The stone carving courses that I am running in April and May are now fully booked. I will sort out another couple of dates for later in the year and post them on here. I still run individual tuition during the week though if you are keen to come and learn in the meantime.
Someone took this picture of the fork lift driver and me sharing an intimate moment last week installing the Market Warsop sculpture. I must admit, I dread installing the big sculptures. I will usually have spent several weeks or months intricately carving a stone and then I put my faith in someone else and a machine to finish the job, all very stressful. Added to which, when I have carved the piece in the workshop it is to all intents and purposes complete, if any more stone is knocked off it after that – it was not meant to be! Anyway, this install went as well as any and it is always a great relief when it is done.
Triumphs can sometimes be disappointing.
I thought friday’s episode of Mastercrafts was a triumph for sculpture over stone masonry. In a dramatic late twist, the lady (apologies for not remembering names) beat off the competition with a fairly decent fist of a sculptural bird bath come sundial. Despite seemingly struggling for most of the show (top marks programme editors) to complete any work, she managed to show the blokes a thing or two about creativity, as well as health and safety, being the only person in the show to bother with a dust-mask whilst carving sandstone for the best part of 6 weeks.
The chiseling of the flat surface took me back to the 1st time I picked up carving tools at Loughborough Art College in 1993. The art college had 4 or 5 tutors whose primary medium was stone, needless to say, all students were expected to do their share of chiseling during the course and the result was a good sprinkling of competent stone sculptors by the end of it all. Sadly on my recent returns to the art college, I have notheard any tapping of chisels with mallets let alone any cursing of the tutor for revealing that a hand carved flat surface is 2mm out on one edge. So, I wonder what will become of the heroic red haired dust masked chiseler from Mastercrafts? In the other episodes, the winner was awarded a short paid apprentiship with a talented maker while, rather disappointingly, her prize was to get to leave her carving 100 yards from where she made it! Ah well, at least she won’t have silicosis for her trouble.
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.
