My Inspiration.
For as long as I can remember I have felt a strong connection to nature and in particular trees.
Their majestic strength and magnificence enrapturing me, each twist and turn telling a story of survival and adaptation.
To me there are few things more beautiful, more magical, more ancient than a tree, whispering secrets and wisdom of a time long forgotten.
As a child my favourite place was the woods where I would spend hours looking at every nook and cranny in a gnarled tree, imagining them to be faerie homes, secret doorways to another realm.
With a love of fantasy artists such as Peter Pracownik and Brian Froud and a fascination with Tolkien’s fantasy world of Middle- earth, I found I was completely drawn to their work.
It called out to me, it fed my imagination and opened my eyes to the hidden world all around. That hole in a gnarled tree trunk, that twisted root, that patch of fungi could they all be gateways to another domain, and maybe if I sat still and looked for long enough, I would be rewarded with a glimpse into this other world of wonderous magic and mystery.
Growing up I never lost the ability to tap into my imagination and see more than what my eyes led me to believe, when I find a tree that calls to me, I have a feeling of time standing still as my mind is allowed to run free, lost in my thoughts.
Through my interest in Celtic Folklore, I came across stories of The Flying Rowan. When birds eat Rowan berries, the digested seeds would often be deposited into crevices of rocks and older trees. These seeds would sometimes sprout, producing a tree growing with its roots above the ground, known as Flying Rowans.
In Celtic Folklore the Rowan was considered the tree of life, a sacred tree symbolising courage, wisdom and protection, Flying Rowans with their roots separate from the earth, growing in the most unlikely of places were revered as magical portals to ethereal domains.
These Flying Rowans became part of the inspiration for my sculptures, I love the idea of not only designing wire trees crafted using a bespoke twisting technique, but also creating little enchanted scenes inspired by the beauty of nature and the magic within.
All my sculptures are unique, and each piece has a little bit of ‘nature treasure’ as part of the finished design, be it shells, sea glass, stones, moss, driftwood or other items from my collection that I have gathered on my many adventures.
I hope that my designs enable you to get lost in the detail, where your imagination can come alive, and you have a sense of being transported to the edge of the ‘otherworld’.
Hannah.
“Voices in the forest tell of dark and twisted enchantments- as dark and twisted as the roots and grasping branches of the trees themselves. Even the most gnarled tree is eloquent in the telling of its own tale” - Brian Froud
“At the edge of our world, at the edge of the otherworld, the beautiful and mysterious faeries stand, watching and waiting to greet us, inviting us to journey with them as our guides while we walk the infinite paths of the faerie” - Brian Froud.
“He told them tales of bees and flowers, the ways of trees, and the strange creatures of the forest, about evil things and the good things, things friendly and things unfriendly, cruel things and kind things, and secrets hidden under brambles”- J.R.R. Tolkien.
“I am at home among the trees”- J.R.R. Tolkien.