I recently finished work fabricating the Sound Lounge - a new community space and library at the Bristol Beacon.

Design was by Northover & Brown and the project was produced by Cathy Mager.

Had an excellent holiday in Siena, Italy.
Flew in to Pisa, stayed in Siena as a base and had day trips out to Florence and Monteriggioni.
Saw a lot of great architecture and art, ate a lot of nice food, drank a lot of good wine.
A beautiful part of the world.

I don’t know about you but I found the pandemic and the lockdowns to be a time of very little creativity.

Having all of that spare time was a boon for a lot of people - giving them the time to do all of those things they didn’t have time to do before. I, personally, found that the level of uncertainty: about jobs, income, the virus itself and how it was handled, just stopped me from being able to think about making any work.

The time has not been totally devoid of creativity.

I got a couple of projects over that period (Observatories and Guidepost, both for the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust) but I was only able to do these because, as with most of my work, I was given a brief and a set of parameters.

I also spent a lot of time getting moderately more serious about making music. I’ve been writing and recording songs in various guises since the 90s, but it took the pandemic for me to actually take the time to write, record and put together a small collection of songs under the name Engine of Growth and actually release them into the wild. You can listen, and buy if you want, at Bandcamp.

Now we’ve emerged from the pandemic (even though it’s not entirely gone away) and places have opened up again, I feel it’s time to take stock of where I am. I’ve been applying for projects (as opportunities are starting to appear again), and I’ve given this website a little make-over. I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of work I should make if I were setting projects for myself.

I feel like I need to get stuck back in to making things again.

I’ve designed a new sculptural structure to display the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail’s map and information panel.

In a change from my usual practice, it’s being fabricated by Faulds Creative Works.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year in what has been the most unusual of years.

Here’s to a better future!

I recently completed a lockdown commission for the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust.

See documentation here and download a pdf with things to print and do here.

On Thursday night I attended the Living Waterways Awards, in which a project I worked on was nominated in the Art, Culture and Events (Large Project) category.
We won!

We had a lovely night. Congratulations to all the nominees and winners, there were some fantastic projects throughout.

See a full list of winners here.

UPDATE: The Ring has been shortlisted!
The Ring, of which my project Occupation was a part, has been nominated for a Living Waterways Award. Results to follow.

One of the wonderful things about working on a long-form project like Occupation is being able to see the changes that take place on the site as time passes and the seasons change.

I have now spent the best part of eight months working regularly on the Island. I have worked in the snow, the rain and the baking hot sun, and when the river is so high the weir no longer makes a sound. I have seen how activity on the water has changed as the holiday season kicks in, how C&RT volunteers and staff have changed their focus to different aspects of the waterway in response to the requirements of the seasons, and how the Island itself has altered due to both natural and artificial intervention.

When this project first started it’s initial intention was to briefly return Diglis Island to a state of activity again - so that viewers passing by on the tow path would see something noticeable happening for a short period of time and wonder what might be going on. After many conversations with visitors, and overhearing comments from passers-by it is clear that this has been noticed and enjoyed by many people. One of the main comments, however, has been the expression of disappointment over the fact that the work is only temporary.

What I have come to understand is that the work is not only about the activity on the Island (of the past, present and future) but also about the effects of time and a sense of change. It was always the intention for the work to be temporary - a short moment where something appears, changes and then disappears again - but it also reflects the ongoing life of the Island and how this changes.

All aspects of this place are temporary, but some are more temporary than others. The Island itself seems pretty permanent, but there was a time when it was not an island, and there may be a time when it is not again. The people who have worked on the Island have come and gone, yet new people join the team at C&RT and start their working life. The Island looks the same, but it has also changed. Occupation itself is slowly changing through my regular visits, and, when it finally comes down at the end of September, the Island will be returned to the state it was in before the project began, albeit slightly changed.