Welcome to my first newsletter! I decided it was time
to open a window into my world and share the projects I’m working on in
the studio, for commissions and exhibitions.

To read the full Summer Newsletter, which includes The Lady of Shallot Automata at Falmouth Art Gallery, Granny Boswell Automata and the Museum of Cornish Life, Helston and more images, news, workshops and exhibitions - click HERE

These days my sketchbook is mostly full of lists. They’re not very coherent- they tend to be a mixture of materials and tools I need, ideas I want to research and stuff I need to get for the kids’ pack lunches. I map figures out in a sketchbook before roughing them out on the bandsaw, I draw mechanisms when I can’t quite fit them in my brain and I occasionally sketch something I’m in the middle of if the composition isn’t quite right. I enjoy drawing but I find it hard to sit still for long enough so I only do detailed drawings if someone asks for details for a commission. Once I start the making process, pieces seem to have their own ideas about how they want to go…

The world is full of fascinating, beautifully made and ostensibly obsolete objects. Turning as many of these as I can get my hands on into automata is an excuse to fill my workshop with endless odd bits and pieces that fill me with joy. The shape or story of an object often informs a piece, thus an old lamp becomes a flying machine or a teapot becomes a fish pond.