Bespoke Mountain – Fold Gallery

Whilst foldgallery was closed throughout the freezing months of January to March 2008, several artists were invited to make work for the window. For this I built “Bespoke Mountain”, continuing ideas about the landscape and belonging that had permeated recent pieces. Using materials foraged from around the town: rubble, concrete, stone, supplemented with stuff from the builders merchants I created a mountain on top of a table, a sculpture growing out of its environment. The idea that I build with the materials from a location is integral, not simply to locate the sculpture to its venue, but also to locate myself.

Bespoke Mountain – SCOPE Art Fair

I remade “Bespoke Mountain” for SCOPE art fair – continuing the focus of this piece discussing belonging and place through the materials, I built this “Bespoke Mountain 2” with the stone from the farm walls where I grew up. This added another layer, as I was in a sense building with the stuff of my childhood, making something in the present and for the future, using materials from the past.

Constructing the Landscape

I have just shown a Bespoke Mountain in Carlisle, part of the cultural event organised by the artists collective, freerange artists, to support the city’s bid for Capital of CultureOn the corner of Castle St. & Finkle St, opposite the castle, is a thinly bedded out planter. A tractor hood rests on the soil and getting closer, looking through the windows, a landscape of glass, wood, stone and slate and tiny people reveals itself.

The Watershed Landscape Project

I was the first year artist on the three year project called “The Watershed- Inspired by Landscape” – a Heritage Lottery funded commission to make a new body of work in response to the moorland landscape of the south pennines and to develop a new visiting audience (WLP is currently a finalist in the National Lottery Awards for best environmental project).