Lottie O'Leary is featured as one of the subjects of Paul Harris' exhibition - a stone carver who lives at Knucklas.
We are delighted to be showing her stone carving 'The Lost Words' which was carved for an exhibition at The Lettering Arts Trust in Snape Maltings in the spring of 2019. This exhibition was inspired by the Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris book, The Lost Words, highlighting those words that are disappearing from children's lives.
Lottie chose some of those words from the book and carved a double sided relief, one side being a depiction of a rural scene and the other, in contrast, quite abstract, the seeds of life exploding out of a coiled fern. The whole carving is wrapped and entwined by the persistent bramble and ivy, the connection between the two sides, the wren.
Lottie was totally inspired by the book and feels that the words should always be part of a child's vocabulary. Once she has conceived an idea she does very little drawing, working mainly from photographs. The piece is carved from Portland stone as it is fairly hard and can take good detail.
