The Environment Series Heads

In 2006, the first of the ENVIRONMENT SERIES portrait sittings began as a logical extension to the invitations to people whose work or stance I admired. The head of Lady Philippa Scott, with her husband Peter Scott a formidable partnership for wetland conservation from their Slimbridge home, had been one of the earliest heads in 2007.

The Environment Triptych emerged by 2008 – busts of three ruthlessly authentic, holistic thinkers – the writer Richard Mabey, moral philosopher Mary Midgley, and Gaia theory-originator and independent scientist James Lovelock. The heads had a relevance individually but the interplay of the three heads plinthed together seemed to add something; perhaps emphasising the sitters’ diverse efforts in influencing human behaviour and our interaction with the planet and its other organisms.

The Temple of the British Worthies at Stowe is an exedra created as a monument to the  ’men of letters’ and ‘men of action’ – the thinkers and do-ers of the day in the 1730s. I started to think about extending invitations to some of the environmental do-ers of today. In 2009 heads came about from sittings with Tim Smit who masterminds the Eden Project, the sculptor Peter Randall-Page whose international reputation has been inspired by organic form and Chris Rapley, the climate scientist whose has given leadership to the British Antarctic Survey and The Science Museum. Gordon Murray is working on ground-breaking passenger transport with holistic thinking from his Formula 1 automotive design roots. After the birth of our second son, I started to plan again in 2011 and during May the al fresco sitting (picture) of Riverford Organic founder Guy Watson took place at Wash Farm in South Devon.

The terracotta heads which emerge seem to represent several things. Firstly, as individual works by a sculptor (although I personally see these intensive day-long sittings as ‘drawing in clay’ – they are lively portrait sketches, under life-size after firing, capturing that point in time).  Secondly, as historical markers for the intense time spent with these people in the midst of their busy creative period. All have been persuaded to sacrifice valuable time to sit calmly for 6 or 8 hours in furthering this project. With a simple barter of time and the removal of the commissioning arrangement normally necessary to create portraiture, great things can happen. They are of their time rather than looking back on it. The latter is often seen through the marking of somebody’s contribution to life by a formal bronze bust, perhaps on their retirement – or passing.

The investment in time and travel is ample return for the privilege of interacting with these people for a short while. Sculptor Isamu Noguchi said in 1932:

It was a communion with people I was interested in. Portraits were a gregariousness.

…which sums up things for me – they provide energy to sustain my solitary periods of carving. And one day they will be exhibited together or acquired by somewhere that really cares about what the developing work represents.

In the meantime new clay heads come into existence and the series gradually grows. You can see more of the portraits as they are archived here.

The human clay: Compton

It was magical to discover that the painter I studied with at The Frink School (and recently visited in Edinburgh) Ruth Addinall, had come across artist Mary Wondrausch‘s wonderful book Brickfields and corresponded with her.

Wondrausch’s slipware has a historical resonance and is in the V&A Collection, but her broader talents have resulted in a house and garden to rival Charleston for colour and placement – her pots, her plantings, her paintings, historical kitchenalia and rustic European pottery… underpinned by her historical research on our relationship with food and writings exploring such curiosities as potted Char, salt and spice containers. We have recently planted a Quince tree as a result of the strength of one visual motif emanating from the Pottery. I dropped by recently to find a BBC film crew there – I hope that the results will encourage more people to discover her Picasso-like rumbustious diversity.

In 2009 I was searching for a source of local clay in Compton parish to work on a head of the former curator of The Watts Gallery, Richard Jefferies. This head is presently on loan to the Gallery which re-opens on 18th June 2011 after a multi-million pound restoration. Delivering the sculpture, it was clear just how important this collection is and the quality of both the restored and new spaces which house it and the light which permeates them; a remarkable blending of the old and the new. With the Watts Cemetery Chapel (below right) also thought by many to be of international importance – Compton is clearly a cultural hotspot nationally, but plenty have still not come across its riches.

Mary Watts started the Compton Pottery (which made the terracotta tiles for the chapel) using clay found at Limnerslease, the house next to her artist husband G.F. Watts‘ studio. Whilst this seam may have been exhausted, it seemed important to use local materials for this contemporary head, and I chanced upon the Brickfields Pottery after perusing OS maps and traipsing along stream banks searching for suitable material. On meeting the redoubtable Mary Wondrausch OBE, the plan became more complicated. The potter kindly mentioned a bag of clay quarried from work on the foundations of her house that I could have… but I left Compton feeling that it would be sacrilegious not to use the material for a sitting with the remarkable person I had just met.

However, the story is not complete. The small sack of Compton clay fortunately permitted both heads to emerge… and the careful hollowing of these terracottas before firing has left just enough clay for a third – suggesting the Compton diptych ought eventually to become a Triptych in the same manner as the 2008 Environment Triptych (left) featuring the scientist James Lovelock, philosopher Mary Midgley and writer Richard Mabey.

Please do contact me in confidence if you know someone with strong links to Compton who you think has been especially contributive to life and might provide a balance for the two existing heads.

The heads will be exhibited as part of a solo exhibition at Surrey University’s Lewis Elton Gallery from 14th November until Christmas 2011. There will also be a Surrey Sculpture Society evening lecture at the University given by Jon Edgar on Weds 23rd November at 7.30pm, with a late opening of the exhibition beforehand.

Scott bronze to Slimbridge

Lady Philippa Scott sat as part of my environmental series of heads in early 2007. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust  - that she and husband Peter Scott had been so instrumental in founding – have just taken delivery of a bronze of the terracotta head, which will be unveiled in summer 2011. This will commemorate her life and work, after she passed away in 2010 at the age of 91. Click on the picture to see The Guardian’s obituary.

Duncan Carse – South Georgia

The first bronze of Duncan Carse is now on permanent display at South Georgia Museum, South Atlantic, following a purchase appeal co-ordinated by the South Georgia Association. The role of Duncan Carse in the Grahamland Peninsular Expedition was recognised by the Silver Polar Medal and clasp in 1939. He was awarded a second clasp in 1982 for the leadership of the South Georgia Surveys, the mapping of which was of immense value during the Falklands conflict. After the war, he was one of the voices of the BBC Radio star Dick Barton, Special Agent and he continued as a broadcaster on both radio and television into the 1980s. His Antarctic contribution is acknowledged through the naming of Carse Point and the 2300m Mount Carse on South Georgia.