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Art teacher
Tom Davies at Ebbw Vale County Grammar School - Ethic-
"Never use books to inform your art, always study the original
work, wherever possible" 1949. I was 15 years of age.
This axiom and an inadequacy with the written word
has always since created an ambivalance, admitting academic influences.
My primary approach is still to heed Tom's words whilst covertly
inventing my own academic references.
The academic sculptor has many avenues in which to find his creative
generator. The public and private commission is still the most obvious,
but of course the client has to be served and over time can adversely
affect ones personal development. To combat this I have pursued
a number of recurrent themes or story lines, some of which have
historical origins. - One such is the disaster of Pompeii.
The archeological method of discovering the Pompeii figures is in
itself a fascinating study, but from the perspective of a direct
carver in stone, releasing the single image locked inside the block,
by reducing the mass, is similar but so different to releasing the
figures already formed but invisible, sealed within the Vesuvius
ashes.
These figures have never been seen in their
solid reality, my information has been gleaned from books.
I have invented an academic association.
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