In Search of Company

I never expected to be spending I most of my workshop time carving little animal sculptures. Nevertheless I find myself totally engrossed in the process of trying to capture the sweet and playful nature of animals through the use of simple lines and texture, and only a few hand tools.

At the beginning of 2020, before the world went mad, we were in Japan and had a call from the vet that was caring for our lovely 19-year-old cat, Claudia. She’d had a stroke and hadn’t survived. It was so sad to be away from home at the time. A couple of months later our beautiful mini schnauzer Lucy became ill and passed away too.

I felt terrible and guilty, and missed them both so much. My response to losing Lucy was to carve a little wooden version of her. I found it comforting to have around – I felt a bit silly but a couple of times people asked to buy it and I