The concept of ‘Rustic Art’ was conceived in mid 2020 as I began my retirement after 40 years in education and 14 years as Headmaster of Nelson College.
I became interested in exploring the relationship between a hand tool’s functionality and it’s form and line.
In exploring this concept my intention is now to reveal in each work, the historical context and the
dignity of each tool.
To realise this vision it has required that each tool be sympathetically restored with burnished metal this then being
contrasted with the warmth and colour of matched wood grain.
I have completed each work by matching the wood and tool to provide a geometric linkage of line and form which is
able to enhance the beauty of both.

Each work talks about the experience of the tool and its users, the storytelling and history in each piece, the endeavour of
toil and hard work. 
I believe that the works can evoke a feeling of nostalgia and history, a sense of time past revisited, with each piece
emphasising the political undertones of working class functionality versus wood grained luxury.

The works thus make a statement in a societal context of honest work, illustrating a lost history of hand made quality
versus the ephemeral and temporary nature of modernity.

These hand tools, from a bygone era have their own artistic form which embody a sense of worth and satisfaction and
for me concealed beneath their pitted rusty metal and salty stained hardwood lies an elegance which can be restored
and reborn.