I was born in Suffolk in England at the end of the 50s and moved to London mid-60s. Dragged through the pubs and drinking clubs of Soho as a young chap introduced me at a tender age to the British art scene (I must have been about ten when Francis Bacon gave me 5 quid to leave the French Pub…. He hated kids!).  Murielle Belcher, who founded “The Colony Rooms” made me a life member when I was probably about 14 and it was always a great place to pick up free drinks in the afternoons through-out my teens and meet the famous. At 17-18 I moved into a squat in Camden Town and managed to get into the foundation course at Chelsea school of Art. It was all very trendy and everybody was the next budding Picasso.  Camden was turning into a haven for junkies, so after the foundation year I got out. I was accepted on the painting degree course at Norwich Art School away from the sins of London and spent 3 great years with some good teachers and a great social life.

Having spent several summers on a Greek island during that time (another paradise for artists), I discovered the importance of speaking different languages,  so after  receiving my Hons degree, I left England on a 4-year 4-languages plan. Life never works that way but I did spend a year in Paris, and a year in Rome before my heart took me back to Paris, where I seem to have stayed.

This was the early 80s, and an incredibly lucky time for me. With a new government, and especially Jacques Lang as minister of culture the theater and creative worlds were overflowing with opportunities. All this long before the advent of the horrific AIDS pandemic which decimated the lives of so many.

My first couple of big projects was as assistant decorator at the Opera, but it wasn’t long before I understood that in fact it was the sculptors working on the sets who were making better money and having more fun. After that, at every occasion I presented myself as a sculptor for the theater.

And it worked! I had to learn the hard way, making my own mistakes, but luckily there were friends a phone-call away who knew better than I and would often help me out. But the time! and that terrible feeling of total incompetence still haunts me today. Finally, you start to get better and feel more comfortable which gives you greater freedom, but it takes a long time.

I think over the last 40 years I’ve probably worked in most of the major theaters in Paris and worked in most mediums, (except stone, too heavy for the stage) but now with the advent of all the new ‘Bio products’ I might be a bit behind. In the 80s we used to do a lot of modelling in clay with plaster casting (even huge pieces) until polystyrene raised its ugly head. From then on it was difficult to go back in time, you just had to learn the tricks.

When you work for the theatre, film or whatever, you’re always making something that looks like something else. It’s always ‘fake stone’, ‘fake wood’, a fake car, a fake mountain, you name it.

So finally, when I did pick up courage to start doing my own work, (thank you Covid 19) I looked towards that, that isn’t trying to be something else or illuminate other than what it is. I avoid using techniques that can enhance or camouflage, techniques that I’ve used most of my working life.

I’ve taken the simplest ideas and tried to create them by the simplest means. Plaster and a bit of wire. What could be simpler than that! Working in plaster gives you a very limited time span in which to sculpt, (7-8 minutes top-chrono) which means there is a certain panic involved, also fear your going to mess it up, but in all its great fun. So, all told, that’s how I’d sum it all up, Fun, Fear, and Panic