Canongate Wall - carved panels in various stone - varying dimensions - 2002

(courtesy of Gillian Forbes)

DE: Gillian, your solo show at the Scottish Gallery, Treasured, is something of a new departure for you because your practice relies mainly on commission-based work. How have you found the process of working towards an exhibition?

GF: I have intermittently made work for exhibitions during my career as a stonecarver but mostly with the Scottish Lettercutters Association (SLA). This time, after taking part in a group show – “Impressions in Stone” – last February, also at The Scottish Gallery with four other artists, I was asked to have this solo show. It was lovely to have the freedom to create some more pieces in the same vein as before. I was able to slot little pockets of time into my normal schedule of memorial work.

DE: Perhaps the main difference between your commission-based working life and the process of preparing for a show like this is that you will have had much more freedom to produce whatever you like. How does the process of preparing pieces for an exhibition compare to the process of creating a memorial stone, for example?

Willow - Welsh slate carved panel with gilded leaves - H30cm W30cm D2cm - 2023

(Courtesy of The Scottish Gallery)

GF: When I’m working on memorials or private commissions, I sometimes keep elements back and file them for later. This was certainly true of the Welsh slate panels, “Willow” and “Bracken”. I had used those images before in different materials; one was a sandstone roundel for a garden in Edinburgh and the other was a carved panel on a green slate memorial for Balmacara. The “Breeze of Leaves” was first shown in “Art and Ornament” at Dalkeith Palace in 2022 and was created as a homage to the eighteenth-century carver Grinling Gibbons as part of the Tercentenary National Festival. I think that having to break away from my normal work is incredibly refreshing and necessary, and feeds back into my memorial work. It is a two-way process.

DE: Creating a memorial stone obviously requires great tact and sensitivity. And seeing your exhibition, it occurs to me that a remarkable sensitivity – a sensitivity to detail, form, texture, touch - is one of the key elements of your work. How do you manage to present such delicacy and sensitivity in stone?

Breeze of Leaves - detail

(courtesy of the Scottish Gallery)

GF: As I’ve been working in stone since 1990, I am constantly aware of its nature and qualities. How it cuts, lasts outside, how it polishes or doesn’t, how it takes paint or gold leaf, how the grain makes a difference to the process or how the light creates definition, etc. This is just in my knowledge of my chosen material and I am always learning and pushing the material by using different techniques and sometimes even new tools.

DE: How do you work, technically? How do you use hand tools versus electric tools?

GF: I try to be as efficient as possible in using the right tool for the job. Once I have worked up a design and I have the stone in front of me (I may have had to order the stone from the quarry first), I evaluate how I’m going to “rough out” the carving, whether I start by angle-grinding or simply by using hand tools. The stone is marked up using a scriber and pencil/carbon paper and then the dusty work starts. Each stone, if small and liable to move whilst carving, is embedded in plaster of Paris on a larger slab and is taken outside to be worked. At this point I try to work on numerous stones as they are all being processed in a similar way, so it’s not until the final days of each panel that they come together, as it were, having the look and finish I need. I use my dummy mallet and chisels more than anything else.

DE: An emphasis on the qualities of the material is crucial to your work. How do you choose the stone you use? How do the qualities of the stone lend themselves to different styles of carving and letter-cutting?

GF: When I’m making gravestones, the client dictates the choice of material. I mainly work with sandstone from the Midlands, green and black slates from the Lake District, Caithness from up north. When it comes to my own work, especially for exhibitions, my palette of stones is larger and includes Welsh slate and limestone which I don’t tend to use for memorials. Sandstone is a material which is very much part of Scotland’s built environment and it lends itself to robust relief carving, whereas slates - being more dense - can take tighter, more detailed markings. All of these stones can be used outside and all have their own inherent qualities.

Triptych of Sandstone Leaves - sandstone carved panels - H30 W30 D3.5 - 2023

(courtesy of Scottish Gallery)

DE: The inspiration offered by the natural environment is another important facet of your work. You’ve recently moved to a fairly rural location, very close to a wood. Has this had a significant effect?

GF: Yes, I moved into my new purpose-built studio created by a great local woodsman, Andy King, in December 2021. It is literally on the edge of the woods and is just a joyful, peaceful place to work. I can’t help but be inspired by this environment every day!

DE: You’ve also described influences ranging from animal and insect forms to eighteenth century Scottish headstones and contemporary hand-crafted memorials. Do these still remain pertinent influences for you?

Bracken - Welsh slate carved panel with gilded leaves - H30cm W30cm D2cm - 2023

(courtesy of The Scottish Gallery)

GF: I love carving objects that I can pick up and look at, whatever that may be, but I am definitely drawn to the natural world and to studying all the intricacies of the forms, patterns & textures.

DE: These myriad influences have helped to nourish a diverse scope of work. The character of your works (headstones in particular) can also vary strikingly from piece to piece. Are there any commissions or forms that you try and seek out, or any that you particularly enjoy undertaking?

GF: I think I’m very lucky that I am asked to do such a variety of work and I just really enjoy the collaborative process of creating pieces that have a special meaning to my clients. It is really satisfying hearing all the positive feedback when a memorial has been installed or a fire has a new surround. An added bonus is that sometimes I get to travel all over Scotland erecting stones and this can involve overnight stays or be incorporated into family holidays! We’ve been to Skye, Mull, Eriskay, Gairloch and Argyll.

Conker - sandstone carved panel - H23 W23 D5 - 2023

(courtesy of Scottish Gallery)

DE: I’m interested to know if you’re conscious of a developing style over the past thirty years, or of changing preoccupations within your body of work? And to what extent might changes be dictated by certain commissions?

GF: I feel that every project sets up a series of challenges that have to be thought through and overcome: this may be in the form of choice of material or practical considerations such as location, budget, client expectations, etc. Sometimes the most basic elements of a project take the longest time to resolve, like the time when sourcing stones from all over Scotland for the Canongate Wall involved dragging stones out of a river bed in Argyll or from a cliff face on Iona. So many of these projects have presented a myriad of issues that have helped to establish me in this world of stonecarving. Over time the more confident I have become of my goals and abilities, the easier I have found it conveying my ideas to clients and commissioners.

DE: An important recent commission for you was the execution of John Maine’s design for Stephen Hawking’s memorial stone. This must have felt like a particularly special undertaking?

GF: I had previously worked with John Maine on the SAS memorial in Hereford Cathedral so when he asked me to help with lettering on the Stephen Hawking memorial slab in Westminster Abbey, I was delighted to be involved. The Caithness slate was delivered by Fyfe Glenrock from Aberdeenshire already polished and I cut the letters into the surface. The stone was then whisked off for John to finish with the swirling texture to a very tight deadline before being laid in the Abbey.

Stephen Hawking memorial stone - Caithness slate - 2018

(copyright John Maine RA)

DE: Unlike the pieces on show in the Scottish Gallery, most of the work you’ve produced over the course of thirty years is situated firmly in place, and virtually all of these will still be there in one hundred years’ time. Where do you hope the pieces included in Treasured end up? What does your ideal collector look like?

GF: I met a collector at the private view of “Treasured”. She had bought a piece from me last year. To be honest it would be lovely if they were all like her. She felt that she had acquired something very special that touched her. She loved it. That is all I can hope for: that I create beautiful objects that will be appreciated for a long time to come.

DE: Are you working on any other projects at the moment?

GF: I am straight back into memorial work but I plan to take some time off to investigate some more ideas in stone for a future exhibition. I guess this happens: once you have time to break away from time constraints and deadlines then creations can start… Watch this space!

Gillian Forbes’ solo exhibition, Treasured, is on view at The Scottish Gallery, 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6HZ, until 25 February 2023. It can also be viewed online here: https://scottish-gallery.co.uk/whats-on/treasured/artworks/

https://www.forbesstonecarver.co.uk