Tucked away in the quiet West Oxfordshire village of Bampton, sculptor David Williams is the winner of the 2022 Artweeks Mary Moser Award, an annual award intended to help develop the career of an artist who has taken up art professionally after time working in another sector. Esther Lafferty chatted to David to find out more about his growing love of sculpting and his plans for the future.
I began stone carving about eight years ago when my children bought me some stone-carving chisels for Christmas because I had been saying for a long time that I fancied having have a go at it and I was really keen to repurpose discarded pieces of local stone. I’d always been fascinated by stones and pebbles and have often built little stacks of them around the house. I love the idea that stones are millions of years old and have been used in different ways in previous centuries, in buildings and drystone walls for example. Last year I carved a fruit bowl from a lump of Cotswold stone that was discarded when Bampton Library was refurbished, and was part of the library when the building was used as the hospital in Downton Abbey!
Most of David’s pieces are inspired by nature, either echoing the shapes he sees or else carved in a stylised way. Recent work has included big sections of sunflowers, nearly a metre across, in offcuts of Ancaster limestone and his popular sleek owls which have an elegant globular form that “no orthnologist would identify” he laughs.” Generally designed for the garden, the range includes bird baths and animal forms atop a rectangular plinth into which David carves decorative designs or quotations.
“I have often used a circular shape for the animals – leaping fish or flowing otters – as I like the idea, inspired by Barbara Hepworth, of being able to see through a sculpture. I am also inspired by the books of Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris: I also enjoy working with text and did a course in letter-cutting which is quite technical and requires other skills,” he continues
Limited in size by what he can manage in the back garden, and what he and wife can carry through the garage, David also makes a range of gilded pebbles to fit – literally – every pocket.
“I’m looking forward to devoting increasingly more time this year on what started as a hobby and has become more of a way of life,” he continues. “I also now teach day-workshops for people who would like to have a go at stone carving. I’m absolutely delighted to have won the Mary Moser Award and will be putting the prize money towards developing a website.”
David by Sue Side (portrait for NHS heros)
This portrait of David was drawn by Cumnor artist Sue Side with whom he is exhibiting for Oxfordshire Artweeks in May. It was part of the Portraits for NHS Heroes initiative.
When David isn’t teaching or stone-carving, David spends evenings and weekends as a volunteer Blood Biker for the charity SERVOBN which delivers out-of-hours blood and blood products for the NHS.