Susheila Jamieson

About me

I am a professional sculptor/ artist/ arts educator primarily carving stone and wood. Aspects of nature and the wider landscape inspire and inform my work and resulting sculptures are organic in character, sensuous and powerful. My work is often described as tactile and I pay particular attention when finishing sculptures – preferring to leave traces of the tools that I have been using. As well as developing my own practice I work together with my husband on public and socially engaged art projects and run workshops from my studio at Rachan – a very special, calm and pretty part of the Borders.
Over the last 15 years I have run stone carving and mosaic workshops from my fully equipped workshop/carving studio which can be made cosy on cold days with a wood burning stove, and plenty of sunny outdoor space for those who want to work outdoors. Freshly baked cake and coffee is apparently one of the reasons everyone loves these workshops…

I see myself very much as a facilitator and never believe anyone when they say that they are not an artist. I am really happy to share my skills and knowledge and enjoy watching people’s confidence increase as their ideas and carving techniques develop.
“Engaging ,” challenging”, “therapeutic” – words used by past participants to describe workshops. Stone carving does not require strong muscles, but rather an idea and patience.

Specialities

Stone carving (sandstone, limestone)
Relief and 3D carving
Wood carving
Mosaics/ ceramics

Things I love

Swimming, long distance walking, hot countries

Exhibitions and highlights

• Selected for 11 international carving symposia including German , Poland and Kazakhstan over last 10 years
• 2015 JD Fergusson Exhibition Award – solo exhibition of sculptures, collagraphs and mosaics
• 2017 South of Scotland Artist and Makers Award – funding for development of new work for solo show at Dawyck Botanic Gardens in 2019

The physical process of creating work is very important to me. Taking away material – whether rubbing back into a soft pencil sketch of an initial idea, working back into a clay model, removing stone, carving into a wood block, or taking printing ink off a collagraph plate…to create forms and images seems to be the way in which I work best and is most meaningful to me. {Susheila Jamieson}