It was a wonderful surprise to open my copy of Cotswold Life magazine to find my work featured in the 'Made with Love in the Cotswolds'.
The feature was compiled by Candia McKormack is about unique handcrafted items that can be gifts for Christmas that are sourced in the Cotswolds from painters, sculptors, makers, designer and jewellers. 
There are so many wonderful shops, galleries and studio in the Cotswolds, including the Brian Sinfield Gallery in Burford where the featured 'Cotswolds Resonance' is currently exhibited.

In 2022 we visited St Ives, certainly one of my favourite seaside towns, in the glorious county of Cornwall, the town has the wonderful Tate St Ives, and the studio of the late great Dame Barbara Hepworth who is a major influence on all British sculptors naturally including myself. 
A female artist in a predominantly male work, she went on to become an internationally famous sculptor whose legacy can be seen across the world.



As usual we looked at probably all the contemporary galleries in the town that has literally 100’s of artists , there are many galleries that hold some wonderful art in many media but there was one that stood head and shoulders above the rest, found on Back street, with a small entrance down a slope the entrance is unassuming but what is inside is a total revelation.
The Penwith Gallery is the base for the Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall.


The Society was founded in 1949 by a group of artists including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson Bernard Leach, Peter Lanyon, Sven Berlin and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, The society went on to include such luminaries as Patrick Heron, Terry Frost and even Henry Moore was an honorary member. The society also  played an important role in bringing the Tate Gallery to St Ives.


The Penwith Gallery has three associates exhibitions a year, but to be included requires a vigorous selection process and so I entered the maximum of two items for the Associates members Summer show, to my delight both of my works were selected. 


To add a Big Cherry to the cake of been selected, I found my work was placed at the approach to the exhibition in a room dedicated to Barbara Hepworth and included a wonderful original Hepworth Sculpture as well as the beautiful photographic portrait of the lady. 















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Happy to return to Greys Court with the Oxford Sculptors Group, this time taking five sculptures. The gardens lend themselves to being an ideal backdrop for a sculpture venue. The indoor gallery space is the famous Cromwellian Room where Cromwell and his men stayed. The exhibition has thirty sculptors showing  over a hundred and fifty pieces displayed within these beautiful gardens in south Oxfordshire. 

Light - Bronze Resin  on Portland Stone 4/20               Slate & Lead Stack on Portland Stone- Unique.

At  a party I met someone who had seen at my work online and said that they liked my tall Slate Cone - Tallis, but had I thought of making a similar piece in local stone that would possibly sit more sympathetically in the Cotswolds.

Inspired by working in material other than slate I thought about the Cotswolds  houses that are built with warm honey coloured stone and have beautiful  stone roof tiles made from Stonefield Slate. The Stonesfield quarry closed down at the start of last century and to obtain slate stone of this type requires reclaimed material.

By luck a friend was having her roof retiled and the builder had some damaged material that I could use.The stone roof had been on that house for over two hundred years and now I was going try and recycle it to create art.

I spent weeks with a hammer splitting  the old stone into suitable sized pieces and then slowly built them up on to an armature (a frame base)  to create a tall Stone Cone, topping it off with a Lead apex.

It was wonderful to work with a fresh material to me and it feels good to have recycled and repurposed this natural and beautiful slate into my Sculpture. The new work is yet to be named, maybe someone has a suggestion?

At the historic Greys Court  it is privilege to be part of the Oxford Sculpture group annual exhibition. The extensive grounds and property have sculpture exhibited until 17th July. This is the first time I have had work here but I certainly hope to return and enjoy having my work inside and in the grounds. 

As a member of the Oxford Sculptors Group I was delighted to be invited to exhibit at the Blenheim Palace Autumn Fair.
There were eleven sculptors involved with thirty sculptures displayed in the historic Walled Garden, the event was enhanced by late sunny days and was attended by thousands of visitors enjoying the Autumn Fair and the freedom of the new opening up from the restrictions of recent times. Traditional coconut shy's a massive straw castles entertained children and grownups along with a Chill-out Bar and Oxford independent vendors and street food outlets gave the whole event a Festival vibe that was a welcome event at the tail end of summer. 
I certainly hope that this is going to be an annual event and would love to take part again.

The event was organised by Charlotte Lloyd Webber of www.clweventdesign.com 

Thompsons Gallery, in Aldeburgh had invited me to partake in the annual exhibition that runs at their Suffolk gallery from June 12th - July 4th 2021. 

Like all exhibitions the art work have to be delivered ahead of the exhibition in order to photograph the work, produce the catalogue and publicity material.

 As I had a number of items that had been selected it made sense to deliver them all in good time in March. By coincidence I also required some more photography so it made sense to combine a photo session on the beach and the delivery of my new sculptures. 

After a long but pleasant drive from Oxfordshire I arrived at Aldeburgh and was  surprised to walk on the beach to find a number of people all gathering around what appeared to be a collection of iron objects, after closer examination the four objects had a small caption that stated the objects were Antony Gormley sculptures!

What I had stumbled upon what was apparently on the local news and there was a great deal of controversy about this ‘installation’ .

The objects were actually Gormley’s work and had been purchased by local Art Gallery owner Caroline Wiseman, the collection of four items were described as a Quartet (sleeping), but the Artist had named them differently and he had objected to them been displayed as they were just laid on the beach but they were created to be standing pieces. 

While I was there the story unfolded on local BBC news posting and that the Artwork required council permission to be displayed .

The permission was applied for retrospectively ,however the items had caused such a stir & many people became interested in the work. The result was that the work became available for sale and the sculptures were sold and the reclining objects were going to be removed so the issue of their display was resolved?

I was looking foward to see the work of Maggi Hambling’s ‘Scallop' a few hundred metres up the beach, shining in the broken Suffolk light this beautiful steel work glistens and sparkles with its myriad of textures and factions. It took many years for the locals to warm to this magnificent work, so it was not a surprise that the Gormley work had become an issue with locals, councils and the Artist. 

I did get a photograph a new work of mine, but that is still under embargo so here are the images of the one permanent and a few transient sculptures on Aldeburgh Beach.

 2021 promises to be a great improvement on 2020, we are all aware that the last year has been very challenging but a lot of my  time was spent working on new work & one of the new pieces I am very proud of is Cirque.
The new piece is a progression from the series of round slate work that I named Resonance, the prototype was completed in late 2020 and the first finished piece was delivered to Pinkfoot Gallery, Cley next the Sea, Norfolk in December 2020.
The sculpture was filmed by Lorentz Gullachsen and a short video released on instagram & Youtube.
This filming process was a new way of showing my Slate work and it allowed me to highlight the qualities of the materials,
the contrasting textures, the outer stainless steel band and the Portland stone base.
Getting involved with the filming process was exciting and creatively rewarding and I hope you shall enjoy this short video.

To see the work please click on this link below.

youtu.be/rgzLsw-Ewso

In Autumn 2019 I was invited by Thompson's Gallery London to submit work for the Monochrome Exhibition in Spring 2020.I thought this was a wonderful idea to show a range of dramatic Black & White paintings, sculptures and charcoal drawings.
A celebration of tones rather than colour. My brand new creation Eclipse fits the brief perfectly, with a sleek stainless steel outer body containing hundreds of shards of grey slate. This elegant form stands on a large green oak block.
The online exhibition (due to Lock Down) runs from the 29th April to the 16th May 2020.
A personal favorite of mine in the exhibition is a stunning Charcoal on Paper- Summer Oak by Roy Wright.