Celia Smith, Sculptor

Naomi Jones talks to Celia Smith who recycles old wire to make graceful lifelike bird sculptures.

Of all the art forms, why sculpture?
I had a great art teacher at secondary school; he encouraged me to build sculptures as trying to paint increasingly frustrated me – I was always attempting to make them 3D. I grew up on a farm so there was plenty of interesting materials to play with.

So your childhood must have inspired your work.
Yes. I was often given sickly chicks and calves to look after; I’m rather sentimental about animals and birds.

What formal art training did you have?
An art foundation at the City of Bath College in 1992; then a sculpture degree at Wimbledon College of Art, 1993-96.

Why did you choose to work with wire?
I was influenced by a school trip to artist Sophie Ryder’s studio: having been close to her phenomenal wire pieces, odd bits found on my parents’ farm suddenly captured my imagination. After university I evolved my own techniques for making wire sculptures through trial and lots of errors.

How do you capture the movement of birds?
Actually seeing flocks of dunlin and plover lift off in great clouds from mudflats; watching curlew and oystercatchers through my telescope; and being able to study and draw them in great detail.

What’s one of your best recycling efforts?
While on a residency in the Shetland Islands I found huge piles of rusty fencing wires that the farmers were only too glad to get rid of; I used them to make a flock of greylag geese, which was a common sight in the fields up there.

Have you had any more unusual commissions?
I’ve run many school projects helping students make life-size cows, dragons and people.

Do you ever wish you could keep your work?
Sometimes: the hardest pieces to part with are the ones I’ve created on location, such as the puffins I made while sitting on the cliffs surrounded by them on the Shetland Islands.

ABOVE (left-right): Two of Celia’s birds in her studio; Intricate manipulation of wire has created this piece: Curlew Calling; Three dunlin on the wing.

Where do you work when not on location?
My studio, on a farm in Wiltshire; the farmer has converted old cowsheds and stables into workshops.

How would you describe your studio?
I often have three or four pieces on the go at any one time, plus scribbles of ideas hung on the wall – to the visitor’s eye it probably looks chaotic. I’m a hoarder, too, so there’s every different type of wire wherever you look.

Is sculpture a full-time job?
It was until my daughter came along two and a half years ago. I now work three days a week. When she was a baby I took her on a few drawing trips to bird reserves – now she’s a toddler I can’t do that.

Any advice for emerging artists?
Collect materials that interest you and you’ll find uses for them.

You can contact Celia on 0786 6602730 or visit celia-smith.co.uk.

WORDS NAOMI JONES
Featured in the August 2011 issue of Period Living