(Mixed Media)

‘Spring’ is a sculpture assembled from an array of parts that are stacked, balanced, and strapped together like a physical collage. The constituent parts include objects from my life and home, repurposed pieces of previous sculptures, and new elements made specifically for this piece. In due course it will itself be disassembled and pieces will return to their places in my home and workshop or be recycled into new work.

Parts list (top to bottom)

Golden-yellow-cross-hybrid-object

Originally part of a prototype for a sculpture that I never built (‘Wall hugger’), this object has sat in my workshop getting in the way for many years until finding a home in the many iterations of the ‘Backpacker’ (2025). I keep revisiting the ideas behind the original, still unmade sculpture and I am confident that one day something will happen, although I am now certain that the golden-yellow-cross-hybrid-object will not be part of it.

Webbing

Strong, practical, colourful. Handy for securing things to roof-racks and backpacks. Webbing is also remarkably good at holding together assemblages and component-based sculptures like this one.

Cord

The cord has spent many years securing a spare, modern, ledge-and-brace-style door to the wall of my garage. One day I will strip off the hideous dark marmalade coloured varnish and paint it a tasteful sage green, and it will become a new side door for my garage. The cord has now found a new purpose to secure camouflage trousers and the golden-yellow-cross-hybrid-object. The dark marmalade coloured spare door is unlikely to fall over as it is now supported by a stack of gently warping MDF. I wanted to use the warmer, tawny and red coloured cord but didn’t have enough.

Ceramic vaguely heart-shaped object

Made around 2004/2005 in an evening class which I joined to get easy access to a kiln. It lived on my bedroom windowsill for many years until wind and curtains conspired to fling it to the floor, at which point—damaged—it moved out of the house to my workshop.

Irregular blue polyhedron

Plywood. Originally part of ‘Picnic’ (2023). Sanded back to the wood, reshaped, repainted, and intended to represent Methane Hydrate in a cat-sized, unrealised sculpture. Currently it does not represent Methane Hydrate. I would like to repaint it. If it were repainted it might finally represent Methane Hydrate.

Wooden Crate / Tray

Probably part of a Christmas hamper received as a gift in 2024 or 2025. Probably contained cheeses, olives, chutneys, and small, hard, expensive crackers. I think it is too fancy to have just contained some kind of citrus fruit.

Blue bungee cord with clips

Possibly originally part of a hiking hydration system with a very long drinking tube. The water bag and the tube are also both blue, but they are problematic objects.

Camouflage Army Trousers

Purchased from an army surplus store to wear when hiking, but I’ve probably only worn them a couple of times. Not to be confused with the enormous double-layered, European paratrooper trousers with the spot of yellow paint from the now destroyed collage painting ‘One to One-Hundred Base One-Hundred’, that I used to wear together with blue Adidas Gazelles, thin navy cotton jumpers from Muji, and a beautiful grey Jigsaw jacket, and which the Camouflage Army Trousers sat next to in a drawer for many years. My much-loved jacket inevitably died and I idiotically got rid of my paratrooper trousers in an ill-advised fit of tidying because I am no longer the thin 20-year-old I was and hadn’t worn them for years.

Colander (green)

Purchased at Ikea in July 2025 on one of those days where the store is entirely full of parents and their quasi-adult offspring prepping to live away from home. Intended to be used as a colander, it has never been used because it was rejected by a quasi-adult.

Interstage

Orange-painted plywood. Made specifically for this piece. The plywood was cut from an off-cut leftover from furniture making. An interstage is a structural component in a multi-stage rocket that connects, supports, and separates two distinct stages. It houses key systems—such as avionics, separation mechanisms, and cameras—but typically does not contain fuel tanks or main engines. It is critical for a safe, controlled detachment between stages… but it seemed appropriate here.

4 x legs

Provenance unknown. Probably birch. I’ve had these in my workshop for as long as I can remember. I think they came from a small table or bedside cabinet, but I have no recollection of the original object. This is the first time they have made it out of the studio into an exhibited object (actually, they did make it to a gallery, but I ended up not exhibiting that piece then or ever). It really troubles me that I cannot remember where these legs came from.