Graeme Mitcheson – Stone Sculptor, ARBS

Kilkenny Limestone for the Bevin Boys Memorial

I enjoyed watching the Junior Apprentice last night. It was the episode where Srallen asks the youths to organise and sell paintings in a London Art Gallery. I felt a certain amount of sympathy for the poor kids as they tried their hardest to flog some ropey prints and paintings for hundreds and thousands of pounds. My personal favourite was the artist who had photographed herself in other peoples houses whilst house sitting for them - a bit spooky but definitely stood out from the others. It was a big ask for the teenagers having to spot the paintings that might sell, negotiate with the artist, arrange the pictures in the gallery and then drum up sufficient clients to make a buzzing exhibition – and then sell the pictures. Cant imagine too many of them will end up being a self employed sculptor, if they did, then their tasks would include promotional work, advertising, applying for commissions, accountant, secretary, salesman, designer, IT manager, purchaser,  sculptor, vehicle maintenance manager, sweeper up and tea maker. Get used to it kids – its as good as it gets !

On lighter note, the Kilkenny Limestone arrived for the Bevin Boys memorial which I will start in the next few days. I will put some pics up when I have got my chisels onto it.

Harry Parkes with our chosen block

The vast quarry near Kilkenny

I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Kilkenny in Ireland. With me was Harry Parkes, a terrific character with bags of energy and a million great stories. Harry is a former Bevin Boy miner who has been instrumental in organising and fundraising for the Bevin Boys Memorial which I have been asked to create. Together we set out to find the right piece of stone for the memorial. We had an idea of the sort of thing we wanted, a craggy rock, not polished or sawn,  flat enough for me to carve and tall enough to be impressive. The colour of Kilkenny especially when wet, we knew was reminiscent of coal. A sawn piece of stone is easy – you jot your dimensions down on a piece of paper and give them to a quarry to cut. A rough boulder these days is often a different kettle of fish, especially when it comes to Kilkenny limestone as it is usually sawn fro the rock face. After much searching around this enormous quarry, we eventually settled on a the perfect block. It was scooped up like an enormous biscuit by one of the mammoth machines and set to one side ready for posting to Ashby de la Zouch. (The lady at Paulstown Post Office inisted the lump be placed on the scales). All this searching around the dry quarry left Harry and me gasping for a cuppa which we duly enjoyed in the sunshine while admiring Kilkenny Castle. So, a very productive trip was had and a good start to thge project. Just waiting for the postie now….

I cannot remember the last time I picked up a chisel. Every now and then a period comes along like this when I seem to be doing everything else but chisel stone, which, at the end of the day is what I get paid to do. Having installed the Market Warsop sculpture a couple of weeks ago and then exhibited at the “Sock” in Loughborough, I have travelled to Northumberland a couple of times this week to run workshops and to attend an interview for a project, prior to that I had been doing all of the preparation which precedes that sort of thing. In about an hour I am off to Ireland to get some Kilkenny Limestone for the Bevin Boys Memorial and next week I will be helping my friend Richard Perry to run some stone carving workshops on the Isle of Sheppey! I am looking forward to having a break from all this madness and to getting some overdue carving done later this week, if I can remember what a chisel looks like that is.

Stone carving chisels

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.