Portfolio
The act of carving in stone is a meditation in itself, the slow pace, the attention to detail, and the sound of the mallet on the stone is an antidote to the stresses of life.

Second examination of the River Dart weaving through the surrounding landscape.

My first piece in marble, which turned out to be very hard to work in with only hand tools. I invested in a machine called a Woodpecker, which is much like a jackhammer for more delicate work than roads. 

I started this carving in the spring 2020 and wanted to carve something beautiful, so started to carve a Calla lily. After a while with the first lockdown raging around me, I turned the stone over and started to carve a corona virus representation instead.

The centre of the virus became a prison cell and inside that we can see the Earth.

For health reasons I couldn’t work so I spent the next year at home on my own, pretty much imprisoned and not doing very much. In the early spring of 2021 after I had had the first jab and it was getting more pleasant to work outside, I finally finished the sculpture.
I think it should be fixed on a wall, maybe in a public space, as a visible reminder for us all not to take life and health for granted.

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This sculpture has now been donated to the town of Totnes, and is on permanent display in Lamb Garden. For more details, see Press.

Held in a plinth made from centuries old oak from Plymouth dockyard.

Trees fascinate me and with it, the notion that the root system reflects the shape above.

After I had cleaned the stone that I came across in the reclamation yard in Frome, I saw the quartz inclusion that I thought looked like an angel's wing. As I also liked to use the marks left from the stone's former use in a building the result became this: an angel in a house.

Here in Devon, there are many softly rounded hills with a clump of trees on top. Maybe they were to mark a beacon or form shelter for farm workers; some are the remains of Bronze Age hill forts.

The softness of the hills reminds me of the female form.
This sculpture is a journey where a trickle of water comes forth from a spring in the hillside, then it passes a tree and winds its way through the landscape until it joins the sea.

Second angle.

Third angle.

Fifteen years ago I visited Malta and was taken by the ceramics of fat goddesses in the museum in Valletta. Ever since have I wanted to create my own version of the  voluptuous  goddess.
When I came across a postcard of a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, "Figure of a woman", I knew this was my model. My version is both different and very similar. The main difference is my "Mother" is obviously pregnant.
The stone is Portland which I recycled from the scrapheap of a company called Portland Stone, situated next to the quarry on Portland Bill near Weymouth.

Although the carving is small, it proved very challenging to carve because I kept knocking petals off and having to re-design it!

I had a feeling of a journey, travelling through life, seeking the source. The stone is weathered and I ended up carving a meandering river with a source that could be interpreted in different ways.
It could look like a pair of hands in the Namaste greeting. Or go to Google Maps, find “Klaralven I Varmland landskap” (Satellite view) and you will find that the river looks just like that.

'River Dart' is fashioned from a broken window sill which I shaped into an equilateral triangle.
I like to make use of something that might not otherwise be used. It also gives me a framework for my designs and helps me focus.

On one side is the River Dart. The view is looking upstream, from the private driveway of Sharpham House near Ashprington, with Totnes and Dartmoor in the background. Above is a convex sun.
On the other side is a concave sun or moon (take your pick), and below are two birds that to me represent a very powerful and life-changing time in my life.

Second angle.

This is my first carving on slate. The stone is an old cut off piece of floor slate I found in a reclamation yard in Delabole, Cornwall.
Delabole was once the centre of five slate quarries. Now there's only one left and you can go there and have a guided tour by a young and enthusiastic member of the owner family.
'Swedish Forest' is to me a picture of Northern Sweden. Endless fir-tree forests lit by a very cold moon reflected in a tiny forest lake.

The stone is from another layer of Portland stone that is full of fossils. It inspired me to try to carve an ammonite. The stone turned out to be very hard to work and I probably will never make another one.
An unexpected bonus is a little fossil that can be taken out, and is roughly heart-shaped.

For this piece I used a broken piece of Bath stone that my teacher had used as a doorstop.
It is a two-sided piece, with one side depicting a wall with a window reminiscent of a monk’s cell, a place for reflection and stillness. The other side is a stylised Devon landscape, which to me is also a sanctuary.

Second angle.

I wanted to make a bust and I chose for my subject my then husband. Some time later I had to have a year out due to health reasons.
When I came back I altered my subject to my mother. I learnt a very valuable lesson. Once you have started, don't do any major changes to a stone carving — and it’s impossible to add anything!
Another difficulty was that one shoulder broke off due to an unpredictable weakness in the stone. Maria (my teacher) and I fixed this with Araldite mixed with stone dust.

I was inspired by the photo of Charis Wilson illustrating her obituary in 2009.
My teacher had a broken piece of Portland stone that had been in a building and still had some original lines. The size and shape fitted perfectly a relief carving of the photo.
As I only had the 2D photo I asked my granddaughter Sapphire to model for me so I could see what the pose looked like from the side.

I tried to make a copy of  Windmill 1 but I don't seem to be able to copy any work. 

This is my very first stone carving where my teacher told me how to hold the chisels and what to do.
Towards the end when I used needle files to shape the spiral in the middle, I realised how similar the skills were to jewelry making.