Relief Carving

Shortly after I started to carve in relief there arose the question of how to treat the area behind the figure. Is it landscape? A void? Or does it suspend and animate the figure? Van Gogh’s skies sometimes seem as solid and real as the things below. This background now fascinated me: it was not only important, but everything. It seems to me that we almost cease to exist without that which supports us. The figure dwindled in my interest and affection: it seemed bossy and prescriptive when set against the background, which enigmatically allowed it to be. Yet still I doubted if a carving without the figure could hold sufficient interest.

The last figurative carving I did was of a goat. Following the lines of the hair of the goat with the chisel I became fascinated with those areas where the hair flows meet.