The Next Step

For the courtyard redevelopment, Mr Cater had the idea to create four large scale figures based on a series of pieces I have made, which I call Little Folk.

Here are some of the Little Folk.

I make them out of old steel that I find. The bodies might be from an old wagon axle, a chisel, part of an old pick or maybe a railway spike.

These components have done a lot of work in their time, and now they are taking on a different role.

Rather than being taken to the smelter and recycled into new steel, I am giving them another chance at life!

The heads are steel balls that have been used in a rock mill, a cage that rolls around with steel balls inside, which smash up big rocks, into little rocks. They start out the size of cricket balls, then wear down over the years until they are ineffective

After some discussion we decided upon the concept and theme of the project.

The next step was for me to create a model of each piece which is called a maquette.

My collection of mill balls

My collection of mill balls!

A. bucket of old railway spikes