These carved off-cuts of 3×3 inch timber are my attempts from my school days at abstract sculpture, responding to the grain in the wood. Despite my aims, I think that they’ve ended up looking like Kon-Tiki style totem pole figures, so they seem to have a back and a front side.
Drawing them over fifty years later, I’m also reminded of the blocks and joints of the old sandstone quarry on Storrs Hill, which I used to walk past, and sometimes climb on, on my way to and from Ossett Grammar School.
The larger one seems more successful to me. It’s some kind of softwood, perhaps pine, so I was able to gouge into it to bring out target patterns in the grain. The smaller one is beech which has a regular smooth grain, so the shapes that I carved don’t have the same unified look as the pine version.
Barbara and I both think that the smaller carving looks like a female figure. From one angle Barbara can imagine that she’s sitting on a throne, so perhaps they’re like the king and queen in a chess set.
