Sunday 31 January 2010

Unicorn






I finished my Unicorn. It stands about a metre and a half high. I made the armature from odds and ends including a bit of a lawn mower and the bottom of an old bath tub, the latter providing a stable base. I used tennis balls for the eyes. The covering is granules of silver granite donated by the generous firm of Sureset which makes permeable resin paving. The red of eyes is basalt and the black is copper slag from the same source. The Unicorn will be accompanied by a Lady as in the tapestries in the Cluny Museum in Paris. They will be in the Horseworld Sculture Exhibition at Horseworld horse sanctuary near Bristol which I am curating - on from May 23rd to November 1st.

Thursday 28 January 2010

Ben Dearnley at Horseworld

I went to Horseworld horse sanctuary near Bristol to disuss the sculpture exhibition there in the summer which I am curating. I met Ben Dearnley to discuss sites and am delighted we will be exhibiting his piece in alabaster which shows Lee Pearson OBE nine times Paralympic gold dresage champion on one side and a horse's head on the other.



Wednesday 27 January 2010

Ston Easton Park Gardens

I visited the fantastic Ston Easton Park in Somerset, set round a Palladian house impeccably furnished as a hotel and with charming staff. The park was laid out by Humphrey Repton from 1793. with a boring river turned into cascades. The lower photo shows a tree fallen on the remains of the grotto. It looks like a dinosaur lying down. The top photo shows the ice house. The von Essen hotel chain spends a fortune on antiques and decor - shame it can't spend a minimal sum on maintaining the important garden buildings in an outstanding historic garden. The grotto must have gone years ago but the icehouse is still intact but the ivy and the saplings will destroy it in a year or so.


Tuesday 26 January 2010

Racehorses

I drove across Salisbury Plain, swarming with tanks and buzzards, to see the sculpture of Judy Boyt who will exhibit in the Horseworld Sculpture Exhibition at Horseworld near Bristol which I am curating . This will run between May 23rd and November 1st this year. In an enchanted wood are lifesized sculptures such as these racehorses.


Frogs come home


My frogs were at the Love London Recycled Sculpture Show at WWT London Wetland Centre but had to be moved because of a reorganisation of the gardens. I have put them back by my pond. Good to see them every morning when I get up and look out of the window.

Tuesday 19 January 2010

Ceramics one day course at Bower Ashton

A blissful day in delightful company at Bower Ashton Campus Bristol on a one day course learning about ceramics organised for arts profesionals by Devon Guild of Craftsmen. This was one I made by throwing bands of colour on the stainless steel plate and then accentuating the simulacra with scratched lines. There are three faces.


Saturday 16 January 2010

London Wetland Centre Love London Recycled Sculpture Show

I went up to WWT the London Wetland Centre, the wildfowl reserve in Barnes, to help make a film of the Love London Recycled Sculpture Show which I curated. Ron den Daas from Canada is shown below adjusting his Golden Tree a.k.a What's it worth. This refers to the myth of King Midas who had his wish that everything he touched should turn to gold. Ron has painted plastic bottles gold with widlfowl depicted on each to hang from the tree made with old pipes. He wielded the camera and I spoke. Fortunately the planes to nearby Heathrow were on a different flight path while we did it. I also met there another of the exhibitors, Gilbert Whyman. This was a photograph of his Crocodile which I took in the autumn. Today there was ice and therefore no reflections. Gilbert and I discussed ideas for horse sculptures in the Horseworld sculpture exhibition I am curating in the summer at the Horseworld horse sanctuary near Bristol. We plan something that can include an element of public performance for the Open Day there on May 9th.


Thursday 14 January 2010

Garden in the Snow

Yesterday it started to thaw but I caught these images in my garden in time. The Penguins at least were happy. I went to Bristol to talk to Arts and Business, a charity that acts as a sort of marriage broker between the two, and had a fruitful meeting. I popped into Bristol Museum to look at depictions of horses to help me with a unicorn I am making. A marvellous cast small cast of a statue of William 111 on horseback by Rysbrack was most useful.

Monday 11 January 2010

Moby the Frog




Out of the blue I was asked by Emily Murray in Austin USA if i would agree to my sculpture Moby the Frog appearing in an article on the Top 10 Most Amazing and Creative Recycled Art Displays on the Info Barrel website. So he now appears there in very distinguished company. At the moment Moby is in the Love London Recycled Sculpture Show at WWT London Wetland Centre until April 5th 2010. The armature of Moby includes the insides of computers and of a lawn mower. A TV satelite dish, flipped over in half, provides the mouth . The skin was made with 500 mobile phones provided by Regenersis plc a company that recycles them.

Saturday 9 January 2010

Madison Who's Who

An odd phone call from Madison's Who's Who in New York from a charming man who said I had been chosen for inclusion in this tome. It seemed odd that he knew nothing about me, odder that I should be so chosen He invited me to look up their website while we talked. That was his mistake. Google produced at top of the list for Madison's Who's Who entries on scam.com which persuaded me that it might be best not to continue the conversation. The power of Google! I added a post to scam.com

Tuesday 5 January 2010

Heavy frost

A couple of images of a heavy frost. A sculpture in my frozen pond. A mundane view of the public conveniences in Warminster made magical by the ice.

Saturday 2 January 2010

Janus

We are having a very cold winter by the standards of the south of England; the long range weather forecast got it quite wrong predicting a mild winter. Still the frost created interesting effects on my Janus sculpture.


Friday 1 January 2010

Bristol gargoyles

To Bristol for a day of sightseeing. The magnificent church of St Mary Redcliffe has a plethora of gargoyles of which the lady monster below is one. The gargoyles perhaps inspired this shopkeeper(top photo) to put this sculpture outside. It has nothing to do with the goods on sale but it attracts attention.