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12
13
Summer
2015
But now it was 1987 and I suffered a
second setback. I contracted Hepatitis
B from a needle stick injury. Bright
yellow and feeling very ill my doctor
informed me that if I didn’t clear the virus
I wouldn’t be able to practice again! I
recovered, but during the 4 months away
from practice, I had taught myself how
to make sculpture. It is a similar hand-
eye skill to creating beautiful crowns in
dentistry. Rather than a dental laboratory
you use a foundry; rather than casting a
gold inlay you cast a bronze.
I had collected art for my home for
many years. Sue was a PA to a director at
Christie’s so I spent a lot of time in the
auction rooms just looking and acquiring
know-how. Earlier in my life my father
was awarded an FRPS as an amateur
photographer. He often let me help in
the dark room, developing and printing
black and white photographs and I can
well remember his first coloured print.
He had taught me to put objects on the
thirds in a photographic field and to view
a scene through a pin hole made with
my fingers before taking a photograph.
I had, without knowing it, developed a
seeing eye.
Later that year and fully recovered,
I was introduced to the Burleighfield
Foundry at Beaconsfield who began
to cast in bronze for me using the lost
wax technique. The directors there had
made Barbara Hepworth’s work and I
met Elizabeth Frink and Lynn Chadwick
(another OMT) and became surrounded
by great sculptors, many of whom
became friends.
I soon had the unique situation of
having a wonderful practice full of
interesting patients with my own art
works decorating the house and people
beginning to collect my work. Suddenly
commissions came flying in. I thought
about retiring from practice but I hadn’t
quite got the will to be a full-time
artist and what was happening suited
me well - I had the ideal day job and the
night time and weekend one too.
I remarried and my wife Auriol joined
me, designing and making sculpture.
Many of our heroic works were made
in partnership.
Mother Superior
The Keris