Story Chair. Bradford Library. Morwenna Catt + Lucas Richard Stephens

Animal Benches, Pupil Referral Unit, Bradford. Morwenna Catt and Lucas Stephens.

My first rough sketch for the benches

We worked at the Pupil Referral Unit to produce some benches for their garden. The young people took part in workshops, created their own mosaics and learnt all about the materials and techniques we'd be using on the furniture.

The main structure of the benches was carved with a chainsaw and finished with chisels.

This one is an Owl

A frog...

This started as a floppy eared rabbit....

We decided to use reflectors as eyes so they 'glow' in the dark

A cat..

A bear....each animal has a section of mosaic on its head.

A dog

The animals bite onto the benches to keep them solid.

Holmfirth Tiger mosaic images

The Holmfirth mosaic telling the story of Fenella the tiger was unveiled last week. I made it to the opening. It was a lovely do with circus cakes and tiger shaped helium balloons although I failed miserably to get any decent photos of the finished piece. So here are some sectional shots of it before I delivered it.

Holmfirth Project, Fenella the Tiger

I'm working on a project with Huddersfield Arts and Libraries to produce a piece of artwork for the interior of Holmfirth Library based on Fenella the Tiger. Fenella moved to Holmfirth when the Second World war broke out. She was brought to England by a circus family and lived in their house like an oversized house cat, she was best mates with a carthorse and liked a walk round Holmfirth being patted by the local kids and a nice bag of chips from the local chippy. So far I've I've worked with the reception and year 1 classes at Holmfirth Primary School to produce their own mosaic called 'tiger tales' to put on the wall in their school. The children became tigers for an afternoon and photos of their tigery faces will be used behind glass as a border in the larger piece I'm making for the library. Theres a rough sketch of the piece I'm producing above, it combines mosaic, photographs and painting. At the top theres a photo of Fenella lounging on her favourite sofa.

Cartwright Hall Table commission / Early Years workshops

Images of artwork produced in workshops with early years children at Cartwright Hall Gallery and Museum a few weeks ago. Work was based on the museums glass collection. I was commissioned to make a table which could be used for activities by children visiting the space (pictured above). It has glass mosaic inserts, traceable sections for drawing & wipe clean perspex inserts that the children can draw onto and wipe off.

public art - installing the sheep

The sheep is being installed in the town centre. Its a tight deadline as the unveiling is this Saturday the 1st of March. So far we've had freezing temperatures, gale force winds, torrential rain and the odd earthquake, along with various cuts, bruises, aches and pains, coffee burns and a cement filled eye. If whoever it is in charge of the weather happens to glance at this tonight can we have a few days of sun please? There's been alot of interest from the public - alot of good comments and a few bad - including concerns that we're planting a devil opposite woolies. Anyway there are a few photos above of the last couple of weeks progress. Some shots of the iron umbrella from its beginnings in the Old Forge Foundry through to its welding into the site. A detail of the mosaic before the mesh was applied to the plinth and fantastic support artist Kath who's been out in all weathers.