Having found myself with time on my hands – I was luck enough to spend a few days a week as an ‘apprentice’ in the workshop of the fabulous Zoe Singleton. Here I was able to learn an enormous amount about shaping stone – and working like this was entirely new to me.
I spent a lot of time working on roughing stuff out for Zoe, but also was able to work on something of my own – a stone bowl for the garden. I did this in Portland, and it’s a complex process. You start off with the external shape, then cut what is going to be the foot of the bowl. You then work down from this cutting in lines that will set the eventual contours of the bowl. Then you joint these up, and tidy up – texturing with a bush hammer (basically a meat tenderiser with attitude). Turn your bowl over, and then cut the interior. As is so often the case with Portland, I had a number of fossilised shells to contend with – and ended up with the ‘river’ motif running across the bowl to take out some of the larger ones.
The final inscription was done at home during the second covid lockdown of 2020… It might not be perfect, but I’ve learned a lot from doing this – and am much more confident about doing things with stone…