Commissions
Many commissions are one-off personal gifts for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and Christmas. I find that the exchange of e-mails soon shapes an agreed way forward. Typically, they are interpretations of favourite poems or texts.
The commissions can be sublime or ridiculous, sacred or profane, large (a set of twelve works on the theme of food, menus and restaurants for a development in London) or small.
Please don’t hesitate to ask about any possible commission; I’m happy to do almost anything, as testified by the diversity of items in the following list:
- a citation for a retired submariner
- menu boards for a pub
- copies of a will and a trust deed
- design for a house sign
- design for a maker’s nameboard on spinets
- completion of two maps relating to the Army in the late Victorian period
- a large panel (five foot wide) for a birthday, based on ‘snakes and ladders’
- a transcription of a speech by a former Director of the CIA
- a piece showing twenty mathematical formulae
- an inscription on a clock
- completion of an Eskimo love poem
- tattoo designs for a Baptist minister
- twenty inscriptions in copies of a biography of a Kenyan politician
- a collaboration on a one-off pair of shoes by Caroline Groves for Whoopi Goldberg. Quotations on American democracy on top and the ‘wisdom’ of Donald Trump on the soles, ready to be scuffed off
- a further collaboration with Caroline Groves on a pair of shoes featuring snatches of Keats’ poetry
- a panel re Bletchley Park and Enigma for a fireplace in London
- a logo for a fashion company
- two pieces for the Landmark Trust relating to the gardens of two of their properties, Llwyn Celyn, Monmouthshire and Winsford Cottage Hospital, Devon
- the rejigging of the background of an Alice in Wonderland tableau made by Talfourd Toys in the 1920s
- a Polish love song on falcons
Examples of more formal commissions include:
- commemorative pieces for Kellogg College and University Church, Oxford
- two large wooden boards for the National Trust at Stowe
- a design for a memorial in a family chapel in Warwickshire that was then cut in Welsh slate by Fergus Wessel
- commemorative pieces for churches including St. Aidan’s Church, Salford; Barcheston Church, Warwickshire; St. Helen’s Church, Dry Sandford, Oxfordshire and St. Michael and All Angels Church, Great Tew, Oxfordshire
- family trees including one going back to Norman times and another for a living descendant of Shakespeare’s sister, Joan
- work in commemorative books for Regent’s Park College, Oxford
I have also done work for, amongst others, Estee Lauder; Found Associates (Architects); John Bell and Croyden Ltd.; Radcliffe Trust; Riding for the Disabled Association and Watches of Switzerland.
Commissions
Many commissions are one-off personal gifts for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and Christmas. I find that the exchange of e-mails soon shapes an agreed way forward. Typically, they are interpretations of favourite poems or texts.
The commissions can be sublime or ridiculous, sacred or profane, large (a set of twelve works on the theme of food, menus and restaurants for a development in London) or small.
Please don’t hesitate to ask about any possible commission; I’m happy to do almost anything, as testified by the diversity of items in the following list:
- a citation for a retired submariner
- menu boards for a pub
- copies of a will and a trust deed
- design for a house sign
- design for a maker’s nameboard on spinets
- completion of two maps relating to the Army in the late Victorian period
- a large panel (five foot wide) for a birthday, based on ‘snakes and ladders’
- a transcription of a speech by a former Director of the CIA
- a piece showing twenty mathematical formulae
- an inscription on a clock
- completion of an Eskimo love poem
- tattoo designs for a Baptist minister
- twenty inscriptions in copies of a biography of a Kenyan politician
- a collaboration on a one-off pair of shoes by Caroline Groves for Whoopi Goldberg. Quotations on American democracy on top and the ‘wisdom’ of Donald Trump on the soles, ready to be scuffed off
- a further collaboration with Caroline Groves on a pair of shoes featuring snatches of Keats’ poetry
- a panel re Bletchley Park and Enigma for a fireplace in London
- a logo for a fashion company
- two pieces for the Landmark Trust relating to the gardens of two of their properties, Llwyn Celyn, Monmouthshire and Winsford Cottage Hospital, Devon
- the rejigging of the background of an Alice in Wonderland tableau made by Talfourd Toys in the 1920s
- a Polish love song on falcons
Examples of more formal commissions include:
- commemorative pieces for Kellogg College and University Church, Oxford
- two large wooden boards for the National Trust at Stowe
- a design for a memorial in a family chapel in Warwickshire that was then cut in Welsh slate by Fergus Wessel
- commemorative pieces for churches including St. Aidan’s Church, Salford; Barcheston Church, Warwickshire; St. Helen’s Church, Dry Sandford, Oxfordshire and St. Michael and All Angels Church, Great Tew, Oxfordshire
- family trees including one going back to Norman times and another for a living descendant of Shakespeare’s sister, Joan
- work in commemorative books for Regent’s Park College, Oxford
I have also done work for, amongst others, Estee Lauder; Found Associates (Architects); John Bell and Croyden Ltd.; Radcliffe Trust; Riding for the Disabled Association and Watches of Switzerland.