Sculpture has been a preoccupation for most of my life. My influences are a combination of Gothic carving where there is so much humour and well-balanced design and the bolder, starker patterns of tribal sculpture from the West coast of Africa where I lived for a brief spell as a child.
To me, carving is the removal of the stuff which does not matter. When the sculpture is finished there is no part which is unnecessary.
My work is mainly autobiographical. Every sculpture has a ‘story’ and this is particularly true of ‘Making a Beeline’ (first row on the left). A bee-keeping friend, coming into our garden one hot summer afternoon, found my husband taking a break from mowing the lawn cigarette in hand. This friend asked if he could have some tobacco as he wanted to burn it underneath his hives. This was to eradicate whatever disease the bees had developed. Some years later I carved this sculpture which looks like a large rolled-up cigarette on which there are bees swarming up it’s side.
Please click on the image to view the complete sculpture.
