SCULPTING PEOPLE

FIONA KAM, of Penang, is making a name for herself as a sculptor.  Her strong figures, exquisite heads and masks, mainly designed for the garden,  have been exhibited at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show, the Stroud Open Studios Festival and a number of local art galleries. This has led to a  deserved notoriety, and to sales.

It all started when Fiona took her little boy (she is married to John Meadley MBE, a "guru" in the field of private sector development)  to a clay class at an art centre.  The nude figures, products of the  adult live modelling class, drying out in the sun, provoked a  passion for  sculpting the human figure. Fiona decided she must master the art and at  once enrolled for evening classes.  It was in the course of learning that she learnt  she had a talent for the craft. A year later, inspired by a local  exhibition, she thought she should branch out into contemporary sculpture  for gardens, for which the British are renouned.  The sculptor who inspired  her, Andrew Wood, is now her tutor.

Fiona produced her first collection of figures, heads and masks this Spring, under the name of "patiopeople".  With two stockists: a garden centre in  Oxfordshire, and a craft shop in Stroud, the business took off, with 30  pieces sold for a start.  Today mail orders have started coming in.

 She recalls that her early pieces were purely instinctive; in her words, " like piecing together memories".  Now the artist is more conscious of form  and shape, and strives to simplify and abstract the human form from the  material she is working with.

 Another characteristic of Fiona's work is that the she leaves the tool marks in the finished product. Rather than seeking  a polished finished; the strokes of creation are shown, as  in a Chinese brush painting.

Fiona considers herself lucky because Stroud is an area rich in artists and craftspeople, and she has been able to learn her techniques from a network of potters and sculptors.

"I sculpt a piece in clay," she says, " then make a plaster mould of it,  press sheets of clay into the mould, and finish off a piece after removing  the mould."  To ensure work can withstand the British winter, she kilns to a  high temperature and uses stoneware clay.  Matt glazes are preferred, using  minerals like iron and copper for colour.

 Fiona is  working to produce bigger pieces, and experimenting with different materials: plaster, willow and copper.  Another sculptor, Barry Mason - a
Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, is giving her lessons in
working with metal. Payment? "All he wants is  a piece in return", she says. Artists are into barter,  swopping their works for say,  a  set of dinner plates, or a water pump or even a drum.
 

Fiona Kam is from the MGS and her schoolmates will remember her as the daughter of Dato Kam U Tee, the well known innovator and former head of the Penang Water Authority. #