Busy year 2013

It been a long time since i updated my blog as I have been so busy this year. Things are slowing down, which is sort of good as it is just getting colder, and for all those people that work outside lets hope its not as harsh and lengthy a winter as last year! I have done lots of house restoration work this year. The most extreme transformation is this house in Easton, Bristol, which is possibly the worst I have seen still standing!
Before..

 And after

 

I also attended the Bristol festival of stone as an exhibitor, carving a very big salmon. I carved a prototype to see if it would work before attempting the larger sculpture out of a block of Portland.

Bath stone mini fish..

The larger fish is still a work in progress, which I am hoping to complete over the winter as the work is tailing off, hopefully next to a heat source of some sort. This is my most recent picture of it.

And below the still, *sigh* unfinished fish in progress stop motion film, this film is about 3 weeks worth of work.

I have just complete two carvings in Italian Slate for the two lodges of the R.A.O.B. which, for anyone that doesn't know is short for the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (link to Wiki for the curious). And for the really curious there is a view of the Grand Lodge of England, brilliantly ostentatious fire place in a picture of the interior, and their website is here, lots of guys in regalia.

The first carving was for the Queen of the West Lodge, and is fairly straight forward in a geometric way, with an intertwining of the initials.

 

ignore the orange, I was zesting some Portuguese tarts

Slate is very tough and tends to laminate if not treated with care and there were a few hairy moments getting in all the tight spaces, but it polishes up really well and is a lovely material and great for fine details. A coating of linseed oil makes the finish.

The second plaque was for the Prior Park Lodge who wanted something more elaborate, and also something less strict in structure. The picture below shows the project in various stages, which is a representation of a buffalo. I was limited to only 10mm of stone, and spent a week playing with plasticine, (invented in Bathhampton) before reaching anything that vaguely looked acceptable. I quite like it but I think the Buffs may think it lacks fierceness, the jury is still out on this one.

 

Had a great day last Friday in a carve off competition with two french sculptors, with plenty of music, and cider. The sun came out and the rain mostly stayed away. It was a pre-launch for a huge event next summer - Festival of stone Bristol 2013 which will involve 50 or more sculptors.

The venue was Spike Island, Bristol. Both teams started with a piece of stone 400 x400 x 600 kindly supplied by Phidias Neo-classical Ltd.

I had the privilege of being partnered with Ben Dearnely (above) who produced the carving of the Mark Foster torso now sited in Southgate, Bath.

We shared the block of stone and Ben carved the man, myself the woman, on the theme of  'Amour'.

Time was limited, we had only six hours, and sketched out our design on the way over from Bath, so all in all it was a success.

 Congrats to both teams, many thanks to all the people who gave up their time to make the day a success and for providing some lovely food, and oodles of beer and cider. And thanks to the accordion player who kept us going!

We all had a great time at the West Fest, in Weston Village, Bath, and thankfully the weather stayed with us all day, until the evening.

Many thanks to my helpers on the day, Michael Myers busy face booking below and Zoe Tinker who both stuck with it for the whole day. Thanks guys.

 A picture of Michael's seed pod nearing completion

 Michael face booking again!

 Me and my cheeky squirrel

 The stone carving exhibition was a quiet success, as we were a bit out of the main throng, and thankfully a fair distance from the serious cider drinkers at the Crown and Anchor who were madly dancing and singing along to the Wurzels , by the time we shut up shop and headed down there for a well deserved pint.


Also had some great pictures in black and white taken by Ian Thomson which are on Flickr on these links

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ian-thomson/7321627244/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ian-thomson/7321626678/in/photostream

And there is a great video of the day, (though we arent in it *sniff*)

West Fest 2012 

The previous post is of all my work that was on display at the Arts Trail, and is now up for sale!

The  Newbridge Arts Trail weekend was a great success, lots of people came through the door of the Minerva Centre and I really enjoyed it, though it was exhausting.

It was great to be able to finally put my work on display, and I met loads of lovely new people.

Elizabeth of Minerva

 Many thanks to Elizabeth and Chris for allowing us to use their home and lovely garden, and we were so blessed with the perfect weather as well. In fact I can't think of a better place to spend the weekend.

So its back to work for me in preparation for a stone carving in action exhibition at the Jubilee 'West Fest'  and here is hoping that the weather will be just as kind.

Hayley D1's photostream

Hayley D1's photostream on Flickr.