I have been gently working away at this piece this week. Although it looks near completion I have been fine tuning a couple of aspects. Firstly the shape was not quite to my liking. The ring was not round but squashed on one side. As I sit here trying to describe the shape I think of those round crisp snacks that we used to jam on our fingers as children. I forget their name. After some time of cogitation I decided to thin one area rather than to keep the uniformity of thickness. I think it was the right move. There is no going back at least. Secondly, I have settled the sculpture down onto its base. There was a gap and it is getting smaller by degrees. I want the view from the side to be quite dark. A white strip of supporting marble is visible at the moment and must be hidden by lowering the sculpture some more.

Dropped it

Drat, Blast, Blow, trying very hard not to swear. Bother. Broken beyond repair, what a fool. I even had a little premonition that I was balancing the sculpture in rather a precarious way; but did not listen. Eckhart Tolle says, “ Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it”. Mmm, I am struggling with that one at the moment and cannot face starting again today. When it fell, I held the carving for a moment before letting it go. It was wedged between me and the bench. Why did I let it go? Perhaps I thought it was going to fall on my foot. Drat and double drat!

Rounding everything

Each form has to have lots of attention to make it look like its own entity. I get a bit obsessed with the significance of this but I do believe that the marble absorbs the attention that is lavished on it. This attention remains for ever,locked in the marble, which is, one of the things that makes sculpture so fascinating to me. There is a dark side of this too as the marble remembers all the rubbish too. Perhaps working on a simple rounded form you might be tempted to be a bit slapdash and persuaded into thinking that it did not matter. I think now that, learning from bitter experience, I am sure that it does matter. Perhaps the sculpture is no more than a vehicle for those feelings.

Ring and balls

A new idea. The cylinder in the middle of this ring will be a sphere. A large sphere in a ring of smaller ones. The first bit goes quite fast as I have been chopping away happily. I know however that things will proceed much more slowly now as the space between the spheres will take time and slow careful work. My recent exploration into positive and negative space makes me wonder about the lumpy crescent shape that will arise here. I am not sure if the big sphere will want to be at the bottom or at the side or even hanging at the top. I shall mull over this and hope for some clarity over the next few days.

Positive and negative shapes

Here is a new line of thought. The shape of the hollow relates to the outer form. I am planning a hole to pierce the hollow from above. I have been enjoying the stage like quality of the interior space. Perhaps because it is a hollow with no connection to the outside world it pulls you into a world apart; like a stage. I wonder if the hole above might drop down light and further encourage this feeling of looking into a little private world.

Block arrives

This is how we unload blocks over 3 tons from a flatbed lorry. Probably not in the health and safety handbook but it gets the job done. My brilliant neighbours Nigel and Rich Colwill help with this tricky task. Thank you both. In this shot the lorry has gone and we are positioning the trailer before lowering the block down. This marble comes from Carrara in Italy. I bought it a year ago and have been waiting for an opportunity to bring it home.The block is now sitting in my yard waiting for inspiration.

Ring complete

I have painted this ring three times to get it to this stage. I do this in order to ensure that the whole surface has been worked over at each grade of finishing. First the tarmac like 40 grit which is very aggressive and then more paint before working over the whole surface once more with a 60 grit. Finally the process is repeated with the 120. Small specks of paint remain here and there which will need a few hours to tidy up. This ring is made from the central section of a giant ring. The small block in the background is the centre of this one. I shall use that next. Tomorrow I receive a block from Italy which has been sitting in a yard out there for a year waiting to be brought home.