Much to my delight I have been selected to be an Artist in Residence at Chester University in the Department of Art and Design as part of the Artists into Art Colleges programme for 2022-23. There are 6 artists taking part this year.
It will involve working in the department both with students and with other artists. I hope to do some carving in the department and enable students to experience it if they are interested. As a group of artists we will talk to students about our experiences of being working artists.
I will also be working with the other artists, possibly independently or collaboratively to produce work for a final exhibition which will take place in Chester in February (more details to follow). Initially we will have a small exhibition of our existing work in the department as a means to introduce ourselves to the students and staff. Then start to work on our ideas and start to make art! I suspect my next few posts will look at how this developes.
I have been thinking about the forms I want to use in this wave sculpture for a while now. I really like the sea and the work of Barbara Hepworth.
I often develop my initial ideas in plastercine. It allows me to keep developing ideas as I go along, even once carving has started. This is a scale model of what I am going to carve, about half the final size. The Mobius strip is fine and I like the rolling nature of the wave form. I am less sure about the left hand side (it reminds me of a slug on this model), to I may play around with that over the next day or two. It is important to get this right as it will affect the initial cutting of the outline of the shape in wood and once this is done I will be committed to a certain shape.
I like the Mobius strip as a form, its sense of flow, the way it creates light and shade within a sculpture and the symbolism relating to love and infinity. Creating a wave from the edge if the strip works well and gives a sense of energy and the power of the sea. I nice combination of ideas.
Carving really helped me during lockdown. Suddenly I went from a busy schedule of carving, jewellery making and family life to all the restrictions of the covid lockdowns. In March 2020 I got back from an extended holiday feeling as though I made it back to the UK by the skin of my teeth. The coronavirus pandemic was causing increasing concern around the world. I got home, bought in a big food shop, bought a turbo trainer for my bike, went to the last pre covid meeting of professional woodcarvers at Michael Painters studio. We chatted about what was to come and how uncertain everything felt.
I tried to buy kiln dried lime from two of my normal suppliers but they were having problems with their supplies, but after a short delay I was able to procure the much needed wood.
By 23 March 2020 the first covid lockdown started! Aprils weather was superb, sunny and warm, just a fabulous spring. Events were all cancelled, shops were closed. There was no Wirral Open Studio Tour or Liverpool Summer Art Market. So I filled my time with my allotment, exercise and wood carving.
During the first lockdown I had carvings to finish and new ones to begin. I was half way through the carving of Female torso which I had been working on at Michael Painter’s studio. I had made a maquette out of plastercine, and so could complete the piece from it.
I was also half way through an Elven face which I had been working on at the professionals group. The aim was to free up my carving style and enjoy carving a humanoid face without being a slave to trying to obtain a perfect human face. My plastercine maquette was useful to help me obtain the correct proportions, depth to the features and anatomically correct details such as eyelids, lips and facial musculature. I am always working to improve gaining facial expression as I want it. The carved piece is as yet incomplete.
The time came and went for Wirral Open Studio Tour and I submitted some pieces for their on line exhibition. During the early weeks of lockdown I had been experimenting with the idea of making some more functional pieces, and had made a number of bowls inspired by natural forms.
The sun continued to shine and I continued to carve a small acorn pendant that a friend had asked me to do and a smaller version of my Eagle’s Head for another friend. Both are sill packed away in storage boxes awaiting the time that I can see my friends again.
As the summer progressed I returned to a piece that I had started over a year earlier – the head of a staffie. I had completed the obligatory plastercine maquette. I started to carve the staff in a piece of hawthorn with a beautiful grain, but such a hard wood. Never again!!
Whilst the weather held I continued with a series of semi human faces which I had been doing just to entertain myself and did a new “Tree Spirit” face.
As the summer drew in I left carving out in the garden to return to my studio.I completed male and female torsos in deep relief carvings to consolidate my proficiency in carving the human body. Doing carvings of the male and female forms together made me concentrate not he differences between anatomies and the differences in proportions, musculature and form. I used photographs of dancers as source material because they are well proportioned and the musculature is clear.
As we moved into the second lockdown I was asked to make three “Spiral on a Stone Plinth” for a friend who really likes the symbolism of the spiral representing our journey through life and our personal growth. The symbolism seemed poignant in these covid times, they were to be gifts for people who had seen much during the pandemic.
It made me think about doing some wood carving in response to the pandemic and this led to a “Tree of Life” carving and a Mobius Strip carving called “Eternal Love”. I was thinking about our need for strength, resilience, and new beginnings.
More recently I have returned to a recurrent theme of the female figure and have carved a female torso in the round, a younger woman than the first one. Again `I started with a plastercine maquette and created a slimmer form and started to play with the form, cutting away and changing the shape of part of the limbs.
Over the last year or two I have been improving my skills with regards to carving faces, and so I challenged myself to carve a portrait of the character Gollum from Lord of the Rings. As always I started with a plastercine maquette and spent a few days correcting depth of the eye sockets, the shape and size of the eyes, the cheeks and the expression created by the shape of the mouth, facial muscles and eyes. Once this was complete I started to carve a block of lime, gradually creating the nose by dropping back the cheeks, forming the eye sockets and then forming the mouth and chin. My work always goes through various stages. Initially I block out the overall form, and then start to form the features and think “how will this ever look like Gollum?”, then I re-carve the cheeks and jaw line and think “this is rubbish!” Further adjustments are made and the nose shape established, “maybe it looks a bit like Gollum.” Then I worked on the bulging eyes expressing fear and excitement and finalised the nose shape, “Um, getting closer.” Next the mouth was roughed in, wide and grinning uncertainly, “can I capture this expression?” Still a way to go!!
I have just been asked to carve another heart bowl, the third lockdown looks as though it will come to an end soon. Perhaps the end is insight and this will close the circle on what has been the strangest year I have ever known. How would I have ever survived it without carving to occupy my hands and to keep my mind busy.
My love of sculpture started when I was 18 and studying for my A-level in Art. As part of this I did a project on a sculptor called Ted Roocroft who was a pig farmer turned sculptor. He produced beautiful concrete sheep finished with pebbles, and specialised in woodcarving. Pieces like “War and Peace’ left me awestruck. It seemed like another world, one that was far beyond me, as I had no tools, no experience of sculpture and could not see how I could gain the skills.
Many years later an opportunity came my way to do a night school in woodcarving with Wirral woodcarver and sculptor John White. I have been carving with him for over 10 years. I started with the basics of using chisels safely, basic cuts, understanding the grain of wood and completing simple projects such as a relief carving of a leaf. He continued to guide me through a variety of projects, increasing the depth of the relief and the complexity of the subject and building up to three dimensional pieces and specific skills such as incised writing. I gradually grew in confidence and built up the range of tools I felt comfortable using. He taught me how to develop my own ideas, and the process of going from an idea, research, drawings, modelling and carving the final sculpture.
Recently I have. been lucky enough to be able to spend time carving with Master Woodcarver and Sculptor Michael Painter. In September 2017 I spent two days carving with him on a course he was tutoring in Penrith. I wanted to start to learn about carving the human face and Michael is second to none in this skill. He first ensured that all of the small group of students could use chisels safely, but we were quickly able to go onto individual projects. I carved my first human face with carefully structured guidance from Michael.
I am now lucky enough top be able to go and carve with Michael about once a month. To date I have carved a number of faces with his help and am now able to carve faces with gradually increasing proficiency. I still have portraiture and the rest of the body to learn about! Oh and so much more.
