Done!

Finally, as of 3pm today, the potatoes are done!!!! I arrived home to find a quick carving job for me to do for my kids......

I'm spending a long overdue day with my wife and children tomorrow and then finally Tuesday I'll be back to turning!!!

'TATERS (or potatoes if you're not from round here...)

No time for turning this last week or two!!! Its the annual potato harvest and I help the farmer who lives just up the road from me every year. My job is mostly sorting out the 'seed' potatoes to be planted next spring and involves me picking out all the 'manky' ones and throwing them in a big box..... Its tough manual labour but it is kind of nice as its the only work I do where I am not in charge and therefore have no responsibility if anything (or indeed everything) goes wrong!! This last week has been early starts and late finishes but things should be a little less intense in the coming week, hopefully allowing me to get a few little turning jobs I have out of the way.

Anyway in the absence of anything creative to share, here is a picture of me being silly towards the end of the day and laying among some 'taters in the hopper that the trailers tip into.

The Eternal Prisoner

'The Eternal Prisoner' is a sculptural piece I have been working on lately, it was going to be the fourth piece in the 'Dark' series but evolved from its original idea through sketches and subsequent thoughts on what it is trying to say and has therefore moved away from the original plan.

The 'prisoner' is represented by a decorated sphere inside a 'spherical skeletal' cage, there is no way out of the cage, that is the ball does not fit through any of the holes, no escape! The prisoner ball is representative of new ideas, new ways

of thinking,of living, freedoms, desires, new technologies and explorations(both physical{space} and psychological). There are several simplistic, subtle shapes and designs in the decoration of the ball, from eyes(which the prisoner looks out of the cage from) to wings(freedom) All these being stifled by the constrains of the world(the cage) these being outdated tradition, religion, tribal mentalities, greed and the self imposed financial world(it doesn't really exist, we invented it!) that tells mankind 'We can't afford to go further'. Through all this the prisoner looks out, wishing they could be free.

The carved ring is there as a symbol of eternity, the silver colour added to it and the other parts are to emphasise this, silver being a precious metal that does not rust away.