rock pool collection pictures

It was the coldest, bleakest part of this last winter. That was when my right arm was gripped with such intense pain that I had to stop working with the clay. I was not happy! The medical advice was to take a break for a month, but what was I going to do?  It turned out that this was an opportunity to completely rethink my making process. 

All my forms up to this point had been made by honing them into shape using a metal scraper held in my right hand, and it was the tension in doing that that had led to the pain. I loved that process, and I felt that the gradual refinement of the firms over many days was part of what people perceived in them. I thought that, in some way, it was the source of their calmness and what they communicated. So to be deprived of access to that process was a challenge to what I had come to believe the work was about.

But my commitment is not to the outcome of the making process, it is to the process itself – to try to find a rightness in the making process and see what that quality leads to in the finished pieces. Clearly the scraping that I enjoyed was not right for my arm, so could there be a new way of making that would involve less tension and more balance in my body? 

For some reason I had also been reflecting on my early days of recording wildlife sounds which eventually led to my first career in natural history radio. Thinking back to the child who stuck a microphone out of his bedroom window to record the garden bird song I realised how long I have had a fascination with recording the natural world in one way or another. I was thinking how clay also keeps a record of everything that happens to it until it is fired, at which point the story of its making is locked into its form and surface. Maybe thinking of the clay as a recording medium could lead to a new way of working.  And so it did. 

Here is the collection of sculptural lights and tables inspired by the tiny marine world inside a hole in a large boulder at Caer Bwdy Bay near St Davids in Pembrokeshire.

At the edge of the small bay is the quarry that produced the stone for St David’s Cathedral, and this is a boulder of that same stone.  What caught my eye was the near perfect roundness of the hole in an otherwise smooth boulder and the vitality and delicacy of the life in the little rock pool.

There is no obvious way that the hole could have been created naturally and I wonder whether it was bored into the rock as part of the quarrying process.

Playing with the idea of a pool of life and light in the dark stone led to the creation of these pieces in collaboration with glass artist, Amanda Lawrence.  In the day time they catch the natural light, and at night the glass is illuminated by a ring of embedded LEDs.

The rock pool collection includes horizontal and  vertical table lamps, a floor lamp, side or sofa-end tables, and a console table for your hall way.   They are made from organically coloured wood fibre board made from forestry waste, English beech, sycamore, or ash, and fused and sand-blasted glass. The glass illuminated by low energy LEDs, and the pieces are finished with organic orange oil waxes.  The LEDs are easy to replace if necessary, and have a very long life compared with conventional lights.

 

Rock pool tables and lights can also be designed to fit with clients’ own specifications and needs – just let me know what you would like.

Prices:

table lamp £230
floor lamp £295
side table £350
console table £520

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

more posts like this...

ceramics

Impressions – a completely new way of working

It was the coldest, bleakest part of this last winter. That was when my right arm was gripped with such intense pain that I had to stop working with the clay. I was not happy! But it turned out that this was an opportunity to completely rethink my making process.

read more >
ceramics

giving bowls / sharing bowls

The Giving Bowls have just raised over £350 for the Stroud District Foodbank. I’m delighted. They seems to have found a real purpose in life, and their development is a story that is still giving life lessons to me.

read more >