermaid”
“Small Blue Mermaid”
“Primrose”
“Primrose”
“Ground Ivy”
“Common Mallow”
“Periwinkle”
