Born in 1944, John was brought up in Port Talbot, south Wales, and in Prestatyn where he taught English. John began carving birds in wood in 1974 after seeing a table full of them at a street fair in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He can still remember the impact - and it has driven his work for over thirty years. Previously John had not been much interested in either birds or wood, so it is hard for him to explain why he was so affected, but it is a passion that has deepened over the years.

After his initial visit John returned America for several yearlong visits, during which he worked with carvers in Washington and Utah and enjoyed contact with the American decoy tradition. John now lives on the coast of Prestatyn close to an estuary, and it is these wonderful surroundings which now provide much of his inspiration.

North Wales is rich with many varieties of birdlife and all the different species fascinate and delight John "a sparrow seems to me as far from an eagle as a mouse is from a wolf", he feels that the appeal may lie in wanting to hold what's normally out of reach - a curved shape narrowing towards takeoff that fits in the hand. John also loves the fact that nature and it's creatures are at once both commonplace and mysterious, and capturing these characteristics are a constant challenge.

The woods that John uses to create his beautiful is his second muse. he feels it has a magical quality, the fact that it can be so tough yet so willing to go with the carvers flow, seemingly with the warmth of growth still in it. For the sculptural pieces he uses mainly native hardwoods such as cherry, apple, elm, oak and sycamore, and for his more realistic depictions are carved in lime with burning, stain and paint providing the finer points of detail.

John's other great passion is poetry, which while he was in America he taught at the Brigham Young University, Utah. he has had several collections of his work published by Seren Books, and in 2002 a collection was published which included poems about birds and carving, so his two crafts are interrelated. John's work has been profiled in a variety of magazines, in BBC radio portraits and on television.

9" x 8.5" (23 x 21.5cm)

Assorted woods

£210.00

'Little Tern'

11" x 7.5" (28 x 19cm)

Stained lime

£285.00