2023 – @thejonedgar Instagram
After abandonment of all social media during lockdown and appreciating the removal of feeling it is running ones life, I’ve re-instituted Instagram as an archive of images and which also allows easier direct contact.
2023 – portraiture classes July 2nd and Sept 15/16th
contact for more details; at West Dean College in the South Downs National Park
2022/3 – Art Society Heads Up! project
90 children in Y5 and 6; three schools. Developing the Bury project of 2021 further and deeper with schools in West Sussex. Two schools completed the sessions (individual heads and a communal lifesize head worked on by all pupils) in…
2021 – new public work starting, South Downs National Park
See the artist’s journal here: https://lordspiece.wordpress.com
2021 – Communal Head project
Bury School West Sussex funded by Young Arts charity intro assembly + 2 mornings with Y5/6 students working from publically-known sitter; communally-rendered life-sized head in clay whilst children were also working on their own individual smaller heads. Terracotta head will…
2020 – teaching programmed
Observational courses at West Dean – 1 day (hands and feet) at end of October and 3 day portraiture in the New Year.
2019 – ‘Fluvius’ public sculpture at Horsham
The archived diary of the creation of the work carved on site over a calendar year and involving the local community throughout: https://horshamsculpture.wordpress.com
Commission for The Cart Shed charity
A sculpture to respond to the charity which uses woodlands as a salve to the rigours of life: see http://cartshedsculpture.wordpress.com
Out of Nature October 2017 exhibition Herefordshire
see www.outofnature.org.uk – in residency 1-10 Oct
The naming of the sculpture on the South Downs at Slindon
The sculpture at Slindon will be unveiled on 17th February 2016 at noon. The National Trust’s Rise of Northwood – the replanting of the majority of a historic woodland lost in the first and second world wars – was made…
return to The Lightbox Gallery, Woking for day sculpture course – Oct 17th 2015
contact them quickly; a few spaces left
‘Out of Nature’ residency in Herefordshire October 3-11th 2015
http://outofnature.org.uk
new block at Slindon
The National Trust ‘Rise of Northwood’ will see a new commemorative marker emerging as the replanting begins. See http://slindonsculpture.wordpress.com for diary/archive of sculptor’s progress.
Public Sculpture in Pulborough? Have your say
see http://PulboroughSculpture.wordpress.com
update – Pulborough block
Still working a day a week at RH20 2EL until November 2014. Several cash pledges have already been made to the stone staying in the Arun Valley area.
Live sitting – Yorkshire Sculpture Park 31 Oct & 1 Nov 2013
Frieze Sculpture Park and YSP Curator Clare Lilley sits 11am-2pm with a live video feed and questions after each session
Lewes Group moves to Lewes; Southover Grange Gardens
now on a two year loan to Lewes District Council, situated in a beautiful small park
An article in The Times 22.9.13
see in ‘Publicity’ archive above
new 3 tonne block at Pulborough Brooks RSPB
working at RH20 2EL on Saturday mornings into the winter. For a linked film see the blog at: http://jonedgar.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/6000-years-apart/
New publication and exhibition
A new 40 page publication by Peter Hall and Marilyn Scott – with an introduction by Yorkshire Sculpture Park curator Helen Pheby – is unveiled for the travelling exhibition which opens on Wednesday 17th July at Woking Lightbox. It will…
Yorkshire Sculpture Park
exhibition moves to YSP 14 Sept – 3 November; include a public portrait sitting 31 Oct/1st November and a portrait teaching date on 2nd November
Sculpture Series Heads: Woking 17 July
new exhibition until 18th August to coincide with publication of catalogue in association with Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Lightbox Gallery and Museum.
summer sittings
Dame Fiona Reynolds recently sat for the Environment Series Heads, and Charles Saumarez Smith is a recent invited sitter.
Can YOU name a new landmark?
A new sculpture sits on the course of the former A3 separating the National Trust’s Hindhead Common and Devil’s Punch Bowl, GU26 6AB, following a snowy launch on 23rd March. During the course of the final 10 days working, lots…
To YSP: 2013 launches, exhibitions and teaching
An exciting year in preparation, with the last two heads of the Sculpture Series being completed and a Times photographer documenting progress of the critic sitter, Nancy Durrant, at Fittleworth in February. The Surrey University acquisition of the ‘Charmer’ bronze…
A newly discovered Roman Sculpture – the Fittleworth Iphigenia
This newly published paper tells the intriguing story of an important, newly discovered Roman sculpture. Click here to open (it is a 1mb file so may take a few seconds to access the archive); scroll down past the frontispiece page…
Strangling the sublime
Enthusing about the sort of things that goes through an artist’s mind in responding to place is thought-provoking. I biked around Hindhead’s Devil’s Punch Bowl distilling what I felt were the most visceral parts for me – a sublime landscape partially reborn,…
Improvisation and carving
John Fowles’ short story The Ebony Tower introduces Henry Breasley, a veteran painter talking to his future biographer David Williams who happens to be a young, conceptual artist: ‘My dear boy. Painted to paint. All my life. Not to give…
Roger Fry and the trap of the luxury art object
Beware the shallow gleam is a favourite phrase whilst advising students of sculpture who are toying with stone. The sourcing of fine stones from all corners of the globe takes real energy. The fine polish imparted thereon, the magical colour exposed…
Where there is form, add clay
After all, it is not ignorance which damages the clarity of our portraits, but the accumulation of knowledge. Alain de Botton – ‘Kiss and Tell’, 1995 The Amesbury Preparatory School in Hindhead is unique in being the only purpose-built school by…
Wight Man travels to The City
I met with art entrepreneur Sally Perry at the installation of the alabaster carving Wight Man in the foyer of Tower 42 in the heart of the City. Formally known as the Nat West Tower, the Nathan Kirsh-owned skyscraper is the…
Farewell to the Jerwood Sculpture Collection
Most of the Jerwood Sculpture Collection is being auctioned at Sothebys, London in May 2012 to ‘enhance its dedicated support of the visual and performing arts’. I suppose such reinvestment must be supported albeit cautiously, despite the collection breaking up to move to pastures…
2011 works: The Human Clay exhibition
University of Surrey has a vibrant Public arts programme with 30 sculptures and busts around the campus, including works by Bridget McCrum, John Mills, Diane Maclean and William Pye. Jon Edgar’s solo exhibition there in Nov/Dec 2011 was linked with…
Roger Eliot Fry – why knowledge isn’t always a good thing
There is no feeling of inner life and all traces of sensibility in the handling have been polished away. Surely that must be Brian Sewell commenting on a contemporary conceptual work? Did not Roger Fry die in 1934? This quote is…
Poesis and immortality
What is behind the urge for making? I’ve always suspected it is something to do with our mortality and the desire to be around for longer than strictly possible, as well as just feeling like something that one needs to…
Portrait sculpture – conscious, subconscious, unconscious?
Worthing Museum has an interesting sculpture exhibition on until January 2012, featuring the Latvian-born Dora Gordin (1895-1991) – she later changed this to Gordine – who settled in London after studying music and art in Paris. It is co-curated with…
A contemporary search for Petworth Marble (or Winklestone)
In the early 1800s, Petworth Marble rivalled many of the stones which were routinely imported from the continent, in both beauty and quality. A kind of shell marble occurring in the Wealden clay at Petworth, its quarrying was concentrated on…
Dick Barton, the mapping of South Georgia… and a solitude experiment
In 1951 Duncan Carse, the voice of ‘Dick Barton – Special Agent’, a BBC serial thriller with a huge daily audience, abruptly gave up his radio acting career to lead a six-man private Antarctic expedition during 1951-52 that planned to make the…
Composition and flow
The Picasso etching Le Repas Frugal (1904) demonstrates in two dimensions how the subconscious or intentional actions of the artist can assist the viewer’s eye around the composition without too much effort. The joints of the fingers and arms lead one’s…
On the tradition of pre-conceiving sculpture
This short clip is part of a Documentary film by Anna Thornhill. It features archive footage of sculptor Alan Thornhill working on a sculpture in Putney in 1989 and the resulting work, Exodus, some 20 years later at Kingscote Park in Gloucestershire. Thornhill’s…
Leonora Carrington on intellectualising art
It is sad to hear Leonora Carrington has died aged 94. Her recent sculpture (in the link, seen here in the exhibition which she lived long enough to see open), is seemingly interpreted from the imagery of her earlier paintings. For me,…
Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth
Never having visited Bournemouth, it was with some curiosity that I arrived at the Russell-Cotes to deliver 4 works to support a new exhibition based around their collection. Stripped – The Body Beautiful opens on 10th June (until 1st January 2012) and…
The Environment Series Heads
In 2006, the first of the ENVIRONMENT SERIES portrait sittings began as a logical extension to the invitations to people whose work or stance I admired. The head of Lady Philippa Scott, with her husband Peter Scott a formidable partnership…
The human clay: Compton
It was magical to discover that the painter I studied with at The Frink School (and recently visited in Edinburgh) Ruth Addinall, had come across artist Mary Wondrausch‘s wonderful book Brickfields and corresponded with her. Wondrausch’s slipware has a historical resonance and…
Angel of the North
En route for Scotland for sittings with sculptor Ronald Rae and Founder/Director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park Peter Murray as part of my sculpture series of heads, I was privileged to spend a few hours with Fenwick Lawson, an artist whose…
Modern British Sculpture – Mission Creep
When travelling abroad, workers’ canteens yield culinary delight as the bill is small and the richness of the experience unexpected. Expectation grows in proportion to resource committed. Thus, I thoroughly enjoyed the Modern British Sculpture exhibition at the Royal Academy. It was a no-brainer; I…
Sculpture stimulating the creativity of young people
Looking back to Summer 2006, this short film reminded me just how essential it is to be working with children from time to time. Jigsaw worked with several Herefordshire schools for those with special needs. We introduced elements: Fire, Water…
Protected: List of Practical Exercises
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Smooth, yet not complete
One perennial issue with clay sculpture seems to be the pre-occupation with the smooth – perhaps aimed at some form of ‘finish’ – with less attention to the completeness of the sculptural form or plane, by which I mean where…
Large Clay Sculpture: Improvisation course at West Dean
4 day course at West Dean College, West Sussex led by Jon Edgar – abandoning the use of the armature as stifling to creativity, students construct random clay elements (left) and then free-build with them… turning the clay matrix and…
How to Make a Difference
An article by Fran Monks after an interview conducted with Jon Edgar during the Chawton ‘Sculpture in the Wilderness’ exhibition, 2010. http://howtomakeadifference.net/2010/10/jon-edgar/
Scott bronze to Slimbridge
Lady Philippa Scott sat as part of my environmental series of heads in early 2007. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust – that she and husband Peter Scott had been so instrumental in founding – have just taken delivery of a…
Chawton House – Sculpture in the Wilderness
Opened by the Mayor of Winchester, Chawton House Chief Executive, Stephen Lawrence and Chair of the Trustees Gilly Drummond, DL. Chawton interpretation leaflet and map of sculptures
Sussex Life – A Life in Sculpture
This reproduced article from Sussex Life magazine accompanied the 12 week Worthing Museum and Art Gallery exhibition; March-June 2010. Published in May 2010. Sussex Life May 2010 article
Exhibition: Worthing Museum March-June 2010
The exhibition was opened by the Mayor of Worthing and had over 40 works displayed both inside and outdoors. Worthing Jon Edgar location of works leaflet Worthing Museum 2010 exhibition interpretation leaflet
Memory and Desire Film
Possibly the only time I’m ever going to appear in a principal cast list after Nick Rhodes… http://www.britfilms.com/britishfilms/catalogue/browse/?id=9F210A5C18bbd27D1CYtWJ498BC0 The sitting took place in North London in 2008 following an approach from the artist. This is the second of two bronzes…
Lilac Time CD album cover
New CD cover for the Memory and Desire album by Stephen Duffy and The Lilac Time, using the fired terracotta head.
Oxmarket Open Sculpture Competition 2009 – Judge’s notes
The works I see selected for final exhibition have a real breadth. Technical competence and freshness is much in evidence. My considerations have been warmth and sensitivity, honest observation, true credit to the base materials used and the mass conveyed,…
Alan Thornhill – Thoughts on the Aesthetic Experience and On Creativity (2008)
Techniques The most important techniques are those devised by the individual for dealing with self consciousness, dominant intentionality, insidious predisposition toward the familiar and the nameable, fear of failure, dependence on achieving acceptable results, all of which undermine and debilitate…
New film – Spirit in Mass: Alan Thornhill
SPIRIT IN MASS: Journey into Sculpture is a 40 minute documentary which charts Alan Thornhill’s unconventional journey into sculpture. Discovering himself to be by nature an improviser yet committed to the time-honoured language and sensuous values of sculpture, he devised a…
Responses: Carvings and Claywork
Responses – Carving and Claywork (2003-2008) is a new publication priced £10 from Hesworth Press and available through Amazon, West Dean or from https://jonedgar.co.uk The foreword is by Sir Roy Strong, who sat for the artist in 2005. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Responses-Carvings-Claywork-Sculpture-2003-2008/dp/0955867509/
quotes I warm to
quotes I warm to you are trying to intellectualise something – desparately. And you are wasting your time… That’s not a way of understanding; to make a mini-logic. It’s a visual world. You want to turn everything into an intellectual…
notes on Fittleworth
Fittleworth seems remarkably rich in its broad cultural connections for a parish so small and sleepy. Around 1199 there is mention of a bridge crossing the River Rother close to Ernulf the Fisherman’s land. As a congregating point, an inn…
Henry Moore’s Intro to Giovanni Pisano By Michael Ayrton; Thames and Hudson (1969)
FIRST TIME I saw the sculptures of Giovanni Pisano was in 1925 when I visited Pisa on a travelling scholarship from the Royal College of Art. I must only have been able to admire, or try to admire, the sculptures…
Writings of Harry Everington 1929-2000
Preamble: A few words are perhaps necessary to introduce the contents of this book. The background, from which I have drawn my material, is the Frink School of Figurative Sculpture, where in recent years I have been privileged to teach…
Notes on carving Wight Man, Feb 2006
This block was difficult to start; it had provenance, value and rarity, which has made the process of carving harder. Most of my blocks are mean lumps, perhaps damaged and rejected by others, bartered or found. That it had been…