Sculpture

I (Steve) have been interested in sculpture all my life. When I was a kid I made models out of plasticine and pipe cleaners. I was never really interested in things like airfix kits, only stuff envisaged and made from raw materials. At the age of 16, in 1967, I went to Art School for a year. Apart from temporarily losing what faith I had in my ability, the main thing I got out of it was the joy of working in three dimensions and with printing techniques.

I made an occasional something over the years, out of wood, play dough, sand or snow, some more realistic, some abstract. A weekend course at the Sculpture Lounge rekindled my interest in metal sculpture and I’ve become steadily more involved with it. The first thing I made was a mobius strip based sculpture and several of the works below in the same weekend. I’ve been adding to the collection and have been getting the odd request. This year I decided to make a butterfly for someone and in the process Ruth requested one for our garden at the same time.

Wayne’s Ringlet

Our Ringlet

As a result of the popularity of these attempts, I recently I hired extra time in the studio to try to bring about a vision I had for a host of butterflies. I added Comma to the original Ringlet. These are popular so I will make some more.

Ringlets and Commas outside the Sculpture Lounge studio

One of the butterflies from above now ‘ripening’ in our garden

Here are some more examples.

Toad and Lily Pads from ailing cherry tree

Late sun in the garden, spoon insect with Double Strip Mobius in the background

Most Recent Post

End of an Arch, Start of Ellie 2

In 2015 I made an arch from pollarded Sycamore branches, to mark the begining of the main steps down the garden. I didn’t expect it to last long. A bit later I added a carved sycamore owl to it. The insects were boring holes in to it already.

2026 and high winds have finally brought the arch down. It has done good service for wood from our own garden.

At the same time my latest sculpture project is coming along nicely. Something to smile at till the arch returns. As it is a cherry tree that had to go, carving needs to be done in stages. It is very soft and prone to split at first in parts then dries out much harder. Time to leave it for a while longer and decide how much more work to do when it has dried out more.