Jurassic Coast - a Study in Winter Painting

I was born at an early age into a family of soldiers. Grandfather, father, uncles and brother all took the Kings shilling and did daring deeds in foreign fields. When I was eleven I made a small clay figure and knew then I wanted to be an artist. Not really a good career choice when you were expected to follow the flag and family tradition and indeed I did just that for a brief spell. Then fate intervened, bless her, and I found myself at the gates of the Slade to start my Diploma in Art and Design. The early sixties were a fantastic time to be an art student. So many influences in all the creative processes abounded as did many a recreational substance, glorious women and hedonistic pleasures. Oh dear reader I supped full of the lot of it. Now I live and work in a small sleepy market town in the depths of Somerset. What I create is considered, thought out, loved and hated and all those emotions in between that go to making up the creative process. In my time I have made figures of all sorts, turned hundreds of tons of clay and plaster into objects that have cluttered the homes of literally thousands of people all over the world. I have designed postage stamps which are now part of our national collection, sold paintings, drawings and sculpture and seen my work alongside Elisabeth Frink and Henry Moore. I have lived that dream of an eleven year old boy. But what to date am I most proud of in my career as an artist is the patronage and friendship of Sir Terry Pratchett. He and his wife Lyn have encouraged, supported and inspired my work in a way that is I think unique amongst patrons and collectors. His wonderful storytelling has woven a narrative through what I do to this day. What I am creating now is not a fantasy landscape but landscapes and images that do have some magic within them. We have grown old together, each of us in our own way. He still writes and I am a part, a very small part of that. I create pictures, inspired by the landscape we both live in and the stories he has told. Landscape and stories, what else is a picture but a story that is read through images. I am not just a sculptor; I am a storyteller, only it is you who will furnish the story from what you see.