Nearly Ready

Just making final preparations for opening my workshop on Friday as part of the North Yorkshire Open Studio event.

Painting plinths and shelves, (good job the geese are already white), sweeping and tidying and placing sculpture to look its best.

Keep dashing between jobs as one minute we have black skies, thunderstorms, dramatic lightening and heavy downpours and the next baking brilliant sunshine.  Must check the weekend forecast.  Oh, and get my signs ready.

Best get back to it!

Selecting Stone

On Saturday morning I had a meeting at Eskdale Quarry to choose a piece of stone for carving a village way-marker.  The idea is to have a large boulder, natural, rough hewn, just as it comes from the quarry with a compass carved into the top.  The sizes and design had been discussed at a site meeting earlier, so I took my measure to check dimensions.

This is a local quarry that I have not been to before, the stone is usually used for building, and for carving I could see it would be a challenge.  It is heavily bedded, and crumbly in parts with large areas of colouring, banding and marking.  This is very beautiful to look at as a boulder, but problematic when trying to carve fine detail.

Despite the acres of stone, I went from one boulder to the next, and next, rejecting as I went due to size, marking, soundness.  Eventually, late into the morning, I found a piece, marking it as the one, and organised  delivery to my workshop.  It will be interesting to see how it behaves.

This quarry was chosen because it was felt local stone should be used for the project and I think this is a lovely idea in theory - in practice, for the proposed design  it does mean compromises.  Consequently I am see-sawing from feeling a bit frustrated to excited by the challenge of working differently and adapting as I go along.

While looking round for my block, I came across a hole in the quarry face, and this was described by the quarry owner as a jet mine.  I crawled and squeezed into the opening (felt very daring) to have a look, but didn't find any nuggets.  Jet was mined all along the Whitby coastline and many mines sprang up to cope with demand at the height of its popularity.

So I await delivery with mixed feelings - hope the weather stays fine as it is too big to fit in the workshop, I will be sitting on top of it to carve!

Ludlow Stone Carving Course

What a lovely time, spent with my group of beginner carvers, who did incredibly well with their sculptures in just one day.  Each piece was so different, showing a little individual something from the maker.

 We had a real mix, a very ambitious piece based on Rodin's 'The Thinker', which showed considerable skill for a first time carve; very characterful and delicate relief carving; a bird (looked like something I might have carved!) which was smooth and rounded and sat in the hand so comfortably; a head carved with great free spirit, evolving as it went;  lettercutting, a beautiful line of verse with each letter becoming smoother, neater and more confident, and a fossil encrusted boulder, with amonites and shells protruding and bursting out.  Everyone worked really hard - it was hot, and they all barely stopped, with quick bites for lunch before getting back to work.  Well done all - I am very proud of your efforts.

Ludlow looked wonderful, I shall explore more when I go down again later in the month for my exhibition.  I did go astray in the one-way system, but it meant I saw more in finding my way back!

 

Must mention too, all the lovely people at the Ludlow Assembly Rooms, who were super friendly and helpful and made me feel very welcome.  When I left, most of them were covered in stone dust from helping me move everything and load up.  It was quite a sight, from our work room, a line of carvers carrying sculpture and people carrying workbenches and tools, leaving a trail of stone-dusty footprints down the corridor - thankyou for helping make it a very successful and happy day, and sorry for the mess! 

PS:  But don't worry -  it is what I call 'clean dirt'!

Better get Going!

I'm just setting off for Ludlow, for the stone carving course I am running tomorrow at the Assembly Rooms - all packed up and ready - really I should have left about an hour ago, or anyway that was the plan.

Anna Poulton (brilliant artist!) on one of my courses at Old Sleningford

I made myself a list of jobs to do before going and so the last couple of days has been rush and whirr.  One of them was to get a new leaflet printed and sent out for my Open Studio.  Three other artists and I joined together to make a little flyer, as we work within a few miles of each other, for visitors so they would know about the studios open in this area.  Just by the skin of my teeth I've managed to get my allocation distributed to all the sites on my list, and I know the others have been working just as hard. 

Sue Slack from Lockton is a painter, who is fabulously bold and vibrant with colour.

Elisabeth Bailey is a potter, and I have a number of her jugs, bowls and mugs in the kitchen and they are used on a regular basis.

And Janet Hayton, who works in the next village, Appleton Le Moors, is a ceramicist.

And me of course. 

We've put a map on the back of the leaftlet, to help with planning a route.

So, just need to remember my sandwiches for the journey, really would like an ice-cream as it is so hot!, and I'm away.

Will bring back lots of pictures and tell you all about it.

The Sound of Stone

When I first became interested in stone I took part time work in a quarry, my job was delving flagstones.  This meant being at the rock face, prising slabs of stone from the surface, using the natural bed of the stone to rive the pieces free.  Some of the slabs were huge and the work was heavy going - I was on piece-rate and didn't fare very well - not so much due to the hard labour, but more because I spent time looking in stunned amazement each time I broke a flag away.  There before me was the surface of clean, fresh, raw stone which was seeing the light of day for the first time in millions of years!   But more, there is a sound, a wet suction cracking sound, which signals the parting of the stone from its place, which for me is sublime.  Music.

Stone continues to make sounds which please.  All the time I am working I am instinctively listening to the noise the hammer and chisel are making when connecting with the stone.  Sweet, clean tones, unless I'm stressing the stone too much, and then I hear it, and lighten my blows.  Often I test the soundness of a block of stone by striking it smartly with my hammer, it reveals its denseness, a dullness suggests I should be wary.

Different stones play different music.  When I was working Portland Stone for the first time I was thrilled by the sonorous ringing as I carved.  It was my White Bird - and it sang back to me throughout its making.

In fact Portland Stone is known for its 'ringing' and when many quarries were being worked in the area, it was full of sound, like bells pealing as the quarrymen hammered.

The Portland Sculpture Quarry Trust are working on a project with Evelyn Glennie, the percussionist, for the 2012 Oympics  on a composition to be played on a lithophone made from pieces of Portland stone, cut to make different sounds.

I'm hoping I've connected to this video from them successfully - if not, sorry - do go and listen on their site.