I seem to have missed April and May! Well now it is summer and I have started a wood carving for a change. The Tulip wood has arrived in nice wide planks, 70mm and 48mm thick, though these are sold as 75 and 50mm, so I have had to re-jig the patterns I've drawn out a little. I am gluing them together with a foaming polyurethane adhesive which reacts to water, so cannot, it seems, be washed off the fingers. I am band-sawing out rough leg and body shapes, surrounded by clamps and weights and sawdust. I've sharpened my chisels and am really nearly ready to start. It is going to be a Golden Calf. Mark Adlington took me to his beautiful house in Lozère where the farm next door has a host of golden Aubrac calves, all ages and sizes, in a yard, a barn and flower filled meadows. So I have enough material. Gary says he can do the gold leafing, if I can cede that much control. The foundry has cast the small plaster horses I was making a couple of months ago in wax and they are waiting for me to go in and work on them before spruing up for ceramic shelling and casting in bronze. Tomorrow. On Wednesday the exhibition Gold Silver Bronze opens at Jagged Art in Marylebone, where I have a small bronze Pelican. Had thought the horses or the golden calf would be ready for the show, but somehow I am behind or they are ahead of schedule... Meanwhile my Pygmy Rabbit and Smooth Cat are in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the big black sow and cast iron stag are in a garden behind the Campden Gallery in Chipping Campden.
prev
