Direct Carving

Direct Carving

I began learning “direct carving” on stone under my Guru, the most brilliant of contemporary direct-sculptors, Melanie Wilks, in order to get a better understanding of the process for my research surrounding the workmanship of Barbara Hepworth.

I had never thought that the magic of chisel and mallet upon stone, the density, structure, texture of the material, would ensnare me in such a manner. Direct carving is the art of removing the skin of the stone layer by layer without the use of any electrical tools and working from the outside to the inside, discovering the beauty of the grains/impurities that lie in the way, falling in step with the rhythms of form, of the inner thrust and dance of stone itself as light and shade fall upon it – and to touch a heartbeat as ‘material’ gradually gives life to the ‘form’ you had set out to liberate from within it.

don’t strike too hard – they’re

skin, flesh, bones lain before you

waiting to come free