The sculpture was a commission from the Bason Botanic Trust as part of a project to open up a walkway above the lake. The brief for the sculpture was completely open but the Trust hoped for a sculpture that would invite visitors to take the new walkway and engage a wide range of the public.

Stage one: Designs. My intention was to design a sculpture that would feel serene, at peace and in harmony with the surrounding environment. My first ideas were sculpted in clay, which is great for working quickly and expressively to explore forms. Once there was a form that I liked I made a large clay model and this was submitted for approval. Once the design was approved, the sculpture build could start. The design and approval process was the most time consuming part of the whole project – it took time to explore enough ideas, to reach an aesthetic level suitable for the public and to resolve technical/engineering issues to ensure longevity and stability.

Stage two: Building the under-structure. This I built at home from plywood and thin wood strips. Measurements from the model were scaled up to make the wooden lattice structure. Once the skeleton was built, it was easy to adjust the shape by cutting and shaving the wood here and there to get the lines and curves right. This took about a week.

Stage three: On site building. The ground under the sculpture had to be levelled and excavated with a thick layer of shell rock added for stability. That site preparation work was done by the building contractors who built the walking path, all other stages of the sculpture build I did by myself. I then transported the wooden under-structure in pieces to the site. The sculpture was wrapped in wind mesh fabric to catch the mortar and prevent it from falling inwards Over the wind-mesh up to five layers of chicken-mesh was wrapped around
the form. A concrete foundation ring was poured for stability and strength and after this the main work could start – the mortaring! This was the most consuming task as well the most difficult and important. The first three coats were made from the fiber rich mortar mix which greatly improves the strength and the final coat was done with a fine sand smooth mix for best appearance. Overall the sculpture received four coats of mortar making the walls around 60 – 80mm thick. I found the mortaring work quite challenging for a number of reasons: there was no water on site, I used a small petrol powered concrete mixer, I teetered on the ladder trowelling up high and my inexperience of mortaring techniques. But after three weeks on site, I finished the final coat at 10:30pm and all turned out well.

After contemplating the finished sculpture I could see that it did indeed feel harmonious to the surroundings and had a calming presence. That sparked the question how does the viewer relate to nature? So  name the sculpture ‘How do I Relate to Nature’, I like that it is a broad question which hopefully leads to introspection.