Animal Magic
Above: Alison Bundle with two of her dogs...
Above: At work in the studio
Above: A pooch with attitude
Above: One of Alison's horse sculptures
Alison Bundle lives in a picture-postcard farmhouse near Marnhull. She hails originally from Bristol and after university she worked in the aerospace industry as a contracts manager. In 1996, whilst on maternity leave, she was offered voluntary redundancy which she took. For Alison it meant the chance to be at home with her baby daughter Emma but it also forced her to rethink her career path.
Now, as a child she had always enjoyed making things out of clay so she enrolled on a ceramics course at Mid-Warwickshire College. As luck would have it, a local potter was retiring at this time and Alison was able to buy not only his kilns and other equipment but also his stock of clay with her redundancy money. Keen to get into her stride with her planned new career, she followed up her college course with additional training with a studio potter.
She must have had a natural affinity for her chosen medium for within only a short while her work was deemed sufficiently good for her to be invited to display it at ‘Potters’, a shop in Bristol run as a co-operative by more than 40 craft potters and ceramic artists.
Then, in 2003, Alison’s husband’s job made necessary a move south and west. So the family, now with an additional daughter, Katie, came to Dorset, to Marnhull, where they found the lovely old farmhouse which is now their home and which with its several outbuildings provides plenty of room for Alison to house her studio and kilns and display her work.
Alison makes handbuilt, coiled and slabbed animal forms in grogged raku clay which are decorated with metallic oxides and lustres. Having modelled a horse or a dog, say, the subject is propped up and allowed to slowly air-dry for some two weeks. It is then fired to around 1,000 degrees to a biscuit finish after which manganese oxide washes and lustres, usually platinum or gold, are applied and it is fired again, this time to some 1,200 degrees.
Her horse sculpture is inspired by early equine art. Looking at one of her horses it is obvious that Alison has been influenced by both Greek chariot horses and China’s T’ang dynasty terracotta horses. This is not to say that her work is in any way a pastiche of the art of these ancient craftsmen, far from it. Alison works from sketches and photos. A horse by her is very much the result of knowing horses at first hand in the flesh, for not only does she ride, the fields around the farmhouse are home to horses of all shapes and sizes. No wonder then, that Alison’s models are imbued with a character all their own. As to just what that character is, no-one could look and indeed touch one of Alison’s models of a horse without reaching the conclusion that here was a dependable, loveable, friendly and happy creature, no flyer perhaps, but nevertheless a horse with a well developed sense of fun.
In addition to horses, Alison also models dogs. Her pooches, with their skewwhiffed pricked ears, flagpole tails, big eyes and smiley faces, seem to be about to ask the viewer to throw a stick. Yet for all their ability to somehow engage us on a human level these happy canines stop just short of being caricatures or overtly sentimental. In fact what Alison is able to do in her models of dogs is to distill that essential doggyness which is the hallmark of all canines no matter what the breed. The models that result are certain to bring a smile of both empathy and recognition to the face of anyone who loves dogs.
As to the future, Alison is planning to make sheep, pigs and cattle as well as local wildlife such as foxes and badgers. Given her very considerable ability to make clay do what she wants, who can doubt that she will bring to her models of these animals that wit and empathy which makes her horses and dogs so beguiling.
Alison exhibited in Dorset Art Weeks in both 2004 and 2006 and this year she will be doing the same. Find out more on www.alisonbundle.com or give her a ring on TEL 01258 820773.