Slate | Thistle
Thistle is a stacked slate sculpture created in 2008. The first image shows me standing beside the work shortly after it was completed. The second shows the sculpture fifteen years on, shaped by its environment with which it has gradually become one. The paired images speak about duration rather than making, and about how a sculpture continues to change long after the final stone has been placed.
This work is a clear expression of how I approach abstraction: as an act of subtraction. Rather than describing every detail of a form, I am interested in identifying the characteristics that evoke its essence and allowing the rest to fall away. In the case of Thistle, that process results in a particularly simple and grounded form: recognisable without being literal and defined as much by proportion and material as by symbolism.
The base of the sculpture is constructed in Lakeland Green slate, split to a finer thickness, while the upper section, the flower, is formed from Lakeland Blue slate, riven to a greater thickness and weight. This shift in material and scale introduces a subtle change in texture and emphasis, reinforcing the transition from stem to bloom. Built entirely using dry stone principles, the work relies on fundamentals taught to me by my father as a child: balance, compression and trust in the material.
Over time, the sculpture has been enveloped by a blanket of moss as the woodland has grown around it. While slate’s low porosity makes it relatively easy to remove, the owner has chosen not to do so. The sculpture now sits within the landscape rather than on it, its surface softened and integrated by natural growth until the boundary between object and setting begins to blur.
The thistle is, of course, Scotland’s national flower. According to legend, it earned that status when a barefoot invader stepped on a thistle during a night attack, his cry raising the alarm and saving a Scottish camp. The motto "Nemo me impune lacessit" - “No one provokes me with impunity” - speaks to resilience, warning and quiet strength, qualities that resonate naturally with this form.
Thistle stands here at approximately five feet in height and was commissioned for a private woodland garden by a gentleman with proud Scottish ancestry. The sculpture has since been repeated and may be commissioned at larger or smaller scales. Like the plant itself, it is a form shaped by time, place and a lasting connection to landscape.
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