I was recently commissioned to create a light sculpture for a private garden in London, and this developed into a really interesting and challenging project for a number of reasons, and you know I love a challenge. There were lots of considerations and different processes involved – I thought I’d share this experience with you all.

The finished piece shown above was Persian Onyx around 70cm in diameter, laminated with glass, and set into a Kilkenny limestone plinth. The wonderful thing about onyx is that it has beautiful patterning and a translucent quality. This sculpture is beautiful in its simplicity and yet it has this other dimension when it is backlit, as can be seen below in my workshop.

When I was asked to make this sculpture, there were several materials I was considering using. Onyx, marble and alabaster. After some research I found that alabaster is basically water soluble and will not last outside. I had never worked with onyx, and thought I’d give it a try. I had bought these two large pieces for myself, for a home lighting project (yet to be worked on!) a couple of years ago now:

We considered using these actually, but on balance I’m glad we did not as it would have been a shame to cut these up. Eventually I tracked down some onyx (on eBay) in Kent. The slab, shown below, is much paler and I felt it was more suitable for this sculpture as the aim was to create a moon like disc that quietly glowed.

When one sees onyx being used for tables and such like it has a fibre backing and a coating of resin, often coloured green or orange (it’s a seventies thing!). This is to keep the stone stable and effectively it holds it together as there are often lots of fault lines and tiny cracks in the material. For this sculpture the mesh needed to be removed to show the beauty of the material in its purest form, and for as much light as possible to pass through it. Here are a few images showing the first stages, including a rather blurry image that the seller sent me, but I could tell it was what we were looking for.

In order to preserve the translucency and to strengthen of the onyx we decided to laminate it with 4mm toughened lead free glass, which was bonded onto the onyx using a special double-sided film and then heated to achieve the perfect bond, and remove any air bubbles. The glass was laser-cut to a digital path I created, as can be seen below:

Once the glass was bonded onto the roughly shaped onyx, we felt that waterjet cutting would be the perfect way to very carefully cut the outline of the onyx, 10mm away from the glass, before shaping it with grinders and polishers. The waterjet process was fascinating and I’d like to experiment with this more. It’s amazing what can be cut with a jet of water. The extreme high pressure of a really fine jet, mixed with an abrasive medium (such as garnet) can cut surprisingly thick material and it’s very precise. Here are a few pictures I took on the day:

Now check this out!

Once the outline of the onyx was cut we were able to profile the material creating a curved face on the stone, and grinding off the orange resin and matting from the back of the stone (now the front).

There are a few more images below showing the finished piece. I would like to give special thanks to Niall and the team at McKeon stone who were fantastic. They supplied the ‘Kilkenny blue’ limestone material and shaped it to my requirements, including making the slot to accommodate the ‘tab’ in the onyx. They also managed to deliver the piece within a few weeks of the order being made – THANKS GUYS – Sláinte. I love using their stone, it’s really beautiful, reliable and hard-wearing. The surface texture on this is what is known as ‘flamed’ whereby heat is applied to the sawn surface and this makes the skin of the stone fracture and gives a lovely even yet rough finish. This contrasts nicely with the highly polished onyx. We shaped the slot slightly to fit the shoulders of the onyx perfectly.

This shows the setting in the newly-designed garden created by Kate Gould with lighting provided by George Nissen. The sculpture was envisioned by Hamish Pringle who discussed and agreed the concept with the client before commissioning me to design and make it in collaboration with him. Hamish did a lot of research on this project, and together we learned a lot about working with these materials and processes.

This project has led on to me making a few other pieces too, which will soon feature in my shop, I’m still working on these but here’s a sneaky preview…..

……get your orders in soon as I think they will be quite popular. Some of these are more like 30cm across, and I’m playing around with shapes a little. These are for inside really, I’m thinking bedside lamps, or sitting room or hallway mood lighting, with a small lamp or spotlight behind them.

I’m making another one like the bottom piece and hopefully will edit this blog soon to add it. It’s interesting thinking in terms of simple forms and the materials being the star, rather than intricate carved details of plants or animals for example, and studying the subject matter. This is a very different way of working. It’s enjoyable, but in a different way. I hope you like these, and they will be for sale soon. Feel free to email me or message me via my instagram. Bye for now.