Category: Legacy & Succession
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In the wake of the ‘No Kings’ sentiment that surged through the United States in 2025, one is forced to ask a pragmatic question: Does the presence of a powerless, hereditary monarch actually serve as a vital safeguard for the common citizen? To the modern eye, the Crown appears an anachronism; yet, to the student…
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In the lineage of a creative life, there is often a single point of departure that defines the horizon. For me, that moment arrived over twenty years ago with my fourth masterpiece. It was a physical interrogation of Jacques Brel’s 1959 recording of “Ne me quitte pas,” rendered in marble. It represented a seismic shift…
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In my previous reflection, I spoke of the Parisian masons who dismantled the Bastille with a sense of purposeful liberation. Yet, the history of the “common cause” has a darker side. There are moments when the discipline of the craft is lost to the fever of the crowd, and I learned this most vividly on…
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A Lineage Forged in Picardy In the late 1980s, my journey as a carver was anchored in the soil of the Somme and the historic regions of Picardy. To work on Amiens Cathedral is to be humbled; it is the largest Gothic structure in France, a vessel of “lacy stone” where I spent my days…
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As a child in the aftermath of the Second World War, my world was defined by the jagged geometry of the City’s bomb sites. To most, these were merely ruins; to me, they were my first playgrounds. I climbed through the exposed foundations and scorched timbers of a London that had stood since the Great…
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There is a particular kind of stillness that settles over a historic building site before the public arrives—a brief window where the dust of the masons and the precision of the architecture exist in perfect, silent alignment. Looking back on the year 2000, while working as Head of Masonry and Conservation with St Blaise Ltd…
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To understand the 2005 commission for the Cannes and Perpignan centres, one must look further back to the foundations of my practice in Knightsbridge, London. It was there, while attending to the residential requirements of Middle Eastern royalty, that I first refined the application of “The Renaissance Proportion” for a discerning elite. Serving a royal…
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In the craft of stone carving, we often say that the sculpture is defined by the stone that is removed. The “negative space” is what allows the form to exist. This concept is a pillar of Court master Carving, and there is no greater allegory for this in the art world than the missing panel…
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Definition of a court mason – Historically a Court Master only worked for the richest and most powerful. The extensive training aimed to produce craftspeople who could not only build and upkeep a castle or palace but also had the skill, understanding and education to create for instance a marble console table and even the…