24 Sweet Chestnut

Sweet Chestnut (autumn) 2017
Bronze h41 x w22 x d28 cm

Sweet chestnut trees are stunning with their pear-shaped leaves and green prickly fruit.  This spiky casing is the tree’s fierce form of protection for its offspring, the delicious edible nuts within.  As a mother of three precious children, I can relate.

This head is about autumn.  I felt that in order to demonstrate this, I’d take the opportunity to experiment with deliberately making a hole in the bronze.  I did this by putting the runners in the wrong place, or leaving them out entirely.  Despite my efforts to do so, I hadn’t expected to make quite such big hole.  The un-cast space exposes the inside of the head completely, showing the grooves I’d cut with a stone carving tool.  To me, these resemble the long lines of bark on a tree.  It was an unforeseen effect which would normally have remained hidden.  Now the bark is on the inside surface rather than out.

Amazingly, this absence/hole has become an integral part of the structure of the head, highlighting the minimal face, which in turn is essential to the viewer’s recognition and comprehension of the head itself.  It’s become very poignant.  There is a hint of defiance there too, as the head looks upwards towards the sky, braced for winter perhaps.

These fortuitous mistakes and the stunning, random direction of bronze flow remain incredibly exciting.  Of all the bronze heads I’ve made, this one surprised me the most.

This sculpture honours the trees, fallen leaves, and autumn, a spectacular season which we know inevitably heralds the passing of time from summer to winter.  It speaks also to a narrative of women, motherhood, protection and loss.  This woman is in the autumn of her life.