A Fresh start.

  I set this blog site up a couple of years ago and then promptly forgot about it, letting it lapse and lie unloved in a dusty corner of my computer.   But today would be a good time to restart this page again. And this little inscription appears as good as any to begin with, its a Dutch proverb that translated reads; "Later street leads directly to never house" or in English "get going or it will never get done".

  So here goes.

    Last year I left a job I had for the previous eight years, I've been living and working in the USA, as a letter carver. I made many friends and worked with great colleagues. The shop I worked in has a long and justly proud history stretching back across three hundred years. It has a strong tradition that runs through their letter forms and design solutions. The standard of work that comes out of the shop is very high. All in all I had a very enjoyable time.

                                                                   BUT

   The letters I cut were not my letters, nor were the design solutions solutions I would have reached. they were not my traditions nor were the influences those that I would have chosen,

 I am a letterer/carver and that comes with a desire to take a more active role in the pieces I produce, to take to myself more responsibility for the design. To be free to explore other letter forms and other solutions to design problems. To leave and enjoy the evidence of my hand in the cut marks, to do unheard of things like introducing color into the finished product. To dance to my own drum and to succeed or fail as my talent leads me. In short to be the owner of my own work.

  So here I am restarting my forgotten blog after two years away, with a little inscription  I drew directly onto an off cut of French Limestone last Saturday morning and finished cutting before lunch on Sunday. A small piece done with no greater point to it than to amuse myself and while away a few hours. And yet its message of do today & don't put off until tomorrow is apt and a kick up the backside to dust of this neglected blog and start it up again.