How do they know that gold fish has a memory span of three seconds?

I’m having a lot of gold fish moments just now. My work space, The Sanctuary, has to be somehow transformed into a presentable show room for public viewing for the Spring Fling. There are a thousand things to do and by the time I’m out of the room I’ve already forgotten what I was going to do. Multitasking failing miserably. My tea mug can be found in the shed, the garden… If things don’t improve after the Spring Fling I’ll have to seek professional help. At least I haven’t gone into town in the car and come home in the bus as a friend did but then again, he’s over eighty…

You can season a melon (galia) size piece of wood in the microwave in four and a half hours.

My daughter Susan, a good sport, doesn’t ask questions any more when she comes across seemingly insane incidents. She says her upbringing provides her with a wonderful excuse for any odd behaviour she may or may not have. She is convinced she was found under the gooseberry bush and would her real parents please come forward now…

Working in solitude gives you precious thinking time. Sometimes it is fruitful time, other times not. While I was making Punk Rooks I was wondering how to spruce up various parts of the house. The dining room is looking a bit lived in … new floor would be a good start. Painting always cheers up walls…green perhaps. Not pink. I have given up decorating with pink or red. Instead of my usual blue and white I painted the spare room pink. Boy, it was like being in candy floss. I wanted the bedroom walls like the weathered outside walls in Italy, flaky patchy in orange-red-rust tones. You know the kind that looks fantastic when you sit in a cafe in sunshine, under azure skies… it’s 25degrees C…sipping an espresso… Well, my efforts ended up like very badly printed mottled 60s wall paper. It is still there. You notice it every day – and it absorbs all the light. The last pink disaster was in the bathroom. Not only the walls are far too pink but the floor was the final straw in the pinks’ coffin. I wanted to give the beautifully sanded floor a faint a pink tint but didn’t dilute the paint enough and somehow it turned out fluorescent pink. It made your eyeballs bleed as Susan put it. The floor is grey now. I stick to ceramics in future.

There is nothing like family to keep you from becoming big headed.

You don’t know whether to laugh like a hyena or shout abuse when Husband comes in and asks “But is it Art..?” and Daughter says ‘What the hell is that?!”  … Give me a break (and half a million pounds!).

It takes 6 meters of galvanised wire to make a pair of tall bird legs.

I feel very privileged to live in the country, to be surrounded by the Nature. Having lived in a city I appreciate the privacy and lack of artificial noises. Some of my most memorable moments though combine the nature and artificial noises. The first one was on a spring morning many years ago. An open window…Mahler’s Fifth playing on CD (you know, the  slow bit, Death in Venice) and a curlew flew past singing. The mournful song fitted the tune perfectly. The second happened while working late in the evening last summer. I was listening to the Quintet of the Hot Club of France –  Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, when my resident black bird in the tree top joined in. The combination was amazing. The third one was too good to miss and even being a techno idiot I managed to catch the performance in my mobile – The resident Black Bird singing, accompanied by the low key cello and piano piece in the radio by….(whose name escapes me). Magical moments I won’t forget.

Answer to the most FAQ

I do have to have a name for the work before I start making it.

Now and then one is particularly chuffed about the title. My titles always have a play on words, pun, spoonerism etc in it. How boring would it be to call a work “A shoal of Fish” (l, ll, lll…) instead of Catch 22, Red Herring, Zebrafish(crossing), Whitings on the Wall. A recent title I am very pleased with is Carmine Piranha. It’s a work with  sort of red Orff beat fish with teeth. It went to a place called Gamba in Glasgow. There must be mileage in that too…Gamba…Viola da Gamba…Prawn with a Pansy…Shrimping Violet… Gamborgini… Fast Prawn…