Jeremy Moulsdale: Contemporary Sculpture Artist

The golden thread

“I feel my work is to listen to the different elements
that are whispering inside me and to give shape and form to them.
I don’t always understand it with my mind
but that is the mystery of art, the beauty of art.”

JEREMY MOULSDALE has worked as a sculptor for more than 20 years. Based in East Sussex near the coast, Jeremy creates contemporary, figuratively based sculptures that manifest the human spirit with grace and lightness. Creating figures that are often seen reaching out beyond themselves, connecting to nature, to spirit, to the sky, Jeremy’s pieces are an invitation into a world of enchantment, reminding us of the wonder and mystery of life. Exhibited nationally and internationally, Jeremy’s work can be found in collections in the UK and around the world.

In this week’s guest post for The Culturium, Jeremy shares how growing up in the beautiful British landscape instilled a love for nature from a young age. Combined with his creative drive, his life’s journey has led him through garden design and gardening to his current passion of artistic contemporary sculpture and the realization of a compelling vision cast in iron, bronze and stone.

I grew up in the beautiful landscapes of Shropshire and North Wales, the second youngest of five children, in a very busy, hectic household. My place of escape, where I found peace and quiet was outdoors. I spent endless days in my childhood exploring the meadows, streams and beaches that surrounded me, where I found a kinship with the natural world and all its wonders.

Now I live in East Sussex near the sea and I still love to walk along the cliffs and beaches, where the earth, sea and sky meet and merge. Where my worries can melt into the vastness of the landscape and I can feel overwhelmed by the majesty of it all.

This is what I explore in my sculptures, my reverence for the mystery, majesty and wonder of life. My work is a celebration of the connection between nature and spirit, self and landscape.

I create figures reaching beyond themselves to the sky, moon and stars, sometimes with birds that are taking off or flying around the figures in a dance. They have an ephemeral quality that is light and lyrical, speaking a language of grace and reflection.

My journey to being a sculptor was not a direct one. When I left school, I wanted to study art and did an Art Foundation Course but I quickly realized that I couldn’t find any meaning in what I was being taught or perhaps I just didn’t have the maturity to interpret what I was feeling through art. My mother was very sick and at the time, I was her carer, which was not easy as a teenager. Perhaps that is why I was filled with a sense of urgency to search and look for what life was about. I needed to move, to feel, to dance and express my pent up feelings. So I went travelling and searched for meaning. I lived in communities, explored expressive therapies, meditated, spent time with several different teachers and gurus. I travelled and worked in India, USA and around Europe. I had some amazing adventures.

To make money I worked as a landscaper and gardener, which satisfied both my creative drive and my need to be in nature. After many years, I eventually became Head Gardener of a 200-year-old seafront garden, before I turned to sculpting full time.

I was in my mid-thirties and had found some peace and silence in myself, when I felt my artistic drive strongly again. I wanted, with my art, to share my inner world and some of the joy I had discovered in myself. I also wanted to find some way of paying homage to the mystery and beauty of the world.

Around the same time, I met my wife Afke and life started to become more settled. We first lived together in Amsterdam, where she worked as a ceramicist and would bring home big blocks of clay. I felt very drawn to work with the clay and as soon as I had my hands in it, I knew I had found my medium. It felt so natural for me to mould and shape the clay, creating figures that gave form to my inner world.

I started creating figures that reached from the earth to the sky, that connected to the moon and stars. I wanted to create figures that expressed the joy, wonder and delight of being alive, while at the same time having a silence and stillness that reflected a depth of understanding and a presence in the moment. I wanted to create figures that had both movement and stillness, celebration and silence.

This is where my journey as a sculptor began.

Slowly as I immersed myself in sculpting, I discovered that other people appreciated and responded to my work and I started to sell some smaller pieces. At one exhibition where I was showing my work, I was asked if I could make a large version of one of my sculptures for a garden. This was a turning point. I then did some courses to learn how to make larger sculptures and suddenly my two different creative worlds of gardening and art came together. After I made my first garden sculpture, a garden designer friend asked if he could put it in his show garden at The Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. My career as a sculptor took off. I was still working as a Head Gardener but I gradually reduced my days as the sculpting grew. I found being in the garden was very beneficial to my creative practice. I was in nature all day and I would walk around the garden designing sculptures in my head, wondering how they would fit in, how they could enhance the garden and express something of the spirit of the place. Eventually it wasn’t possible to keep doing both jobs and I became a sculptor full time.

I now show my work all over the UK and it is in collections all around the world.

Today I’m often asked where I get my inspiration from and it’s not an easy question to answer. I don’t think inspiration is like a light bulb that suddenly goes on and off. For me it works more like a slowly evolving dance or a piece of music, where different elements join the dance or add a note, creating harmonies before retreating to the background or maybe returning again. Some elements are difficult to hear or understand but eventually something emerges that forms a coherent whole.

I feel my work is to listen to the different elements that are whispering inside me and to give shape and form to them. I don’t always understand it with my mind but that is the mystery of art, the beauty of art. I just know when it feels right, it gives me a sense of meaning and wholeness.

The main way I keep myself inspired is by walking in nature and meditating, although I also embrace poetry, music and dance. I love the poetry of Mary Oliver and her smallest observations of nature and daily living. Also David Whyte’s poetry about the spirituality and sacredness of every day life. Wendell Berry’s classic poem, ‘The Peace of Wild Things’, connects me to myself every time I read it.

On the musical side of things, there is a particular piece of music by Bach that comes into my head whenever I am feeling in the flow with my work. When I hear it going round in my head, I take it as a sign that I’m on the right track.

One of the themes that regularly appears in my work is figures with birds. Some reasons why I’m drawn to birds are clear but others are more mysterious.

I remember as a teenager being mesmerized standing in front of a painting by the early Renaissance master Piero della Francesco. The painting was The Baptism of Christ, where John the Baptist is pouring water on the head of Jesus and a dove, frozen for a moment in time, is hovering above the head of Jesus. It’s an unusual painting to be so captured by as a teenager but there was something about it that resonated with me. The dove with the figures in a landscape has a sense of a magical, spiritual moment. There is a simplicity and a profoundness about the painting, which is something that still resonates with me and my work today.

I’m also drawn to birds because they embody the spirit of freedom to fly from one dimension to another. They are at home both on the land and in the sky, as well as sometimes in water.

The love of birds runs deep from my childhood. My father was a keen birder who would net and ring birds. As a child I loved going with him and I remember vividly watching him as he carefully and delicately took birds from the net before recording and ringing them. When he was finished, he would let me hold the tiny delicate birds in my hands. I would then open my hands and allow this tiny bird to fly, with all its might, out of my hands into the big open sky. I can still feel today the thrill of opening my hands and letting those birds fly free. I’m sure that feeling is one of the reasons why birds are so meaningful to me in my work today.

In the end, wherever the ideas come from, making sculptures is my way of giving form to my inner world and to give thanks to the wonder and delight of being alive. Sometimes I simply refer to them as my little prayers of thankfulness. I hope you enjoy them.

Jeremy Moulsdale’s Website

Post Notes

• Feature image: © Jeremy Moulsdale, The Golden Thread
• Jeremy Moulsdale’s website
• Anna Gillespie: Give Me Shelter
• Antony Gormley: Sculpted Space Within and Without
• Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui & Antony Gormley: Sutra
• Paolo Sorrentino: The Great Beauty
• Wassily Kandinsky: Concerning the Spiritual in Art
• Danila Tkachenko: Escape
• Bill Viola & Michelangelo: Life Death Rebirth
• Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden & Zen Master Ryokan
• Henry David Thoreau: Walking
• The Culturium uses affiliate marketing links via the Amazon Associates Programme

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