Perry's Recycling Paper Sausage Machine

I went on a guided tour of the paper recycling plant at Perry's Marston Magna in Somerset. I was intrigued by their machine shown here above for turning millions of tiny paper dots produced by computer printing into "sausages" about four inches long . This is done purely by pressure and they come out of this tube. The "sausages" cannot be recycled as such but can be used to bulk up other recycled paper

Hobby horse for Horseworld Sculpture Exhibiton at Horseworld near Bristol

Gavin Darby delivered his Hobby Horse to my house. It will will go in the Horseworld Sculpture Exhibition at Horseworld near Bristol from May 23rd to November 1st. Hobbyhorses were children's toys; they "rode" a stick with a horse's head, sometimes with wheels attached. Larger versions also featured in festivals as they still do at Minehead in Somerset every May.

Horses by Jill Tweed

An idyllic day driving through the early spring sunshine to see Jill Tweed's studio in Oxfordshire. She is going to exhibit these three horses in the Horseworld Sculpture Exhibition at Horseworld horse sanctuary near Bristol this summer.

Africa House sculptures

It is worth looking up in cities. I have long been intrigued by these sculptures on the top of Africa House in High Holborn, London showing British Imperialism at its most confident. I took these snaps from the top of a bus. Britannia rules over a continent portrayed as a picturesque shooting and fishing estate. An African staggers under the weight of ivory tusks and a white man in a pith helmet has shot an elephant. With binoculars one can spot a fishing rod in the ensemble. The lion looks pretty alive but then he features in the British coat of arms. Beautifully carved.

Monster in River Wylye Wiltshire

I have always been fascinated by accidental simulacra in nature, the chance likeness of trees, clouds, plants etc to other things. This is the head of some strange creature swimming in the River Wylye in Wiltshire, actually a protruding stump of a tree fallen in the river and stuck by the bank. There are a lot of deliberate simulacra lurking in paintings of all epochs, often apparently unnoticed even by art critics who spend their lives poring over them - for example rocks shaped like God the Father behind a Madonna and Child in a very famous painting in London's National Gallery.

Frederick the Frog goes into service for London Community Resources Network

The London Community Resource Network asked to use the upper image for the home page of their website and I naturally agreed. Frederick was my first frog, standing about a metre high, which I made in a frantic two weeks for London Zoo in December 2007 to publicise the forthcoming Year of the Frog, a campaign to save the world's amphibians. The lower image shows it half made. (The mouth was a television dish flipped over in half.) The LCRN campaigns with great panache for a more sustainable capital city.

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.