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ABOUT ME

NEIL CRUICKSHANK - re-arranging the strandline

I have lived on Portland in Dorset on the south coast of the UK since 2007, having moved here from Essex.

 

I was a teacher of Psychology, Biology and many other subjects. I still work as a Psychology tutor. I have also been a church leader, musician, social worker and, before all that, I was a baby. I have a wife, Carol Cruickshank, and three grown-up children.

 

I don’t count myself an artist, more of a collector and coordinator of loose ends. All sorts of stuff gets washed up on the beaches: some of it quite sad because it was once part of people’s boats, some of it unusual (my day job here was as a psychology teacher and I found half a plastic brain on the strandline a few years ago!).

 

Out of a whole heap of stuff, I try to find things that go together – like small pieces of sea-glass to make tiny framed sailing boats.

 

All of my sculptures are from things that have been lost, sunk, left behind or washed up. The trendy terms are recycled, recovered and repurposed.

No two pieces can be the same therefore.

 

Living here has meant I can find a good supply of driftwood.

 

I alter things as little as possible and nearly always use old screws and other fittings.

 

I have made furniture, sculptures, pictures and even a shop sign as well. 

I also frame my wife's handsewn textile pictures. Carol & I (well, more Carol actually) were featured in Coast magazine's March 2019 issue which you can find here.

 

Art or fuel? You decide …

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