Today what was supposed to be a horse in its previous incarnation, has started to look like its new intended form... How you might picture this is up to you but the block of stone has been transformed.

While it was a pleasure to be carving a horse's head (which was to represent an outsized chess piece), I have found that due to my epiphany over the week-end, plus an itsy bit of soul-searching, I am even more excited about carving an old boot... [albeit one of the walking variety!]

In my usual determined / dogged / stubborn nature, although the block of stone has various problems with it, such as a marked difference in texture in one section (i.e. much coarser in grain than the rest) so far it is going very well. In fact some of the fissures have served me well and saved the arm-ache in blocking out sections.

As per usual I find myself getting one side spot-on and the other requiring a little more patience...
Is it me or is it natural to be able to carve one side of an object better than the other? Something to do with carving direction and dexterity of hand - I'm a leftie and the left-hand side that I have been working on has been smoother-going, whether coarse or smooth in surface!!!

Moving on...

This Easter break I have some serious paperwork to be done for my studies, as I had a joint and sciatic problem which meant I literally couldn't sit or lay down properly for ten weeks - TEN WEEKS!!!

The tutors and my fellow students at uni have been pretty supportive...
Having not been able to get into uni for the first half of my incarcerating problem, my thoughtful friends came up trumps and on my second day back, had brought in a yoga mat, a camping mat and a memory-foam pillow for me to at least try to get some work done over the coming weeks... A BIG thanks to them all - and now finally I have the ability to sit at a table to work and eat etc... but...

It's still easier to stand and carve than sit and type reams of text, so I will leave you with a couple of pictures of my new project... when they arrive in my inbox!

Smiles for a beautifully sunny day :)  :)  :)

So, I have no extra photos to upload yet, but this weekend, after much thought and deliberation, I have decided to change tack with an element of my proposed film and sculpture installation.
Instead of making a film exploring the changes in the way we read, socialise and play games, due to the progressive use of technology in our every day lives, I have decided to explore my other favourite subject of travel.

Due to making a long-haul flight at the impressionable age of two, then numerous train journeys during my formative years onwards, the idea of travel has become an intrinsic part of who I am and how I work as an artist.

Further to this is the reverie that one may go through, as a passenger rather than the driver. The ability to sit back and let your mind wander without the necessity to concentrate on the linear route ahead.
The flux and transience of stations and airports, as people arrive and go off to places new, whether for business or pleasure.
The ability to see many towns and cities through the window of a plane, each with lives and a history of their own.
The idea of changes in culture as you move through a continent and the layering that occurs within a town or city, as old architecture and structures stand like testaments of time alongside the new.

Sculpture will now reflect this too, in order to bring them together as one.

:)

Today I have set this blog up in order to keep a journal / log of the work I am doing, while surreptitiously creating a space in which to procrastinate and think about what I am doing with my life... 

Oh, did I say that out loud?!

I would like to point out that once this is fully set up, it is my intention to get on with said [artistic] life, in order that more entries can be made on here, to showcase my projects both within my studies and the commissions I have (of which there is a little bit of a backlog while the studies have taken over my life and everything else with it... to those people here is my very public apology... you know who you are)

I am certain that this blog will flourish when freedom abounds...!