Simon Heath Star of The Crafty Countryman series opens up about his life, and explains what a massive impact art had for him growing up.

In these mini articles we will start from the beginning, and over the following months we will follow his journey from a boy to a master craftsman.

This has not been an overnight success this has been years of hard graft

A fascinating story of a wonderfully talented man

Simon Heath - The Craftsman's Journey in His Words Part 4

After a while with a lot of encouragement from my dad, I started selling a few to mostly friends and family. It wasn’t long before I started developing my own style, which today is quite recognisable, you sort of develop that without realising or thinking about it, maybe just like an artist.

Everything I carved and still carve takes me back to my childhood, watching animals and birds on the farm, but not just watching really observing and studying them, which I still do. The form, scale, size and behaviour all helps me do what I love, producing something alive from a dead piece of wood.

When I was younger, I used to collect sculls, I was about 8 years old, I remember studying them, I think most people thought I was a bit strange being I was an extremely shy child, who hid away when anyone came to visit. My school life wasn’t good, with moving constantly from place to place never allowed me to settle anywhere for long. Being very aware that I couldn’t keep pace with my class mates I was failing badly, because of this I again turned to nature. Me and a couple of friends used to test each other with bird books, pictures and habitat, which I loved and got very good at. AND THEN I FOUND MY KESTREL…

SH

 

March 28, 2022

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