I grew up in a rural village in the Midlands and initially trained as a teacher graduating from Warwick University with a B.Ed degree. I taught fine art in Nottingham before moving to Devon where I joined a woodcarving group in the 1980’s and soon found a natural affinity for working with wood. My early training continued at Dartington Hall with Willi Soukop RA., former master of sculpture at the Royal Academy, whose charismatic tutorship and generous system of mentoring guided my development over the next few years and still remains the touchstone of my work.
In 1990 I became a self-employed woodcarver selling mainly from my own waterfront workshop in Salcombe. More recently I have moved to Ashburton and now work from home exhibiting at a number of local venues.
As a sculptor I prefer to work in wood as it has a life and personality of its own. I approach the wood with an open mind, never planning in advance but carving whatever the wood wants to be, working almost entirely without sketches or models and using the natural shape and grain of the wood as my inspiration. Each sculpture is so unique to that particular piece of wood that I know it can never be replicated – even by me. Every carving is a new adventure and I am often surprised myself at what ‘crawls out of the woodwork’!
More recently I have started working in sheet aluminium and copper for garden sculptures based on botanical forms. Again these are hand-cut and free-formed with the same ‘one off’ characteristics as my wood sculpture. I particularly like the way the two materials develop a patina over time and settle into a garden with age.
Sorry – no commissions.