Stone Carving: Ingenuity, Serenity and Fluidity
"Carving is as old as mankind and just as relevant to life today as it ever was. The joy is that it is difficult, you can't stick a piece back on and you are always constricted by the size of the block. This calls for ingenuity and a fluidity of expression that does not exist for me in other materials."
It begins as a wild shape rather than a block. What is within the stone challenges Perryn to reveal it: "it vibrates for me whether I cut, carve or wrap it". She draws straight onto the stone and works directly, in the tradition of the early 20th century carvers.
The artist works intuitively, relying upon the subconscious and the stone to guide her. It often surprises her when she arrives at something completely unplanned and has no idea where it came from. Sometimes she sees it in a wild stone straight away and sometimes it takes longer for her to understand the stone's message. The feelings weave through the sculpture and connect the skein of ideas. The recurring topics of music, love and war are ultimately driven by the material she works in.
"I sometimes have a feeling when I am working which I call as "going into the silence". It is a form of deep contemplation, a place that sometimes takes days to find and is hard to come back from. This feeling of serenity is tangible in my work, which is predominantly about connection with others, present or past."
Carving Limestone
I use predominantly lime stones like Bath stone from the West of England because I like the warm colours and I can carve it quickly as the thoughts flow to me, so I don't lose the skein of an idea. I love the texture and the fossils and faults and bits of shell that make you have to constantly change the design, which stops me getting stale or bored.
Carving Bluestone
I occasionally carve harder stone, which is crisper and can hold harder edges and has a finer texture, like Bluestone which is Dolorite granite. Bluestone is magical - there must be a reason that ancient man dragged it all the way from Pembrokeshire to Salisbury plain. It is extremely hard granite with a mineral content that nourishes plants.
Journey of a Sculpture
