If one of our pieces of art can have a function as well, we enjoy it doubly. By designing pieces of practical Sculpt like this bookshelf, for interiors and for landscape locations, we try to blur the space between art and crafts.

A lot of our designs are ‘nature-led’ and we often like to react to something that Nature has already started upon. For us, we see this as working ‘with’ Nature – our design aim being to blend not conflict.

The ‘look’ of all cityscapes and most landscapes has been driven by the nature of generations of people. Whatever designers and artists create, they contribute thus compound upon the past. For example, I’ve often heard critics complain about new buildings as being like carbuncles on the landscape but some will have thought that in silence about Pyramids and probably Ziggurats.

Our ‘Nature’ includes these as part of the whole. We are usually adaptive in our ways, preferring to evolve everything from a logo design to a factory conversion, taking the maturity that has been already been established and progressing it. It is rare that you will ever hear us say “Scrap it and start again from scratch”.

This is not Feng Shui nor does it follow other published ways of design. We align our new design works by observing the ways of our own Nature and ‘following through’.

Some say we are the ‘New Rustics’ and that our designs look a bit Japanese but however they sit, they are rooted from an inner instinct that crosses cultures and makes for comfortable living.

We use ‘Design’ to discover a solution, not to create a problem.

~~~~~~~~~~ <+))))))))>< ~~~ waves from Grant

Nestling in wall crevices and billowing out of rockery cracks, I have always thought of Aubrietia plants as beards. On close examination, these purple flowering lumps are often held on by the merest of stems and yet somehow withstand winds and the heaviest of settling snow.

Having created a series of swooping wood curves as an oak slat wall to retain earth, I felt that a “beard” in each swoop would look great so planted all nine locations. Somehow I think Aubrietia has a mind of its own for it has favoured 5 of my plantings and rejected the others. I keep trying the other swoop but seeds don’t like them.

As a solution, I have been secretly growing four aubrietia plants to maturity and will thus be able to finish off the ‘terrace of the nine beards’ instantly.

I shape the plants once a year in January to keep them trim – now all I have to work out how I can keep my own chin growth down with only a once yearly shave!

Waves from the top terrace ~~~ <+))))))))>< ~~~ Grant