New Bevin Boys Memorial

March 9th, 2010 § 0

I am delighted to announce that I have been asked to create a memorial for the Bevin Boys which will be sited at the National Memorial Arboretum near Burton on Trent. For those of you who are wondering who the Bevin Boys were, here is a brief summary taken from the Bevin Boys Association website -

 ”As Britain was unable to import Coal during World War II, the production of coal from mines in Britain had to be increased. To meet this need it was decided by the Minister of Labour, Ernest Bevin, that a percentage of young men called up to serve in the forces should work in the mines. from 1943 to the end of the war one in ten of the young men called up were sent to work in the mines. This caused a great deal of upset as many of the young men wanted to join the fighting forces and many felt that they were not valued. These conscript miners were given the nick name ‘Bevin Boys’. Many suffered taunts as they wore no uniform and were wrongly assumed to be avoiding serving in the armed forces.”

The Bevin Boys Badge

I will be making the memorial from a large block of rough Kilkenny Limestone. We decided on this because of its similarity to coal and the rough nature of the boulder is far more relevant to the Bevin Boys than a polished monument could ever be. There will be a long inscription carved into the rough surface of the stone which could look amazing. There will also be the Bevin Boys badge, pictured above. I am hoping to travel to Kilkenny in the next couple of weeks with an ex Bevin Boy to find the right block for the project and will put a picture on the blog in due course.

You are better off getting stuck in !

March 7th, 2010 § 0

Bit of a busmans holiday for me this weekend. I spent saturday and sunday knocking plaster off a bedroom wall with a hammer and chisel. Same process – rather different outcome – sadly just as tiring.  Before starting that, I enjoyed watching the “Master Craftsmen”  TV programme on friday night with Monty Don, I must confess to not being his greatest fan though after he blanked me at Hampton Court Palace Flower show a few years back. I always like to guess at the start of shows like this who will make a good fist of it. The 1st week (thatching) seemed obvious as the big fella won but the last couple of weeks have been a bit trickier, probably because they have had to be creative as well as skillful and not necessarilly too strong. When I run stone carving weekends, I am often surprised at who makes the best work. I find that, especially on a short 2 day course, the more “reckless” carvers rather than the careful ones triumph. For beginners, it is far better to “get stuck in” than to be timid. Often when I work in schools, it is the usually disruptive or rowdy kids who make the fastest progress. There is a time to be careful but your 1st day of stone carving is’nt it. I am looking

Avoided eye contact - Monty Don

 forward to the Stone Carving episode of “Master Craftsmen” in a couple of weeks time.

Meanwhile, if you fancy a go, I still have spaces available on my May stone carving course and more deatils are available on www.chisel-it.co.uk or on www. artsbowl.com

What will happen to the sculpture ?

March 4th, 2010 § 0

some of the 3000 letters carved into the sculpture

I was sad to hear that the Astra Zenica Pharmaceutical Plant down the road in Loughborough is going to close resulting in about 1000 job losses. My 1st major sculpture commission was for Astra Zenica and as far as I know is still there. Astra  used to regularly commission artworks from Loughborough art college and the commission I won was run as a competition open to students, graduates and tutors of the college. I had recently graduated and was shortlisted with 2 of my former tutors for an interview. Sadly, they gave the commission to one of my tutors, but to my elation, I received a phone call the following day to say that they wanted to commission my sculpture too and had got some extra money. Needless to say I was extremely chuffed and treated the missus to grand night at the Ferrers Arms! I wonder what will become of “Cures”, the hoptonwood limestone column. It was designed specifically for that space but I suppose it could be moved to another Astra site, I seem to remember fixing it extremely thoroughly though so I hope they dont ask me to shift it!

"Cures". Hoptonwood limestone. 1999Some of the 3000 or so letters carved into the sculpture !

Latest sculpture

March 3rd, 2010 § 0

Twisting sculpture

Untitled but I am working on it.....

Early last month I installed this twisting sculpture in Nether Whitacre, North Warwickshire. I spent some time talking through ideas and themes for the work with residents of the village. I decided that there were 4 themes coming through that needed incorporating into the artwork in some way. They were all things that they felt were important in the development of the village over the years. Thus the 4 sided sculpture with the themes gradually twisting together. The 4 themes were the railway, agriculture, the rivers and the flora and fauna of the village. The stone is Woodkirk Sandstone from a quarry near Leeds. This is probably the best sandstone that I have carved, tight grained and good colour.  Unfortunately the service at the quarry can be rather unpredictable in my experience.  This sculpture is 1 of 3 that I created for the North Arden Heritage Trail during 2009. The others were in Fillongley and Ansley. You will find pictures of these on my website at www.chisel-it.co.uk

Its a sign !

February 28th, 2010 § 0

Despite being up at Hall Farm for the last 8 years, I have never taken the trouble to erect a sign to let anyone know that I am there. Then, last week I had a rush of blood and ordered not just 1 sign but 3 ! Next time you are driving on the A512 between Ashby and Loughborough, be sure to check them out. I plan on constructing a multi storey car par in the coming weeks too in order to accommodate the rush.

The signs are good.

(stone) cold feet

February 25th, 2010 § 0

I am pleased say that I will be attending the “Sock” show in Loughborough at the end of March. I have not been to a show like this for years so am looking forward to getting out of the workshop for a couple of days and meeting some real people! I will be there with my friend Damien who tinkers with a bit of lettercutting. Being as it is the “Sock” event, I will probably bring along my Portland Limestone Stocking Feet. This is one the finest sculptures I never made, as it was a proposal for a site in an East Midlands town, I wont say which town as I plan to have a moan about them in a future blog! The carving is of my wife Ruth’s feet, she often does a spot of modelling for such projects. Unfortunately, the sculpture, which would have been 2.5 metres tall was not chosen and thus I am left with the model, but a very nice model it is too. Come and see it at the “Sock” in Loughborough on the 27th and 28th of March.Feet sculpture

Sculptural Nutcracker

February 24th, 2010 § 0

sculptural nutcracker

Sculptural Nutcracker

A few years back I was approached by a student studying for a PHD at Loughborough University who was asking artists /architects/ designers etc to come up with ideas for nutcracker designs. The idea being that he could study the creative path of each design and compare how a sculptor went about creating the object as opposed to an engineer for example. These were generally in the form of CAD or intricate drawings. As it turned out, the other nutcrackers were highly mechanical, many had cogs and complicated crushing mechanisms. I took a different approach and created probably the simplest nutcracker you can imagine. It was carved and the polished in Ancaster Limestone. The top piece. a slightly fallic cone and the bottom a square block with a small notch carved in it to prevent the nut from rolling away. The cone crashes down on the poor nut and bingo! Anyway, this caused a bit of a stir back in the university office and the nutcracker apparantly became a bit of a talking point. The student bought my nutcracker in the end and a few years later bought one for his tutor when he left. Since then , I have made a number of them as gifts and for wedding presents etc. If anyone out there fancies one, I sell them for around £100. I gererally make them from Ancaster as it takes a good polish and makes for a very sexy object

Individual Stone Carving Tuition

February 22nd, 2010 § 0

In addition to weekend stone carving courses, I am also happy to offer individual stone carving tuition to those who prefer to learn on a one on one basis. This will be equally as intense and hard work however I will be able to monitor your progress more thoroughly throughout the day and give you a more in depth knowledge of the art of carving stone. This might  include discussing suppliers of suitable carving stone for your needs, tools and some handy tips that might be missed in the hurly burly of the normal stone carving weekends. You may wish to specialise in one aspect of carving that I will be able to guide you on more comprehensively. Individual tuition for one day is £120 for your 1st day and £100 thereafter.

Hall Farm – Beautiful but a bit parky !

February 21st, 2010 § 0

It looks picturesque, what is missing from this picture is a freezing wind and a grumpy sculptor.

I cant remember it being so cold for so long at the workshop, more snow again this week. I like to have the doors open to blow the dust out so heating it is almost impossible. Looking forward to the Spring and doing a bit of chiseling outside again. Luckilly I have no courses planned until April. There are still spaces on the May course, more details can be found on www.chisel-it.co.uk or on www.artsbowl.com
I have been at Hall farm since leaving Staunton Harold Craft Centre in 2002. I found that I was making increasingly larger work and therefore using more and more power tools – not great when the general punblic are wandering through your workshop! The workshop at Hall Farm was built around me as I was carving, it has massive doors for moving boulders (then finished sculptures) in and out and is in a lovely location just iutside of Ashby de la Zouch. Unfortunately it is quite exposed and tends to have its own micro climate, meaning weather like that in the picture is more common than I would like.

Moving big stones.

February 18th, 2010 § 0

As you can see, I have moved the top half of the Kilkenny Limestone sculpture so that I can work at a comfortable height on the bottom piece. Carving work is almost done which just leaves the polishing which is probably one of the most boring jobs on earth.

Moving the sculpture

I move the sculpture using the gantry for slow and careful lifting and also a device called a split pin lewis. This means you can move it safely without risk of damaging edges by using slings etc.

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