Latest News
This is the page where I talk a little bit about some of the projects which I've made or been involved with. The most recent entry is at the top of the page. I hope you like them!
To see what I've been up to more recently, please go to my blog by clicking on this link. There is a link on the blog to bring you back to this page.
3/11/11
Today I gave a client his carved knife handle...
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...and then finished off the second coat of lime render at Boiling Wells. Busy day!
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22/10/11
I've finally made a sign for my workshop! Here it is...
You can see more of my sign making commissions by clicking on this link here
Apart from this, I spent two days this week learning the art of making and applying lime render.We were rendering the wall of the roundhouse at Boiling Wells, which you can see being built below in the diary entry for 23/3/11. It's particularly useful for covering walls that need to 'breathe' and move a little (e.g.the strawbale walls that we were applying the render to).The downside is that lime is nasty, nasty stuff if you get it on you. However, job done with no serious injury and thanks to Rik Lander for advising and helping us. You can see his own incredible strawbale structure at www.bristolgreenhouse.co.uk/studio
17/10/11
Last week I ran two very enjoyable workshops for the National Health Service 'Fresh Arts' project, teaching traditional woodcarving techniques. A really nice group of people attended them and hopefully they enjoyed the sessions as much as I did. Here are a couple of pictures from the sessions below:
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6/10/11
So, what's been going on in the last couple of months? I have taken a three day long first aid course, so am now a qualified first aider at work in addition to holding a paediatric first aid certificate. Both are very useful if you work a lot teaching people to use sharp tools, but I hope that I never need to use them! I also found out that I have passed my PTLLS (Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector) course, so now have a teaching qualification too.
Just today I've finishing carving an Opinel knife handle for a commission. I've always wanted to do one, so thanks Ashley for letting me get the chance. One side of the handle has blackberries and a spider on it, while the other has bramble flowers and a bee, following his designs. Here are some images, one of each side. You can find out more about them by clicking on the link here. The knife is a beechwood-handled No. 10 Opinel and the wooden parts of the handle are 10.5 cm (41/4") long:
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I've also been doing some leatherworking for the first time, having come across some leather, rivets and poppers in the loft of the house that I've moved in to (and also got the landlady's permission to use some of it). First things first, sheaths for my axes and billhooks which have been desperately needing them!
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My Newton and Leicestershire pattern 'Elwell' billhooks.The Leicestershire is shown on the right.
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A sheath and harness for safely carrying the hatchet on my belt. The harness isn't my design, by the way. |
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As well as these, I have been carving a sign to go outside my workshop. No photos yet unfortunately, but I'll post them when it's up and finished.
There were plans to run more weekday green woodworking and woodcarving sessions at Boiling Wells beginning in September, but unfortunately we couldn't get enough people to come to justify it. However, a spooncarving Sunday workshop is planned for November as well as a weekend-long stool making workshop in December. I'll also be running noticeboard-making workshops at the site with local youths very soon, as well as making more noticeboards with local conservation volunteers in January. Next week there will be two evening classes in woodcarving with health service staff as part of their art club, which I'm looking forward to a lot.
I'm hoping to start running more woodcarving classes in the area soon. There is definitely space for an experienced tutor around here, so watch this space!
26/8/11
I've been doing quite a bit of lettercutting recently. This sign was made for Lawrence Weston City Farm in Bristol and is situated at the entrance to a small area of woodland bordered by water-filled drainage channels called 'rhynes'. Water voles have recently been spotted in the rhynes there, which is very exciting for the farm as they are very rare in Britain. The boards are oak and the posts are sweet chestnut, which should last a while as it is durable outdoors. The letters were carved and then painted in and are accompanied by carvings of a water vole and cuckoo pint. You can see more about it here
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A couple of weeks before finishing this, I spent four enjoyable days working at Lawrence Weston farm with a group of local young people.We carved four information posts which were installed in the wood. These were also made from sweet chestnut.
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There was more lettercutting work making three inscribed elm chopping boards for wedding presents. Elm is not only beautiful but also has an interlocking grain that resists splitting well, so is ideal for this purpose. The boards were finished with olive oil.
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19/7/11
I just saw this image, which is the header for the 'Crafts and Arts' section of a directory website promoting ethical, sustainable goods and services for the South West area of England. The website address is www.ecojam.org. Wonder whose hands they might be?
Image copyright William Bolton
I also currently have some work in 'Inspired', an exhibition curated by the very talented furniture designer Sue Darlison. It will be running at Ashton Court mansion in Bristol untill the 24th July.
Another exciting thing happening soon- one of the noticeboards made with the group from St Anne's Park (see the entry for the 24/2/11 below) is to be shown in the 'M-shed', the multi-million pound refitted industrial museum on the edge of Bristol harbour.
Apart from these, I'm preparing to begin the next session of the woodcarving and woodworking course at Boiling Wells in St Werburghs, Bristol and doing work there with various groups of different ages and backgrounds. The site is looking great-especially the plum and apple trees, which are in grave danger of breaking under the weight of fruit on them!
18/6/11
It's been a very busy couple of weeks. Last week was largely spent helping to build a recording studio for the Greenpeace field at the Glastonbury festival at Pilton in Somerset. The building was designed by Tom Redfern and is made from a roundwood larch frame which will have strawbale walls. Cowshed recording studios (a London-based studios) will be recording artists such as Jah Wobble and Billy Bragg in there during the festival and then cutting a limited edition disc, proceeds from the sale of which will go to Greenpeace. A great project to be given the opportunity to be involved with. Here's a picture of the work in progress...
Apart from this, there were two days spent running a woodcarving class for pupils at Meadowbrook Primary School at Bradley Stoke in Bristol. Forty-eight year six pupils all participated in carving designs onto two sweet chestnut posts, over the course of two days. The posts will eventually be set into the school grounds.
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Yesterday the game for Thrupp Lake nature reserve, near Radley in Oxfordshire, was delivered to them. The place is very interesting, being disused gravel pits that were saved by local campaigns from being infilled with slurry from local power stations. Now they are a wildlife haven. Whilst there I saw a bee orchid, amongst other things. Whilst travelling there and back, it was great to see fields full of poppies, red kites flying and the famous 'White Horse of Uffington' hillside chalk figure, thought to be about 5,000 years old.
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Thrupp Lake itself. You can find out more about it here |
And finally, after getting back from Oxfordshire it was the preview for the Meta Anatomica show. The setting could not be better, an old mortuary chapel in Bath. The show looks fantastic and everyone has produced great work to show next to yet again! Talk was already starting about what the subject for the next Meta show could be, after three successful group shows so far. Watch this space...
The Walcot Chapel, on Walcot Street in Bath |
31/5/11
Things have been a bit quieter at Boiling Wells recently, thanks to cuts to charities funding, so I've been doing a bit of my own carving work as well as a few commissions. At the moment, I've just completed a game for a nature reserve in Oxfordshire. It is a cross between croquet and crazy golf, with some 'hoops' having moving parts. Here are some images of it...
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As well as this project, there has been a lot to do on a carving to be shown in 'Meta Anatomica', which will be held in June at the Walcot Chapel in Bath. My piece will be a skull carved from sycamore and boxwood. It is from an imaginary bird, which would eat the mechanical insects that I have made previously (see here). To eat these tough beasties, it has several adaptations. It's skull is quite robust, so that it has become flightless due to the extra weight. It has a tough beak with a fine point, to break up the bugs and remove indigestible mechanical parts. It also has a nozzle on the beak, which squirts a sticky mucus to disable any dangerous mechanical defenses that the bugs may have. This nozzle is actually based on an existing seabird's, the fulmar. Here is the unfinished skull:
23/3/11
What an idyllic day! On one of the first really warm days of the year, I spent today running a woodcarving class with people from 'Shift Bristol', a group who are building a roundhouse at St Werburghs City Farm's Boiling Wells site, in Bristol. It's the same place that I run the 'Heritage Crafts' course. The sun was shining and everyone really enjoyed carving outside amid the blossom and buds coming out at the beginning of spring. I even had a cheeky carve myself. The carved oak boards will eventually be installed in the roundhouse to make a frieze, with carvings by as many of the people who worked on the roundhouse as possible. I carved a long-tailed tit, as they are one of my favourite birds and a group of them are often fluttering around the Boiling Wells site, twittering away to each other. A bit of soot from the bottom of the kettle made a nice makeshift ink/stain when mixed with some Danish oil too.
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Afternoon
break, with the roundhouse in the background |
Putting the roof on
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Carving workshop next to the yurt
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A sooty long-tailed
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The sign for Greenwood furniture is also completed, and I'm very happy with how it looks. It will hang like a pub sign, with the design routed out and painted on both sides of it. It is made from solid oak and is three feet (90 cm) square. The four smaller dots on the frame are oak pegs holding the tenon joints. The larger dots are oak covers over the washers and nuts holding the 'eye bolts' in place.
24/2/11
I've been working this week with a group of local people from the St Anne's Park area of Bristol to produce two noticeboards celebrating the area, in partnership with Bristol City Council's Learning Communities Team.
Everyone has worked really hard and given it all a good go, even when they weren't too confident with carving. They are a great group to be working with and the noticeboards are looking great too. Well done to them all and here's hoping that the new community centre is all sorted soon!
5/2/11
Yesterday i finished this carved owl for a client's birthday. You can see more images by clicking here. It's been nice getting back to doing some carving, after so much teaching and training recently (although they are great as well). I'm currently studying for a further education teaching qualification and also doing a first aid course, as well as teaching young people who are disengaged from the educational system and also teaching woodcarving and green woodworking on the 'Heritage crafts' course. The course is still running-we have people on it even in the wet and cold winter- which is fantastic! I am just finishing off the shop sign, the panel of which has also doubled as a background for the picture above.
4/1/11
Happy new year! Most of my time at the moment is being taken up with teaching and going on relevant courses in first aid etc. (as well as still learning to drive). There is a job coming up in February working with Bristol city council's 'learning communities' team, making two carved noticeboards with local people to celebrate the history of St Anne's Park, an area of Bristol. I'm really looking forward to it.
The Heritage Crafts course's first two 'terms' (the inverted commas are there because the dates don't follow academic terms) went very well indeed, with lots of great feedback, so we are going to run it into 2011 if enough people are interested, with the first session of next 'term' on the 25th January. It was a lot of fun and the people who attended were a really nice bunch. In fact, it went so well that I'm looking into possibly starting more courses - perhaps during evenings or weekends, depending on sourcing a suitable venue.
I'm currently also working on an oak sign for a local shop called 'Greenwood furniture',which sells furniture produced largely by local craftspeople from English timbers. There are more workshops coming up at Lawrence Weston City Farm and, hopefully, still the interesting bowl project in Birmingham to look forward to. Oh, and the next 'Meta' show will be at the Walcot chapel in Bath in June this year, on the theme of 'Anatomy'-still thinking of a good subject to choose for that one.
2/10/10
There are pictures of the sculpture ('Gramophone Weevil') which went to Westonbirt on the site now- just click on this link. The first session of the Heritage Crafts course at Boiling Wells seemed to go well and I'm looking forward to next week. Now to get on with the other jobs that were put on hold whilst writing all those handouts...
21/8/10
Off tomorrow to Westonbirt Arboretum to drop off the sculpture for the Festival of the Tree. If any of you happen to be going (27th-30th August), it will be in the 'One Tree, Twelve Routes' exhibition in the Great Oak Hall. I'm very excited! Unfortunately, no pictures of it yet, until I can work out how to get them off my new camera. I have spent most of the last three days writing handouts for the carving and green woodworking course which is beginning in a month's time at the beautiful Boiling Wells site in St Werburghs, Bristol. It's been a lot of work but enjoyable- it's nice to have a particular reason to think carefully about aspects of what I do and why they are the way that they are. I hope that the students enjoy reading the handouts as much (and if you are in the area and interested in joining the course-do get in touch - there are still places!). I'm also discussing carving a bowl for someone in Birmingham, using a favourite tree from their garden which had to be felled. Projects like this are great, a chance to carve stories onto bowls again is always interesting and exciting. The person who has enquired about it also found me via this website by chance, which is even better- all that sweating over a hot keyboard writing this site hasn't been wasted! Oh, and the workshops at Lawrence Weston City Farm went really well- a genuinely nice group of young people who did some very good work. Hopefully, I'll be involved in making four more posts for the farm soon, so keep an eye out if you're in the area.
Here are some images of the Lawrence Weston post carvers in action, as well as one of the posts after installation.
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26/7/10
I have been asked by staff at Bristol museum to give a comment as a woodcarver and sculptor which will be used in a new exhibition. A three-dimensional scan has been made of a carved wooden stool made by an Asante craftsman in the nineteenth century and different specialists are making comments about how they view the uses of the scanning technique. Here's mine:
'Scanning technology such as this is very useful in allowing the study of
designs that may otherwise be inaccessible or even objects that have since
been destroyed. Using such detailed images could allow a carver to reproduce
such objects as closely as possible to the original. These scans are also
interesting because they can be used to produce three-dimensional reproductions
by a process called rapid prototyping, where a computer takes such a scanned
virtual model and uses it to carve an object from wood using computer-guided
spinning blades, or sometimes to build a three-dimensional object layer-by-layer,
using materials such as plastics or resins.
Rapid prototyping has obvious use to a woodcarver in producing long pieces
of repetitive design that will be painted or gilded and could be monotonous
to make by hand, for example on picture frames. The questions raised by this
technology for a woodcarver are perhaps the most interesting thing for me.
How do handmade carved pieces differ from ones produced by machines from designs?
How do these differences justify the time and expense involved in producing
a carving? One difference may be the quality of the finish, as edged tools
in experienced hands give a much more polished cut than the spinning blades
used to produce machined designs. Another is the unique and subtle way that
a carving done by hand can work around the hidden flaws and surprises in the
wood or stone that a machine does not register in it's blind reproduction
of the original design. This process of discovery is one of the most enjoyable
(and sometimes frustrating!) things about making a carving. But perhaps the
most important to me when looking at this carved object is it's record of
a moment in the past; of a person's skilled work, perhaps over a long period,
in a time and place so different to the one that I live in.
What did the carver look like? What tools did they use? Where did they get
the wood from? What was around when the stool was being made? Was it made
for tourists or for a important local person? Some things we can work out
but some things, as in all the best tales, we can never know.'
21/7/10
Just got back from the Larmer Tree festival- what a great place! The highlight was probably watching a macaw fly over the main lawn at dusk, while the reggae legend Rico sang "Wonderful World' with Jools Holland's band.
So here are a couple of pictures of the slugs in situ:
Now on to the next projects: the Westonbirt piece, the sign and workshops at Lawrence Weston City Farm in Bristol.
7/7/10
Busy, busy! The gorse rings turned out beautifully (see them here). Now, it's on to finishing three large wooden crash-helmet-wearing slug sculptures which will be benches at the Larmer Tree festival next week (pictures when I get the chance to download them!). The 'Inspired' exhibition will be on the week afterwards at Ashton Court (see below) and then on to completing the sculpture for Westonbirt Festival of the Tree and hopefully a commission to make a wooden sign for a local ethical furniture supplier. And carrying on learning to drive. And planning a heritage crafts carving and green woodworking course that I will be teaching with a friend at the beautiful Boiling Wells site in Bristol this winter. Phew!
27/5/10
Just received a commission to carve an engagement ring from gorse wood with silver inlays. A very nice project - the wood was found by the client and his girlfriend on a beach in the Moray Firth, Scotland. It's definitely going to be a busy summer!
20/5/10
Back to work after injury and it feels great to be able to carve again. I have just finished carving a memorial text on a bench for someone. I was recommended to them by the Head Warden of the National Trust site that the oak bench was made for last summer. It's great that the warden liked it enough to recommend me for further work onsite - thanks Bill! The RBSA show got some very favourable comment. The next big projects are making a piece for the Festival of the Tree at Westonbirt Arboretum in August as well as some big wooden slugs for the Larmer Tree Festival in July. Some of my work will also be on show in the prestigious 'Inspired' exhibition at Ashton Court in Bristol in July, which is being organised by the talented furniture maker Sue Darlison. There is also ongoing work at the Boiling Wells project in St Werburgh's, Bristol, which works with young people who aren't in education or employment, teaching them various woodworking skills. Oh, and I still have to learn to drive. Phew! here comes a busy (but hopefully great) summer!
9/3/10
Managed to run a one day carving workshop despite fracturing one elbow and spraining the other arm 6 days previously. A lovely sunny morning to set up in a copse on the edge of Bath certainly helped. On returning home, I found that I have had two sculptures chosen for the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Open exhibition at the RBSA, Brook St. Birmingham UK. Apparently it is the oldest society of artists in Britain (one previous president of the society was the noted artist Edward Burne-Jones), so it feels like quite an honour to have been selected. One of the pieces is 'Velocivenator satiei' and the other is the osteotome beetle. There are no finished pictures of the latter online yet as I managed to finish it just in time to take it to Birmingham! Here is a work-in progress picture for you though:
As soon as I return from the exhibition private view there is a meeting to discuss an inscription on an oak bench to go in the National Trust's Leigh Woods site, where I have already carved and constructed a bench last year. Lets hope the arms can hold up okay during this busy week!!
19/2/10
Spent a couple of days this week helping a friend, Nick Snellar, to sculpt a hollow oak tree trunk which is destined to be a play sculpture at the Eden Project in Cornwall. Also, I have just finished two ceramic stamps for Steve Carter (see Here). There has also been a new insect made, photos of which I will post as soon as I can.
31/12/09
Bit of a change to the usual. I have contributed an EP cover for a friend's record which is to be released in February. The EP is called 'Moth in the Motor' by Rachael Dadd and is to be released on Broken Sound Music. As part of the release, the people at Broken Sound have asked for folks to contribute one-off covers, which are to be advertised on their website and also shown at the launch gig for the record at Cafe Oto in Dalston, London in February. If a cover is sold, the profits go back to the artist. My cover (shown below) is a collage, with the moth being made up of salvaged antique wood veneers including beech, sweet chestnut, bubinga and makore. The lettering was done with Letraset inherited from my father. A refreshing change to the sort of things that I usually make and good luck to Rachael with the record.
13/11/09
Just spent the last two weeks carving a commission piece for the back garden of a very nice local family in not-always-very-nice weather. A favourite Robinia tree had to be felled so, rather than removing it altogether, they wanted to have it turned into a sculpture. It is now still a forked tree trunk left standing but has an owl and woodpecker carved into it and a spiral running up the trunk. For more information, click on this link: Garden Sculpture.
Projects currently in the pipeline include:
More ceramic stamps for local ceramicist Steve Carter (see below and links page) as he is very pleased with the others that I have made for him,
A bowl for my friend's fifth wedding anniversary (which is traditionally when wooden gifts are given). For more information and images of the completed bowl, click here
A large sculpture to be used in next year's 'Festival of the Tree' at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire. This is one of the biggest national woodworking shows and I have been invited to make a piece for it- for which I feel very honoured. A tulip tree has been felled and a range of makers are to produce very differing items from it's timber, including jewellery, bowls, bespoke fine furniture etc. My piece will probably be along similar lines to the insects and crustacean sculptures which can be seen in the Gallery page, only much larger this time!
Also, I am hopefully going to be carving an interpretation panel from oak for a local mediaeval tithe barn which is being restored in Nailsea. Still early days on that one so far.
Oh, and on top of all this, I'm working one day a week with lads who have been excluded from school, doing a creative woodwork group at the Boiling Wells site in St Werburghs, Bristol. A beautiful oasis of green in the city.
31/8/09
I went up to Westonbirt arboretum in Gloucestershire yesterday to see the 'Festival of the Tree'. The woodworkers cooperative which I'm a member and director of (The Forest of Avon Wood Products) had a stall there with members showing their work, so it seemed a good idea to pop in. It was a very nice show and I spent too much money on new tools, as is to be expected!
The crustacean is going together nicely, as is the bench, although it is far easier to do the former, as I can only just move the smallest components of the latter! There is still a glass case to be made to protect the crustacean sculpture though. There are some images here of work on both of them:
Crustacean in process of construction-the eyes are about 1cm (approx. .33 of an inch)from top to bottom
A carving on the oak bench (see more in the Gallery-theres a link at the bottom of this page)
Grey Dagger moth caterpillar and Lobster moth
caterpillar on oak twig
3/8/09
The crustacean seems to be going well as is the bench. I got news yesterday that my work has been chosen for a project at the prestigious 'Festival of the Tree' at Westonbirt Arboretum next August. A tulipwood tree has been felled and pieces of it are being used by artists and makers to produce a variety of work illustrating the range of woodworking. The chap in charge likes my insects and would like me to be one of those involved. Very good news!
5/6/09
Been a while since the last update, so here goes! Am currently making a carved wooden hunting crustacean that is inspired by a French piano piece. The music is called 'Desiccated embryos' and was written by Erik Satie in the early 20th century. The music's a lot prettier than the name suggests. It is to go in 'Metamarine', the next show from the same group who put on 'Metainsecta' last year at the Centrespace Gallery, Bristol (see Projects and Exhibitions). This new show is going to be at the Grant Bradley Gallery, Bedminster, Bristol from the 7th to the 31st October. We had a good time at the last one, got glowing reviews and about 700 people turned up, so it seemed a great idea to do it again! The work to be submitted is already sounding as good as the last one, if not better.
Work has also begun on the bench for the National Trust in Leigh woods, Bristol. The oak boards have been cut, using a two-person Alaskan chainsaw mill. Next, to clean them up and then begin carving in the beautiful woods.
Also this summer, I'll be hopefully demonstrating on the Forest of Avon stand at Glastonbury festival, the Festival of the Tree and the Big Green Gathering. Come and say hello!
21/3/09
A busy week! Collected my chainsaw license, moved house and finished my proposals for the Stokeleigh camp bench.
19/2/09
I received an image of the piece 'Hinewai calling from the mist' from Paul Deans by email, as well as the Maori folk tale which it is taken from. They are both shown here as the story behind the sculpture is rather lovely too. Thank you Paul!
(Image copyright and courtesy of Paul Deans)
UENUKU AND THE MIST GIRL
"As he walked along the narrow path between the trees, Uenuku stared
at the column of mist standing over the lake. He had often seen mist lying
low over the water but never a column of it standing up like the trunk of
a tall tree. He quickened his step, overcome with curiosity. At the edge of
the forest, close to the beach, he stopped. Two young women were bathing in
the still water. He could see that they were beautiful even through the veils
of mist that wrapped around them like a cloud. Further out the air was clear,
but nearer to the shore everything had turned to the silver in the clinging
cloud. These two women were Hine-pukohu-rangi, the Girl of the Mist and her
sister Hine-wai the Misty Rain Girl. They had come down from the clouds to
bathe in the clear water of the lake.
As he looked at them Uenuku felt a strange sensation come over him. He seemed
to be drawn to them by a powerful force. They looked at him with clear eyes,
unafraid and wondering. Uenuku knelt down at the water’s edge and said
to the Mist Girl, “I am Uenuku. Tell me your name.”
“I am Hine-pukoho-rangi, daughter of the sky. I am the Girl of the Mist”
Uenuku stretched out his arms. “Come and live with me in this world
of light,” he said, “I have never seen a woman as beautiful as
you. I am strong and will take care of you.”>
“I cannot leave my home,” the Mist Girl replied. “Even now
my sister is waiting for me to return.”
“Ah, you will love this world,” Uenuku pleaded. “It is not
cold and empty like the space above. There is fire and warmth here, with the
summer sun shinning through the leaves of the trees and in winter the glowing
fire on the hearth. There are birds and their songs, men and women and their
laughter. Come with me Girl of the Mist.”
She took a step towards him and drew back. “You would not be happy with
me,” she said.
“I would always love you,” Uenuku said simply.
“But you do not understand. I come from the Outer Space, and though
I might spend the night with you, I should have to return to my home in the
heavens as soon as the sky grew light.”
Uenuku was stubborn. “I still want,” he said. “Even though
I shall be lonely through the day, please come and live with me.”
The Mist Girl smiled. “I shall come home with you,” she said.
No one saw Uenuku and his bride as they slipped into the whare when the firelight
glowed in the creeping darkness. No one heard his words of love as he took
her into his arms. In the morning before the sun had risen over the hills,
the Mist Girl met her sister. They seemed to mingle like two clouds and drifted
upwards before the sun’s rays could pierce them.
Every morning the Mist Girl left her husband and every evening she joined
him when the shadows stole across the Marae. As the summer days grew longer
the women began to poke fun at Uenuku.
“You say you have a bride in your whare,” they laughed. “Where
is your bride, Uenuku, this bride we have never seen? Perhaps she is only
a log of wood or a bundle of korari. Show her to us and we will believe you
when you say she is beautiful.”
There was a little time between the sinking of the sun and his rising again.
During the long hours of daylight Uenuku missed the laughter of the Mist Girl
and longed to hear her voice lifted up in song, and to see her take her place
among the poi-dancers.
In the end he could bear the absence of his wife no longer. One day he tied
mats across the windows and pushed moss into the crevices between the planks.
When the door was shut the whare was dark as a moonless night when the clouds
have covered the covered the sky.
That night the Mist Girl entered the whare unsuspecting. The hours of darkness
passed until the first light flushed the eastern sky and the Rain Girl called
to her sister.
“Come, Hine, we must rise up from the earth.”
“I am coming,” the Mist Girl answered and felt round in the darkness
for her cloak.
“What are you doing?” Uenuku asked.
“It is time for me to go.”
“Nonsense,” he replied, pretending to be half-asleep. “Why
are you disturbing me? Look around you there is no light anywhere.”
“But morning must be near. My sister has called to me.”
“Hine-wai is mistaken. Perhaps she has seen the moonlight or the starlight.
There is no light anywhere. Go to sleep again.”
Hine-pukohu-rangi lay down again. “She must be mistaken,” she
said, “but it is strange. I do not understand it. She has never made
such a mistake before.”
The Misty Rain Girl kept calling her and her voice was mingled with the sounds
of the waking birds, but Uenuku maintained that she was mistaken. Presently
she could wait no longer, and the husband and wife heard her voice growing
fainter as she left them.
“I am sure there is something wrong,” the Mist Girl said, suddenly
wide-awake. “Listen I can hear the forest birds singing.”
They listened. Hine-wai had gone but the song of the birds was very loud and
there were voices on the Marae. Hine-pukohu-rangi ran to the door, forgetting
her cloak. She opened it and the broad daylight flooded the whare. She stood
there a moment and a gasp of amazement went up from the people, for the Mist
Girl was so slender and beautiful that no one had ever seen anything so wonderful
before. She did not look as though she belonged to the earth.
Uenuku followed her out, smiling because everyone was envying him his wife.
As he passed through the doorway, Hine sprang onto the roof of the house and
climbed to the ridgepole. Her long hair covered her body.
The exclamations of the people were silenced as she began to sing. It was
a sad song; there was pain in it, and longing, and love for Uenuku. Then a
strange thing happened.
Out of the clear sky a cloud drifted down. It wreathed itself around her,
fold on fold, until she could no longer be seen. Only her voice could be heard
coming from the tiny cloud. Then the song stopped and there was silence. The
cloud drifted away from the roof. It rose upwards, higher and higher, until
it seemed to dissolve in the bright sunshine, which bathed the empty ridgepole
in a glow of golden light.
Uenuku was heart-broken. He could not meet the pitying eyes of his friends.
His whare was cold and cheerless. Night after night he waited for the Mist
Girl to return, but she never came back.
One day he left his home and set out on a long search for his wife. He met
with many adventures and passed through strange countries but no one could
tell him what had become of Hine-puhoku-rangi.
As his search went on, year after year, he grew old and bent and toothless,
and at last, lonely and disappointed, he died in a distant country.
He had paid for his thoughtlessness and pride, and so the far gods of space
took pity on him. They lifted up his old body and changed him into a many-coloured
rainbow and set him in the sky where everyone could see him.
Hine-pukohu-rangi still rises when the sun comes over the hills and warms
the damp earth, while Uenuku, the shining rainbow, circles his lovely wife
with a band of glowing colour."
10/2/09
Got an email from the NZ sculptor Paul Deans yesterday. Eleven years ago, I saw a carving of his called 'Hinewai calling from the mist' in a gallery in a town in New Zealand called Akaroa. It made a big impression on me and influenced many subsequent carvings but over the years I forgot the sculptors name. Just on the off chance, I emailed the Akaroa tourist office giving the tiny scraps of information that I remembered (the piece's title, where the gallery was and the rough date that I saw it). Amazingly, Maryn Curry managed to find out for me not only Pauls name and website address but also the name of the gallery. The owner of the gallery now owns the piece. Well done and thank you to Maryn and yet again the internet amazes me.
5/2/09
Currently, one of the most exciting upcoming potential projects is to design and make a bench to be sited in September at Stokeleigh Camp, in Leigh Woods. This is a beautiful National Trust owned Iron Age hill fort in woodland overlooking the Avon Gorge in Bristol. The bench will be made from oak which has been felled in the same woods. It will reference the history of the area, the local celtic tribes and the donation of the hillfort to the National Trust by the Wills family in 1909. A great chance to get stuck into some research resulting, hopefully, in a really interesting final piece.
Next week, spurred on by the job above, I'll be doing a course which wil lead (after passing an assessment exam!!) to getting a chainsaw license which will enable me to do chainsaw carving legally on other peoples land. Very exciting!
I've also been offered a commission to produce one-off woodblock stamps for local ceramicist Steve Carter. The boxwood stamps will last well and Steve has said that he finds them a pleasure to use.
After the great success of the 'Metainsecta' show, another is in the pipeline. Provisionally entitled 'Meta aquatica' it is still very much in the planning stages, but watch this space! Work has already started on a strange hunting crustacean sculpture.
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