Glastonbury Tor mosaic
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Glastonbury Tor Mosaic Kit

Recently I moved back to Devon after 21 years in Somerset. It’s taking a while to get used to living in a town here and being surrounded by houses instead of living out in the sticks and being surrounded by fields. However I have the sea and Dartmoor close by, and I can see “Rippon…

Fronds in the Sun
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Fronds in the Sun

This summer I was asked to make a mosaic for a couple’s Golden Wedding Anniversary to place on a tree in their woodland garden. The brief was “something fairly abstract, with a suggestion of plants and flowing water and using reds, oranges, golds and magenta’s, the size to be about 120m x 50cm” It was…

Tree of Life at the RUH
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Tree of Life at the RUH

This summer I was commissioned to make a “Tree of Life” mosaic to raise awareness of organ donation for the Royal United Hospital in Bath. When the organ donation hospital team were looking for inspiration for a tree of life, they found my Olive Tree on my website and got in touch. It was a…

The Phoenix
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The Phoenix

This year it was so hot a phoenix arose from the sizzling sun Sunglasses on we tried to see it’s wings unfurl Still the bright golds burnt our eyes Taking  it’s first flight we saw the feathers turning into flames And for all it’s beauty there lay a monster of our own image making wild…

The Robert Plant Guardian Bird of Relics
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The Robert Plant Guardian Bird of Relics

And so to the final one of the six birds! It’s Robert Plant,  our wonderful living rock legend! I thought it would be nice to have someone who is still alive as inspiration for a guardian bird. I chose Mr. Plant because of his connections with Glastonbury and the Abbey itself. In 2014 for the…

Saint Dunstan Guardian Bird of Relics
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Saint Dunstan Guardian Bird of Relics

The penultimate guardian bird of relics made for  the Traces Revealed exhibition at Glastonbury Abbey. Born in Baltonsborough near Glastonbury, Saint Dunstan was guided by the Irish monks in the 10th Century A.D at Glastonbury Abbey. Later he became abbot of the Abbey. When he was canonised after his death, his patronage included metalsmiths, goldsmiths,…

St.Brigid Guardian Bird of Relics
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St.Brigid Guardian Bird of Relics

It is said that the Irish Saint Brigid (of Kildare) visited Beckery chapel just outside Glastonbury in the 5th Century AD. Although the chapel is no longer there I went to find the hill (Brides mound) where it once was. I wish I had been in on the recent excavations where they re-found seven skeletons…

St. Joseph of Arimathea Guardian Bird of Relics
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St. Joseph of Arimathea Guardian Bird of Relics

Legend has it that Saint Joseph of Arimathea came to Glastonbury to spread the Christian faith with the two cruets full of Christ’s blood and sweat. When he arrived he walked up Wearyall (now Wirral) hill and on reaching the top he stopped and exclaimed something like “Since we be weary all here we will…

King Arthur and Queen Guinevere Guardian Birds of relics
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King Arthur and Queen Guinevere Guardian Birds of relics

And so the magic begins! …The Guardian birds have risen from their hidden hollows beneath the Tor . The precious relics tightly carried in their claws, to a place of safety in the Abbey, where pilgrims and folk from the kingdom of Somerset and beyond can gaze upon them in wonder. I chose to use…

Let There Be Light (and Water)!
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Let There Be Light (and Water)!

Pool of Dreams I wanted to make a bird bath loosely based on The Whirlwind That Takes Me There only using a different colour palette. Like my Pretty Maids and cockle shell bird baths, I made this one by hand forming the base using wire, glass fibre mesh (I recycle the mesh sheets that mosaic…