fear
Sculpture by Richard Spiers
"Unnameable fear had been constant from my earliest awareness. Pitch varied over the years. 1979 it was very intense. The events were critical but they were all so ordinary. The piece of walnut root had been around for about two years, from a storm-felled tree. It's a slow seasoning timber but the wood felt right. I knew I had to work on that piece of wood, knowing the work was going to be intense and desperately hoping there would be expression. But I couldn't find any plan. It would emerge as I worked, or not. It became 'he' and then 'me' and then I was struggling, with the form and trying to find 'finish', a woodworker's idea of a good one. I cracked and eventually looked through the trauma and found there were tears for him, separate from my own. I had finished. He wasn't me. "