Artisans of Dartmoor - Book - Page 81
To improve her techniques, Katherine took more weaving courses, and
then started making animal sculptures for friends. Encouraged by their
feedback, she felt confident enough by 2012 to start selling at a market in
Totnes, where she was living at the time.
A couple of years later, she rekindled a relationship with her childhood
sweetheart, blacksmith Greg Abel (see page 15), and moved into the
home they now share in Moretonhampstead. Soon afterwards, by chance,
a disused Unitarian chapel large enough to accommodate her growing
collection of creatures came up for rent across the road, and Katherine
snapped it up.
Set in a graveyard on the outskirts of town, the chapel has stained-glass
windows inlaid with ecclesiastical iconography that bathes the lofty
interior in a vibrant green and red glow. Taking up most of the floor space
is her motley collection of woven beasts, including a life-size lion, several
hares and fallow deer, a rabbit, a small family of Whiteface and Greyface
Dartmoor sheep, a pair of 2.5m-tall squirrels, and a horse captured
mid-gallop. “I’ve always been obsessed with the animal kingdom,” says
Katherine who, prior to becoming a weaver, worked for the World Wildlife
Fund and Greenpeace.
Last winter, her troupe was joined by nine white willow unicorns,
commissioned by a London hotel for their Christmas display, and not long
before that, a 9m-long T-Rex dinosaur was in residence. But undoubtedly
Katherine’s quirkiest commission was a badger made for a pensioner who
wanted the subterranean beast to accompany him into the afterlife.
“Creating a sculpture is like life drawing, only instead of using a pencil,
I’m drawing with willow,” says Katherine. “I love how simple it is. All
I need is an iron frame, which Greg makes, some willow, secateurs for
trimming, and a pruning saw for foraging.”
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