My work is born from romanticism.
I grew up on a hill farm in Dorset, England. This is where my creative core was formalised.
The chalk, the flint, the twisted roots, the copses along the pathways carved into the hillsides by a history of wandering animals driven by my ancestors.
This is the place from which my work originates and my inspiration comes.
As far as I remember I have been compelled to whittle, to carve, to mould and shape materials pulled from the earth.
Life experiences have enhanced my creative vocabulary. Through love, loss, fatherhood, travel and learning, have all shaped my making and my choice of materials, from stone, to now silver and gold.
My recent work combines four ideas or characters to produce pieces with a dialogue.
The running horse’s leg is a symbol of freedom, spontaneity and a playfull wildness.
The cowboy is touched-on with the use of the string tie. He is a lonesome, romantic wanderer who engulfed my imagination as a child.
The ram’s head appears on rings, cuffs earrings and neckties. Throughout history in art and literature the ram is a romantic figure. He is strong yet vulnerable, he is stubborn but wise and melancholic but passionate.
Then there are the new born lambs legs with their small clove hooves lightly dipped in gold, these represent the fragility of life and the vulnerability of the innocent while also singing of optimism that comes with new life.
I love the intimacy of jewellery. I find the desire to adorn the body powerful and enjoy the idea that the pieces I make then become treasured and precious... more because of their contact to the bearer than their material worth.
They grow richer and deeper in meaning after I have let them go.