Christine Baxter Artstone Garden Sculpture
Bespoke signs designed and made
Photographs of Commissions
RHS MALVERN SHOW 2008 Photos of sculptures in show garden
Garden Sculpture Retail Outlets
Musings on Creativity
Commission Me
Contact and e-mail
About Christine Baxter
Contact
Home
Sculptor
Lydney Gloucestershire United Kingdom
Artists Statement At the age of six I remember my grandfather digging some clay out of the garden and us making a little dog together. We then dried it out by the fire and the next day we put it in the fire to fire it. It exploded! But I was hooked, drawing and making anything 3D. My foundation was at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. I was very lucky to be taught by an inspring tutor - Mike Gillespei - who was assistant to Epstein, during that year I made about 8 portrait busts of friends and anyone that would sit for me, exhibiting my work at Caius College at the end of the year. I loved modelling in clay and was advised that the place to go was Camberwell. I was lucky enough to be accepted and it was wonderful. We made full sized figures, portrait busts loads of life drawing, technical exercises such as scaling up and down as well as bronze foundry casting and arc welding courses. When I left Camberwell I looked in the paper and couldn’t find that “Sculptors Wanted” advert! I worked at various day jobs, carrying on with sculpture on a small scale (no studio) in my spare time until someone put me onto model making for the toy and giftware industry as a way of earning my living. I worked full time in this industry, getting fairly well known at it for about 12 years. This allowed me to build my own studio in Gloucestershire and start to work on the type of work that I wanted to do; modelling from the figure in wax and clay. I love the human form; the beauty in the female body, that quiet introspection of a moment, not overtly aware of herself, just being. When I am making a piece I am thinking about balance, gravity, volume and grace, all of these are important for a successful piece. Then there is an added dimension, the material, the act of making, should it be consciously finished or show the unconscious marks of the making and the thinking that goes into its creation. There is something very special, a bit like an impressionist painting when the unconscious making marks are left visible. I want the viewer of the piece to experience some of the love of beauty and grace that I understood whilst I was making the piece. Lastly, I am very interested in the material into which the piece is cast, how this changes the appearance and perception of a sculpture, the colour of the patina can change its look enormously, all these have to be carefully considered.
Artstone is the trade name of garden sculpture made by Christine Baxter. Christine is a classically trained sculptor who studied at Camberwell School of Art London. Christine, over the last 20 yrs has become a well established sculptor and artist and has worked for many years for the film and gift industry. Now concentrating her time on Garden Sculture and gallery pieces. Christine's studio is now based in a converted barn studio on the Lydney Park Estate Gloucestershire.
Christine has, over the last couple of years been producing original and unique new garden sculpture her interestes include the classical, the human form and objects in nature. - The sculptures are also avaliable in a dark faux-bronze finish examples of which can be seen on this site. Christine has plans to produce a number of new designs for 2010. The focus will be on expanding her Contemporary Fine Art work. Customer feedback and sales have shown that this is an under represented market and so over the Winter months her aim is to create new pieces to complement her existing contemporary work. Christine aims to produce garden sculpture that is of an exceptionally high standard of sculpting, all of unique and individual designs, each sculpture produced by hand from start to finish, with attention to detail and quality finish a priority .
She also undertakes commissions for portrait heads and public sculpture, Signs and commemorative plaques. Following on from the success of exhibiting at the Malvern Spring Show in May and thrilled with the joint RHS Bronze Medal recieved with Foliation Christine went on to see the unveiling of the Forest Miner she had been commissioned to sculpt. He now stands proudly upon Pan Tod, Ruardean, Gloucestershire - the highest point in The Forest of Dean.
