New blog and new project

Welcome to my new blog!

May as well start with a really interesting project... I've been asked to carve a new figurehead for the 'Matthew'. This is the replica of the boat in which John Cabot (or Giovanni Caboto as his parents called him) sailed from Bristol to discover Newfoundland . It's a bit of a Bristol landmark and it's very exciting to have the chance to do the figurehead. The first figurehead fell off when the replica ship hit a lightship in 2007.

 Here's a couple of images taken by Thom, who is one of the Matthew's crew. I went over the side in November to get some measurements in order to start getting the timber to carve. That water certainly looked cold! Beats sitting in an office any day though.

In case you are wondering what the design will be, I've decided to use the same one as the figurehead which the replica was originally fitted with - a talbot.

This is a heraldic dog, pale coloured with floppy ears and its tongue hanging out. Noone knows what the original 'Matthew' had as a figurehead (if it had one at all) but apparently these dogs were kept near the harbour to rescue people who fell in. No human would want to go near the waters, as the harbour was pretty much an open sewer in those days. I'm hoping to use some Lawson cypress which was growing in the Ashton Court estate to make the carving. Further news as it happens...