Deadlines affect different people in different ways. Cindy’s response is total. She knows no other way. So with the deadline for the Raveningham Sculpture Trail ferociously close, she forgot about such fripperies as food and sleep and set herself to sculpt until it’s done.

In order to spend a little time with her, I took to sitting in her outside workshop as the late July dusk fell, enjoying a nice drink to the sound of sanders and angle-grinders and jigsaws. Sometime she takes a break and we talk for bit, then it’s back to work. There’s beauty to be done, you see.

There will be doves carved in wood, sunflowers made from steel, a dove-laden door to walk though. I sat with my back to the wall and sipped Famous Grouse and savoured the vibes of creativity while the light faded on the meadow in front of us. The angle-grinder was showering the yard with sparks.

A moment of silence; Cindy was fetching a new tool.  And then flash. It must have lasted damn near a second. Against the coming night a hint of pearl, an impression of hurried movement, spooky, shimmering silver-grey, almost but not quite not there at all – and gone.

Barn owl: birds that love the no man’s time between night and day, birds that relish the open landscape of this chunk of Norfolk valley. Cindy did a barn owl installation at Raveningham a year or back; this nightfall visitation felt like an encouraging cheer from nature itself.

Artists inspired by nature are sometimes criticised for their failure to paint the climate Armageddon or sculpt the ecological holocaust. But the more we celebrate the wild world, the longer we are likely to hold onto it. And Cindy celebrates all right.

https://raveninghamsculpturetrail.com/sculpture-trail-2022/