Climate Change Gardening

May 22, 2022 by Rebecca Buck

Found Gallery, the sensational contemporary art gallery in Brecon, Wales complimented the gorgeous exhibition, Found In The Garden with a series of talks. I was invited to have a conversation with the incomparably wonderful author and forager Adele Nozedar about Osprey Studios Sculpture Garden (which had just been selected to be part of the National Garden Scheme for 2020), climate change and where this is taking my sculpture.
Punch Maughan and her kind, thoughtful Team made the beautifully lit, spacious gallery welcoming and comfortable with tea and delicious cakes. A lovely, really interesting mix of people came along and the discussion was fascinating, thought provoking and very helpful.

Osprey Studios is at the foot of Cribarth, The Sleeping Giant Mountain, in the extraordinary Fforest Fawr UNESCO Global Geopark.
Gardening to fit in with the wild-life in your region really makes a difference. In a wide open, often harsh environment like the Brecon Beacons offering wildlife shelter, homes and food counts, especially when seasonal changes are messing with their usual routines. Artist/Gardeners Karin Mear and Nigel Evans at The Happy Gardeners know the area intimately and along with others in the group described the long, dramatic evolution of this land that reminds us that the Natural World changes constantly. But usually it does that very slowly.

Cribarth creates a boundary that holds wild, harsh weather largely on this side of it’s ridge. Just over this horizon, less than quarter of a kilometre away, is Osprey Studios, protected in a much warmer, milder micro-climate with the southern face acting as a sun trap all year round.

Walking out due north from Cribarth across extraordinary geology laid down by a warm sea and then exposed again by glaciers.
Breconbeacons.org : “The carboniferous limestone of South Wales was formed in shallow tropical seas in the Paleozoic era, over 300 million years ago. Much of it is of organic origin, being the shells and skeletons of sea creatures, large and small. Amongst the most spectacular fossils to be seen in the National Park are Lithostrotion corals. Their intricate internal detail is often beautifully preserved.”

Half a kilometre due south is where the wonderful Nant Llech, a very import river in my work, meets the Tawe that runs down to the coast 20 miles away at Swansea. Further up stream is Henrhyd Falls.

*Petrified Stigmaria – Lepidodendron (Scale Trees) Root structure. This tree went extinct about 250 million years ago, many of them decomposing into coal and oil.*
Walking the Llech’s bed when the water was very low a few summers ago I started finding and collecting petrified wood and other fossils. This fabulous one is in a big boulder. It feels incredibly lucky to see fossils that, as the river rages, will be washed down stream and might never be seen again.

A young Mare’s Tail next to it’s petrified relative that I found near-by.

Indefenceofplants.com: “As atmospheric CO2 levels plummeted and continents continued to shift, the climate was growing more and more seasonal. This was bad news for the scale trees. All evidence suggests that they were not capable of keeping up with the changes that they themselves had a big part in bringing about. By the end of the Carboniferous, Earth had dipped into an ice age. Earth’s new climate regime appeared to be too much for the scale trees to handle and they were driven to extinction. The world they left behind was primed and ready for new players. The Permian would see a whole new set of plants take over the land and would set the stage for even more terrestrial life to explode onto the scene.
It is amazing to think that we owe much of our industrialised society to scale trees whose leaves captured CO2 and turned it into usable carbon so many millions of years ago. It seems oddly fitting that, thanks to us, scale trees are once again changing Earth’s climate. As we continue to pump Carboniferous CO2 into our atmosphere, one must stop to ask themselves which dominant organisms are most at risk from all of this recent climate change? “

There are lots of Ash trees along this gorge and most have reticently died from Ash Die-back. There are log jams all along the river and landslips revealing fossils and petrified wood from the mass extinction event millions of years ago. The shiny black fossils are very nearly coal. The geology changes just enough only a mile away that coal did form.

*The wet meadow behind Osprey Studios sculpture garden on our side of Cribarth, The Sleeping Giant Mountain .* *The hedgehog hotel is here too and hedgehogs enter the garden under the gate.*

So the earth has changed drastically many times. You feel close to that here in the Brecon Beacons. It has all lead to the beautiful natural world that we know now and that we thought we could control and keep as ours…
This new, massive Climate Change and mass extinction is happening with devastating speed and we *understand* it: there is no way to sugar-coat it, it is our doing. We can predict what course it is likely to take and plan…
Humans are not innately destructive. Like many cooperative species that live in communities we are very busy. VERY busy…And that busyness can be turned towards cleaning up a lot of this mess.
Will our entirely justified grief, guilt and anger eclipse the beauty, joy and wonder that is still here feeding and sustaining us? Will despair fracture our communities and render everyone helpless and vulnerable? Except for those few profiteers who don’t or can’t care?
Believing we are a toxic force ruining everything we touch is a great excuse to do nothing. But we owe our fellows in the natural world better than that.

*Leviathan II, 2015, 53cm H x 79cm L x 36cm D, ceramic.*
Watching and re-watching geologist and fabulous educator Dr Iain Stewart‘s programs has helped me get my head around it and that lead to the ongoing Throwdown at the Hoedown Series which has just reached one of those turning points and I have been unsure what comes next. The discussion lead to this:
Eleanor Greenwood (who takes some of the most incredible photographs of this area which she knows extremely well): “My final thing that I wanted to say is that we are coming full circle back to the realisation that we are all nature. Our thinking that we are separate has hurt us in more ways than we realise. Your work is a big clear pointer back to that unity. There is sacredness and magic everywhere and you manifest it. I really enjoyed this eve and thank you for making me see climate change in a different light.”
Flabbergasted/very grateful me: “You are exactly right! And I think you have pinpointed the missing piece that I couldn’t see; the spheres, for want of a better term, are reaching out to us, taking forms we can relate to, but what are they saying? That!! Perhaps it’s just that…return to us while you still can….”
Gardens so often bring us together for the conversations that make all the difference.

*Guardian of the Biosphere.* *The interior of this sculpture has spaces for wild-life to live.*
Developing my garden over 11 years from a plain lawn with some old, hard features like the cement paths, patio and the deteriorating wooden stable has also changed my thinking enormously. I first put in the lupines and flowers you can see below and it was beautiful! No-one was more delighted and impressed than the slugs from the meadow at the end of the garden. After one terrible battle with them I saw this was not the fight I was willing to take on.

Joining forces with the rest of nature we can share the challenges of Climate Change. You can grow food to share with the other people in your community of wildlife and human neighbours, right down to those in the soil. The garden here is now full of fruit trees, bushes, a variety of strawberries, local wild flowers (slug-proof, bee/bug friendly, beautiful) and cultivated plants that can co-exist happily. Most of the grass has gone and now there is flowering low ground-cover, like cranberries.
There are lots of bird-feeders. And compost bins. You start feel like part of the solution and bit less like part of the problem. Individually we can’t stop the change. But we can make amends as best as we can and ride the wave with grace.

All of nature has always had those who’s role is taking risks; trying out new habitats or times to flower, grow, mate or migrate. It seems very fair that we should make safe spaces for them and help with food and shelter if we can. Forestry Studies have found trees have been migrating in new directions for 50 years. One of my blueberries put out a few flowers this autumn, testing the chances…

This beautiful Acer was a special present to my self for being unexpectedly brave during one of those events that sharpen one’s appreciation of life. Our gardens can become a record of what matters most to us. This tree then taught me about choosing the right spot and not being afraid or reluctant to move unhappy plants. Or to give unusual plants a chance to make their home here.

Here’s a fabulous bit of drama and a tribute to the tropical past of this land. (And to mine: my eldest was born in Malaysia.) And a hint of the future? Changes in the Gulf Stream and other currents are happening now and it’s not clear what the implications are for the western UK. Right now it’s amazing that such a plant will grow here. (I transplanted the Torbay Palm across the garden from a hanging basket thinking it was a grass! It’s 6 metres high now and growing fast!) The interaction with the wild flowers is beautiful : this palm provides support and shelter all year round to a very long-stemmed wild flower that all sorts of insects adore on the edge of the pond. Gardening gets you looking to the future. Slow growing, long lived plants expect to face challenges and can be extraordinarily adaptable which is very inspiring.

Across the meadow at the end of the garden you can see the stand of huge Ash trees on the lower slope of Cribarth that have succumbed to Ash Die-Back. They have started to fall causing a landslip on the edge of a mountain stream and creating a beautiful new waterfall. After heavy rains the water has chosen a new route leading right to where a drainage ditch passes our gate and giving our patch a new shallow pond which fills with tadpoles and sustains other creatures. A few miles east another group of Ash are being watched because they seem to be immune to Die-back.
The movement of water is absolutely key.

This shady corner is full of wild life. All the sculpture plinths are hollow and provide homes for all sorts of people. The ground is always damp and often very wet. Just behind the sculpture is an apple, a pear and some blueberries bushes planted close together like I’ve seen in the woods by the river. They didn’t look too happy at first but a few years on they are taking off and I’m assuming that is because they have befriended each other underground. I had read that if you need a continuous supply over the season rather than big crops then close, varied planting is a good idea. Raspberries love this spot so I weed them out occasionally. A variety of cranberry plants have definitely taken and are quietly spreading among strawberries and various wild ground cover which I clear back sometimes to favour the cranberries but I get the impression they like the company. Everything seems happier with lots of other plants around them. Even my house plants do way better in mixed pots.

*Anything cleared out of or from the edge of the pond is left on the side for a few days or tucked into the near-by bed so creepy crawlies can get back to the water.*

We started the garden when we moved here in October 2010 with beds marked out with old carpet from the house left over winter and the pond put in the following spring, as recommended. I was so proud watching my sons dig it and it gave me some insight into the ground: 60cms of lovely dark soil down and then clay and big stones. We put in a good, flexible liner and two oxygenator plants and mini water lily. In no time at all it was full of life. Lots of newts, frogs, toads, dragon flies, water-snails (how?!), all sorts. Between them, the hedgehogs, birds and the huge predatory slugs the plant eating slug numbers have begun to balance to the point where the invaluable work they do for the soil offsets limiting what I can plant. Just like they promise on Gardener’s World.
Rae Gervis is an expert gardener growing extraordinary vegetables at Ty Mawr near Brecon. Every week you can order seasonal vegetables from them. Rae had no trouble persuading me not to dig my soil. But I hadn’t expected the results to be so good.
Rae explained: “Soil is the foundation of all life so needs to be nurtured. Soil vitality & biodiversity needs to be protected. Worms and other micro & macro-biota distribute air, water & nutrients far more efficiently & effectively than man can through digging. Mulch with any organic material, preferably well rotted. Soil is then insulated & protected from the elements. Slugs are a good food source for many animals including hedgehogs & they do break down organic matter making it available as nutrients in the soil.”

Building and fencing materials tends to involve horrendously un-green production methods. So we use recycled stuff and make things last where ever we can. The old fence enclosing what was a little pony-yard leading out to the meadow is rotting so I’ve woven a cotoneaster around it to replace it with a living fence which is now much higher and covered in berries. I had found the plant in a container in the hot front garden looking small and wretched when we moved in and I had no idea what to do with it. I plonked it in a stony hole and apologised. It has grown so fast!! Weaving it into flowing shapes is extremely fun.
This area is a cabin and patio now. Before it was a stable, before that a fabulous green house. I would love to pave it but it would be daft, wasteful and the layers of history would be lost. The old cement ground is worn and the mosses soften the look of it so I encourage them instead. Same with the rather rigid cement paths and patio by the house.

This area was plain grass and extremely dry. It used to get very hot out here and so did the house. This planting quickly changed that. The fallen leaves and shade have improved the exhausted soil without me having to do a thing.
Evergreens are gorgeous all year and great for the front garden. They support the flowering climbers. And now it’s important to have flowering and/or fruiting plants and ever-green shelter for the creatures that may end up out and confused in mild winter spells.
There are berries at the lower levels, strawberries, raspberries, black currants and gooseberries. Now that it’s moister I might move some of the cranberry’s runners here.
I let all this grow in to see what it would do and I don’t mind admitting I wasn’t expecting it to be so lush! Recently we put in supports and some structure to the look of it.

When it was un-planted the house paint was getting fried and falling off the render. A number of my neighbours were having to replace their blistered render at the time so we decided we had better strip off the old paint and re-do it. In the back was a big Virginia creeper and the old paint under it was in much better condition!

Now the house is cool and comfortable all year round. The soil stays moist and I leave the falling leaves which quickly disappear into the ground thanks to the healthy wild-life. There are toads and lots of birds. Some are even nesting, glad that the street deters predators. I also find the sense of shelter very comforting.
This very heavy, old gate came from the wonderful Theodore Sons And Daughter Reclamation Yard in Bridgend. Stripping and re-painting it took forever but it feels so great when you swing it open.

This is the front patio which I never used before because it was broiling hot. The french doors lead into the Studio where I had to protect sculptures in progress from the heat. Now the vines form a roof and the light falling through it is exquisite. The purple-leafed grape vine stated clearly that it was ornamental and would not fruit but it does! There is jasmine, wisteria, roses, and an ever-green clematis amongst others so it changes and has beautiful scent.
Sweeping regularly keeps the weeds out from between the bricks and gives me a good excuse to go out there and revel in it. There is no joy to be had from herbicides and pesticides.

The parking area is really useful but I don’t miss not being able to see it. I’m building up a brush-pile in this corner for anyone who likes living in it and there is a small water feature here. I’m introducing a range of ground cover plants. Next year I hope to experiment with vegetables in movable pots on wheels on the driveway where I can separate them from the slug’s territory.

*Gardening with a sense of purpose.*
We are coming full circle back to the realisation that we are all nature. Our thinking that we are separate has hurt us in more ways than we realise.
We are being called to turn back to our natural world while we still can.
When all’s said and done it’s about Community.
Sharing with all our fellows, all the neighbours, great and small, whether we like them much or not, because we need each other. A garden reaches out from your home as much as it sets a boundary or shelters it. It creates links and bonds.
Gardening is a gentle, patient, subtle weapon in a battle we are better off for fighting. Our gardens become a record of, and a contribution to, what matters most to us.

Osprey Studios Sculpture Garden is proud to be open by appointment with The National Garden Scheme to raise money for the Nursing charities that were their for us when we needed them.

Throwdown at the Hoedown.

February 3, 2018 by Rebecca Buck

Fantastic image from Christopher-Michel_flickr_Web. Interesting article here: //goodnature.nathab.com/larsen-ice-shelf-breakoff-our-future-in-ice/

“If there was ever an example of humankind being unable to bear too much reality, it is the current debate on climate change.” John Gray

Antarctic Leviathan, 45cm L x 23cm H x 12cm D.

I have been following the fascinating progression of Climate Change for 35 years. At last it is a main-stream subject. It’s intriguing how a small number of people are still trying to avoid seeing it, the deniers but mostly the avoiders. It is terrifying, lethal. Our doing and responsibility. The prospect of shifting the habits and habitats of our gigantic population is exhausting.

So a narrative has slowly emerged from the progression of sculptures (rather than the other way around), beginning during The Landscape Series. I wont interfere with that. I will record what I see, let the clay take the lead, research areas I need more information on, add music and follow the road. This is how I have always worked. But this time there is far more clarity.

Antarctic Harbinger I, 20cm H x 33cm L x 19cm D.

Throwdown at the Hoedown

A trichotomy of the Earth, the Guardians of the Aquasphere, the Lithosphere and the Atmosphere arose and they, and their Sentinels and Harbingers took on characteristics that the many life-forms of the Biosphere could relate to so that all would understand what was happening; They were going to let loose their forces. This was not to threaten or punish. They simply knew it was time.

Arctic Guardian and Harbinger, 70cm H x 37cm W x 24cm D.

The three spheres cover all that is water, stone or air. At first that seemed simple. But the three over-lap all over the place. And combining with sunlight, they build the whole of the Biosphere that they nurture and threaten.

Arctic Harbinger, 33cm L x 13cm H x 12cm D.

Steven Foote’s stunning photographs from The Landscape Series seem to contain the whole mysterious narrative, characters and all, I refer to them daily and they will continue to be the bed-rock of the Series.

Bracelet Bay, Swansea, Wales UK. by Stephen Foote

The key there became the beautiful, evocative forms left by water as it passed over rock and the land, an echo of it’s own shapes. This, coupled with intense news from the Antarctic about accelerated melting and glacial movement has kept my focus particularly on the Aquasphere.

The Aquasphere

It is changes with water that cause the most upheaval to the Biosphere. Water holds centre stage in the atmosphere’s massive weather events. More often than not it is at the forefront of dramatic episodes in the lithosphere: mud-slides, sink-holes, erosion and sometimes the provocation of volcanos.

Water takes so many forms: flowing (fresh and salt), vapour, ice. Each has a range of characteristics. The primary character is the Leviathan but there are many others involved.

Antarctic Guardian I, 33cm H x 83cm W x 36cm D.

Antarctic Harbinger II, 13cm H x 26cm W x 14cm D + base.

Mountain River Sentinel, 69cm H x 39cm W x 28cm D.

Coastal Harbinger II, 43cm L x 29cm H x 22cm W.

Mountain River Harbinger, 37cm L x 21cm H x 19cm W.

Mountain River Sentinel, 69cm H x 39cm W x 28cm D.

Coastal Harbinger, 35cm L x 23cm H x 16cm W.

Leviathan VIII, 56cm H x 97cm L x 28cm D.

Leviathan V, 45cm H x 65cm L x 23cm D.

Leviathan IV, 35cm H x 61cm L x 29cm D.

Mountain River Sentinel, 69cm H x 39cm W x 28cm D.

Mountain River Guardian, 36cm H x 67cm L x 42cm D. Landscape Series. Cupola Contemporary Art Gallery, Sheffield, UK

Mountain River Guardian I, 36 cm H x 67cm L x 42cm D.

Leviathan IX, 35cm H x 60cm L x 25cm D.

Leviathan II, 2015, 53cm H x 79cm L x 36cm D, ceramic.

Leviathan II, 2015, 53cm H x 79cm L x 36cm D, ceramic.

Leviathan II, 2015, 53cm H x 79cm L x 36cm D, ceramic.

Leviathan II, detail, 2015, 53cm H x 79cm L x 36cm D, ceramic.

The Atmosphere

At first I was seeing atmosphere simply as sky. Weather, especially the fabulous, awe-inspiring kind like hurricanes. But the atmosphere is every where, filling every gap, breathing life into the world, even under the ocean.

For this reason the Osprey is it’s main form.

Antarctic Osprey II, 39cm H x 50cm W x 50cm D.

Osprey IX, 13cm H x 18cm W x 11cm D +base.

Antarctic Osprey I, 12cm H x 46cm W x 13cm D +base.

Antarctic Osprey III, 17cm H x 57cm W x 32cm D.

The Lithosphere

The Lithosphere, the geologic, stony part of the world has The Wyvern, a shape-shifting dragon that has taken a number of forms so far.

Guardians of the Valley, 30cm H x 67cm W x 26cm D.

Wyvern IX, 14cm H x 38cm L x 15cm D.

Antarctic Harbinger and Sentinel, 28cm H x 17cm W x 13cm D + base.

Wyvern XI, 13cm H x 20cm L x 16cm D.

Wyvern, 11cm H x 15cm L.

Wyvern X, 12cm H x 21cm L x 11cm D.

The Biosphere

I started looking at forms and ways to describe the Biosphere’s part of this story. ‘The Land’ sculptures started in The Landscape Series but this was different: it was no longer just the form and far more the theme of vulnerability. Change in the Natural world is wonderful, a miracle. Frequently spectacular. And terrifying, heartbreaking, sometimes to dreadful to countenance especially where the Biosphere is concerned. But there is also belonging, the perfect fit of life grown out of the combined trinity of spheres. Nurtured, protected, watched over.

Biosphere Sentinel II, 23cm H x 48cm L x 28cm D.

Biosphere’s Guardian I, 22.5cm H x 22.5cm W.

As with all my posts I will add to them over time as things develop. Here’s some links to interesting, key parts of the research so far for the Throw-down at the Hoe-down:

26 years ago I left New Hampshire with my first son in my arms, new CD’s of Bela Fleck in my suitcase and returned to the UK. This extraordinary music sustained and developed my work for 15 years. Steve Vai and later a wider variety joined Bela. But this track, Bigfoot, is the key and the seed that has lead to this new Series:

Bela Fleck’s Throwdown at the Hoedown seems like the perfect title for this new Series and a fair way to honour all his music has given me, so I’m going to go with that for a while.

This fascinating article by Randall Morris about Masks describes the process that I am trying to work through here. I have learnt a great deal from Randall since joining Cavin Morris Gallery. His amazing collection and beautiful writing brings clarity to, and pin points the essence of, what is important in art. I am an animist by nature and it is my job to portray what I see but the distractions can be over-whelming.

FACESHIFTING II: Animistic Masks From the Himalayas

Published on May 6, 2016

Short essay by Randall Morris

Animism: informative article by Sarah Anne lawless.

There is a ‘modern’ resistance/confusion to animist ideas. The waters are muddied by spiritualist ideas, religions and fantasies. It can be difficult to avoid distractions when you are working on this kind of sculpture. The process is intuitive and free-flowing. Expertise with well organised techniques allow for that by managing the clay’s weight and ceramic requirements leaving the maker and material to associate with minimal restraint. I’m not taking a political, moral or religious stand. I’m just doing my thing, same as always, doing my bit to get the sculpture made. That feels very important to me and I don’t need to know why.

But none the less I keep informed on new science about consciousness in matter and enjoy the kinship and familiarity of Outsider art/ Art Brut. Having boundaries helps to weed out those irrelevant distractions.

Within animism there are many practices used to engage and interact with the spirit world, to put it over-simply. I’m not attempting that. My role is just to be part of it. A record keeper, perhaps, a chronicler to help my fellow 21st century folk maintain a link with the natural world.

Panpsychism: The idea that everything from spoons to stones are conscious is gaining academic credibility

How the Earth Made Us, a fantastic BBC 2 series by Professor Iain Stewart. And some fab clips from another series, Earth: The Power of the Planet.

Awesome iceberg video. I now collect these!

Climate change info with a really interesting, informative video of leading scientist, James Hansen explaining the findings.

–Naomi Klien‘s fascinating and very readable book, This Changes Everything and the exciting, optimistic organisation of the same name.

–The Up is Down Series.

The Landscape Series.

July 10, 2017 by Rebecca Buck

This Series is a collaboration with Photographer and Documentary Cameraman Stephen Foote. Click on any picture to see it full size.

Stephen Foote and I met up after 30 years in 2014. We were good friends as teenagers, both rather disengaged with school, both making art in our own time. 30 years on we both still use art work as a major part of our interaction with this nutty world. Sharing our images was a key way we got to know each other again and harnessing that process in a joint project was simply a way of capturing what was occurring naturally. We set a straightforward ” Artists Respond to Landscape ” brief and kept a very open mind while we walked, talked, Steve took pictures and I just took it all in. We met every few months and sent each other pictures of the ensuing work in-between times.

Steve is also a Cameraman and was involved in filming for Panorama during the early, very heated phase in Kiev and the Crimea. I was coming to the end of the Up Is Down Series . Our first visit was Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea. Then we went into Porth Yr Ogof caves and had a mind-blowing day for me; we spent hours in the dark, natural cave while Steve took a fab series of photographs. I stood in the river in the darkness, held the lights and listened to the flow of water, felt the under-ground breezes. From there the project clarified for us as the travels of the water from the sky above the Brecon Beacons to the river, especially the Tawe, on down to the wide bay at Swansea, and out into the Ocean where much of it will return to the clouds and begin the circle again. As it flows it leaves it’s mark on the stone, the ground, the life it passes.

These pictures are roughly in sequence for the progression of work over time, with Steve’s photos next to the related sculptures in some cases.

Wyvern, 10cm H x 18cm L x 11cm D.

Wyvern X, 21cm L x 12cm H x 11cm D.

Water and Stone, Bracelet Bay, 2014, 24cmH x 56cm L x 33cm W, Marbled architectural ceramic. Photo by Stephen Foote

Stephen Foote; Dunes

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote

Wyvern I in progress, July 2014. 68cm H x 64cm W.

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote.

It was this fabulous picture of Bracelet Bay that shifted me abruptly into figures, much to my own surprise. The character of the Wyvern developed while making the public sculpture the Balarat Pit Marker in The Edge Series: the coal, a buried treasure to be used wisely or there would be consequences, watched over by a shape-shifting Welsh dragon.

Wyvern busts in progress, Aug 2014.

Here the Wyvern is a guardian of stone.

Wyvern V, 2015, 27cm H x 51cm L x 25cm D, black ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery, New York.

Wyvern V, 2015, 27cm H x 51cm L x 25cm D, black ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery New York.

Porth Yr Ogof Cave, Brecon Beacons, by Steve Foote, 2014. We spent hours down here and as I assisted the photography, standing in the river and pitch black, I felt the underground wind and heard all the sounds of water travelling through the rocks. Extraordinary. A living, breathing world of unparalleled beauty.

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote

The Wyvern III, 2014

Wyvern II, 2014, 69cm H x 54cm W, x 31cm D, ceramic. Photo Stephen Foote.

The Wyvern IV, Sept 2014

The Wyvern and The Leviathan. in progress, Sept 2014.

Wyvern VIII, 2015, 39cm H x 71cm L x 34cm D, ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery New York.

Wyvern VIII, 2015, 39cm H x 71cm L x 34cm D, ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery New York.

Wyvern VIII, detail. Photo Stephen Foote.

Wyvern VIII, Cavin Morris Gallery New York. Photo Stephen Foote.

Water moves from one sphere to the next in all it’s forms, changing everything it passes. On heavy, stormy days here in the Brecon Beacons it careens in sheets 10cm deep across the grassy hills, colliding in the streams and rivers to tear down towards Swansea Bay. It drops through the gaps and cracks it has left in the stone to the fabulous caves it has been cutting for Millenia. Standing out in the middle of all this you can see the mountain ponies, uncompromising, resolute and beautiful. They became the Guardian of the water, the Leviathan, in it’s mountain form.

Leviathan V, 2015, 11.5cm H x 25cm L x 9.5cm W, ceramic. Photo Stephen Foote.

Leviathan VI, 2015, 12.5cm H x 21cm L x 8cm W, ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery New York.

Leviathan V, 2015, 11.5cm H x 25cm L x 9.5cm W, ceramic. Photo Stephen Foote.

The Wyvern and the Osprey, 2014.

The Osprey followed as the guardian of the sky.

Stephen Foote Photography.

Osprey II, 65cm W x 50cm H. Photo Stephen Foote.

Osprey II, 65cm W x 50cm H. Photo Stephen Foote.

Osprey I, 40 cm W x 25cm H.Photo Stephen Foote.

Steve’s landscape photos unify everything exquisitely, portraying a vivid place with such clarity you can feel it around you. My sculptural response inevitably, and with some regret, separated the features which got me thinking more carefully about their connections.

The sphinx-like form and majesty of the Brecon Beacons also showed up first in the Balarat Pit Marker. A classic sculptural motif, the reclining figure, with it’s many options for themes. Like the complex internal aspect of the Beacons complete with breath, life (water) running through veins in the rock, hidden secrets, moods, supporting of forests, wildlife, and us since the dawn of time. The subtlety of age: the Beacons are especially ancient and have been many things in their past. ‘The Land’ sculptures are about this part of what we saw.

The Land II, 21cm H x 52cm L x 27cm D. Cupola Contemporary Art, Sheffield, UK.

The Land VIII, 21cm L x 12cm H x 11cm W.

The Land III, 15cm H x 43cm L x 12cm D.

The Land IV, 15cm H x 26cm L x 14cm D.

The Land I, 24cm H x 65cm L x 19cm D.

At this point the Series branches off into new territory lead by images and news about Climate Change rather than Steve’s photos and my local landscape. I have been following the fascinating progression of Climate Change for 35 years. At last it is a main-stream subject. It’s intriguing how people are still trying to avoid seeing it, the deniers but mostly the avoiders. My guilty secret is that I see it as thrilling: nature rejoicing in it’s power and spectacular magnificence, the wonder of transformation. Throwndown at Hoedown is an ongoing Series now.

FACESHIFTING II: Animistic Masks From the Himalayas

Published on May 6, 2016

Short essay by Randall Morris

–The Up is Down Series proceeded The Landscape Series and was a transitionary point in how I put together forms, particularly in relation to their bases. The research involved clarified my thinking and ability to see.

Most of the sculptures in The Landscape Series are built with the technique explained in Heads and clay armatures.

Studio Diary; The Landscape Project, part 6, Review so far…

February 17, 2015 by Rebecca Buck

It’s the end of the 1st year and time to take stock. You can see the earlier parts of the story via the Contents page. Click on any picture to see it full size.

Stephen Foote and I met up after 30 years. We were good friends as teenagers, both rather disengaged with school, both making art in our own time. 30 years on we both still use art work as a major part of our interaction with this nutty world. Sharing our images was a key way we got to know each other again and harnessing that process in a joint project was simply a way of capturing a what was occurring naturally. We set a straightforward ” Artist Responds to Landscape ” brief and kept a very open mind while we walked, talked, Steve took pictures and I just took it all in. We met every few months and sent each other pictures of the ensuing work in-between times.

Steve is also a Cameraman and was involved in filming for Panorama during the early, very heated phase in Kiev and the Crimea. I was coming to the end of the Up Is Down Series . Our first visit was Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea. Then we went into Porth Yr Ogof caves and had a mind-blowing day for me; we spent hours in the dark, natural cave while Steve took a fab series of photographs. I stood in the river in the darkness, held the lights and listened to the flow of water, felt the under-ground breezes. From there the project clarified for us as the travels of the water from the sky above the Brecon Beacons to the river, especially the Tawe, down to the wide bay at Swansea, and out into the Ocean where much of it will return to the clouds and begin the circle again.

These pictures are roughly in sequence for the progression of work over the last year with Steve’s Photos next to the related Sculptures.

Bracelet Bay , Stephen Foote.

Up Is Down- in progress

Up is Down IX, 57cm W,

Stephen Foote; Dunes

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote

in progress, July 2014

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote

in progress August 2014

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote.

It was this fabulous picture that shifted me abruptly into figures, much to my own surprise.

Busts in progress, Aug 2014.

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote

A narrative developed that was also influenced by the awesome storms of the previous winter. A trio of figures, the Guardians of the Aquasphere, the Lithosphere and the Atmosphere, arose and they and their Harbingers took on characteristics that the many life-forms of the Biosphere could relate to so that all would understand what was happening; The Triumvirate were going to let loose their forces. This was not to threaten or punish. They simply knew it was time.

Brecon Beacons, by Steve Foote.

The Atmosphere in the form of an Osprey.

Porth Yr Ogof Cave, Brecon Beacons, by Stephen Foote.2014

Guardian of the Atmosphere, The Osprey

The Wyvern and the Osprey, 2014.

The Wyvern, Guardian of the Lithosphere.

Frame-works for The Wyvern IV and, in the back ground, The Leviathan.

The Lithosphere has The Wyvern, a dragon that has taken a number of forms so far.

The Leviathan in progress, Sept 2014.

The Wyvern and The Leviathan. in progress, Sept 2014.

The Wyvern.

Bracelet Bay, Stephen Foote.

The Wyvern.

Bracelet Bay, Stephen Foote.

The Wyvern.

Osprey.

Wyvern

Leviathon

Osprey.

Leviathon

Wyvern.

Wyvern

The Guardian of the Aquasphere took on the form of the Mountain Ponies that run free in the Beacons.

It has been a fantastic year in the Studio; I am harnessing the narrative and collective sides of the monumental Community Sculptures of the last 13 years. But I’m free to use any scale. The architectural clays I use have given me the freedom to go anywhere in space. My amazing collection of Sculptor and Ceramist friends, from all over the world, on Facebook have encouraged and inspired me enormously. I’m settled into my lovely big Studio ( and gotten over the shock of having it at last!). Stephen and I communicate very well and we egg each other on.

Many thanks to everyone who has visited the work over this last 6 weeks and given invaluable advice and feed-back.I will continue with this series of sculptures until it is done.

We will start a new project focussing specifically on the passage of water from the mountains to the ocean along the Tawe Valley. We are partnering with some Public art venues and setting up some Community participation to widen our perspective. We will visit a small Coal-mine and the Open-cast mine. Only a few years ago, on the 15th of September 2011, 4 men were killed in a dreadful accident at Gleision Colliery when their mine was inundated with water. Making the Pit Markers in Blaengarw, I heard about these type of accidents but, like everyone else, I never thought such a thing could happen here, in this century. From just below the Studio down-wards the River has an extra-ordinary history in the Industrial Revolution.

Neither of us have any idea where this will lead. We feel confident that we have something with substance and a great deal of potential and we have found a work-method that is productive and sustainable. I know from past projects that the community will come up with all sorts of treasures that will lead us into work that is far richer and more interesting than we would make alone. We will trade Workshops in photography and ceramics for input from community groups and individuals. It will be a fun process. We need images, stories, myths, legends, history-including the ancient history and favourite, special spots on the river or tributaries.

Studio Diary, Landscape Project, pt 5.

September 25, 2014 by Rebecca Buck

The Leviathan in progress, Sept 2014

Frame-works for The Wyvern IV and, in the back ground, The Leviathan.

The second framework has become the Leviathan, the guardian of the Aquasphere as The Wyvern is the guardian of the Lithosphere. I will make more versions. These will have a pale gold colour. Next I will make a larger Osprey, guardian of thew Atmosphere, in the same clay(Scarva ES50 Crank) and then move to the black clays and re-do the set.

The Leviathan in progress, Sept 2014.

The Wyvern and The Leviathan. in progress, Sept 2014.

Studio Diary, The Landscape Project, part 1

August 24, 2014 by Rebecca Buck

Busts in progress, Aug 2014.

Lots of changes, lots of layers.This is the main photo I am focussing on; The sky, the land and the ocean and man’s presence – everything is integrated.

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea, by Stephen Foote, 2014.

These 2 pictures and the experience of being in both these places is never far from my mind these days.

Porth Yr Ogof Cave, Brecon Beacons, by Stephen Foote.2014

A narrative is emerging that involves the passage of water from the Beacons’ sky to the ocean at the bottom of the Swansea Valley. The Tawe River passes the Studio and the ground beneath us is full of tunnels from the rivers and from mining. The Wyvern, a dragon with a wonderful mythology about guarding the treasures of the subterranean world entered the picture when I was heavily involved with the history of local Coal Mining and the Pit Marker Sculptures and it is re-emerging here. The next clay-armature is more specific now that I have a clearer idea of where I’m going.

3rd Bust armature in progress, Aug 2014.

in progress, Aug 2014.

Powys Arts Month 2014, Open Studio and Garden Exhibition.

April 15, 2014 by Rebecca Buck

All over Powys in Mid Wales, UK, Artists and Craftsmen are opening their Studios and putting on special events to share work. It is a great time to find someone whose style appeals to you and go ask them about projects of your own. We all love talking shop and encouraging others with their creativity. It is an excellent event for Bargains as Artists spring-clean their Studios and admit it is time to part with secret favourites.

Osprey Studios is open every weekend in May or phone and book any time that would be more convenient. Evenings are a tranquil, charming time in the Garden.

Everything in this section is under £30.

Osprey Studios. Easy parking and access.

Some of the Sculpture is fresh from the Kiln and new work will be on the go in the Studio.

Beautiful Penpont ,half way between here and Brecon has an Arts Month site too and is a glorious place to visit. The ‘Visit The Studio’ page here on this site has other attractions, directions and details for having a lovely day here in the south-western corner of the Brecon Beacons National Park.

You can show up on the day for my 2 workshops but booking in advance will secure your place.

You can get a feel for my best white clay, Scarva Architectural,on the Join-in Sculpture which will be on the go all month and I’ll put out my Momentum wheel for anyone to try for free too.

A Join In Sculpture at Brecon Jazz with The Big Skill.

The lovely kids visiting Osprey Studios with The Chernobyl Life Line trying out the Momentum Wheel

On the 17th the wonderful Photographer, Stephen Foote (see links) that did my best pictures is coming here for anyone else needing top quality images at an affordable price. Everyone is welcome to visit on that day- it will be busy and very interesting to see Stephen Foote working in the Studio.

I have had a massive clear-out; I’ve got a large Commission to build in the Studio. It will be on the go during Powys Arts Month and your feed-back during the build would be a great help. It is not going to be an easy one! I’ll have a lot of brand-new, never shown, work here. You can handle the range of specialist clays I use to see if they might suit you. And there’s also some fab seconds for sale including my Gwenllians.

Taken as a pair they will be just £500 or £300 each. Some of my other smaller seconds will be £1-£30. They are all frost proof.

Gwenllian was an actual historical Welsh Warrior Princess. Both Sculptures of her are life-sized and fully frost-proof.

Everyone including Schools and Families will be very welcome to Osprey Studios during Powys Arts Month. You can relax in the Garden with a complimentary drink and the kids can play with clay for as long as you like.

The River Series

May 20, 2013 by Rebecca Buck

River Harbinger, 125cm H, at Wyndcliffe Court Sculpture Garden.

The River Series is an off shoot of the Wind Water Fire series merged with the Harbingers. It coalesced here in the Beacons in 2012 after 12 years in the stunning Upper Rhondda surrounded by waterfalls.

The view from my door step;One of many waterfalls in beautiful Blaencwm,Rhondda

Blaenrhondda, Rhondda Valley

The rivers in the Rhondda ran black for decades.Now you can drink the sparkling icy water.

The rivers in the Rhondda ran black with coal dust for decades. Now you can drink the sparkling, icy water.

Wind Water Fire III. 1m H.

When I first tried the Scarva black clays about 3 years ago I made a number of reclining figures and harbingers many of which were so awful they got recycled! But this one with a water theme I have hung onto knowing I wasn’t done with it. A lot of the work from it is now showing up in The Edge landscapes. Moss and lichens are the perfect finishing touch.

Reclining River Harbinger, 80cm L.

I’ve been off down various roads with it, some of them dreadful!! I’m definatly not done with it .

Like the Harbingers it is an environmental theme about the land and our relationship with it. Knowing you have drinking water running clear near your home is a treasure that means more to us all than we dare to think.

After the move to the Brecon Beacons I found we had this stunning river just below our new home. It is the river of the Henrhydd Falls, south Wales’s tallest Falls made famous by the last Batman movie.

I go there several times a week for the peace and beauty.