About the Artists

It is very easy to see why Bill Prickett is regarded as one of the most gifted wood sculptors in the UK - his sculptures are extraordinary.

Bill was born in Kent in 1965 and has always been interested in wildlife. At eight years of age his favourite animal was the dolphin and this was to prove a major influence on his future choice of career.  As a young teenager he spent many nights in his grandparents’ garden watching foxes and other creatures.  During his childhood Bill subjected his parents to fish, goats, snakes, insects, ducks and chickens and, at the age of fifteen, a kestrel.  It was the kestrel that developed Bill’s interest in animal training and heightened his goal to become a dolphin trainer.

At school, Bill wasn’t interested in woodwork, or art, but was simply fascinated with the animal world.

At the age of seventeen, after his persistent badgering of the head animal curator of Windsor Safari Park, Bill achieved his goal and was employed as a dolphin trainer.  This was the start of fifteen years working with a variety of animals all around the world; dolphins, sea lions, killer whales, reptiles and birds.

Whilst employed by Windsor Safari Park, Bill spent four months in Australia with Operation Raleigh before returning to the UK and the dolphins.  Bill ‘got the bug’ for the rainforest and spent a year travelling around Australia.

It was during his travels, whilst assisting the Queensland National Parks Authority to capture a sixteen foot crocodile that was creating difficulties for a small North Queensland community, when Bill met crocodile expert, Brent Vincent.  When Brent heard that Bill worked with dolphins and whales he invited him to see his collection of hand-carved cetaceans – all seventy-six species, carved to scale.  Bill remembers it was this meeting that fuelled his interest in woodcarving. 

Bill’s other travels included a research trip tracking gorillas and dwarf crocodiles in the Congo, and research and photography in Borneo and Hawaii.

After returning to the UK from a job in Germany, Bill decided on a career change and started his own woodcarving business.  He carved for ten hours a day, seven days a week using two carpentry chisels and a couple of woodturning gouges.  That was in 1996.  In the same year, Bill’s sculpture won him £800 of much-needed carving tools at the International Woodworking Show at Earls Court.  Bill also entered and won the Professional Category in the British Woodcarving Association’s annual woodcarving competition and started teaching woodcarving at a local college.  For two years running, Bill won the People’s Choice at the International Wildlife Woodcarving and Sculpture Exhibition at Pensthorpe.  He has been chosen, on a regular basis, to exhibit his pieces at the prestigious annual exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists held at the Mall Galleries in London.

Bill enjoys carving birds of prey, especially their fine details.  He relishes the challenge of capturing the exacting features of the birds.  Each new piece stretches Bill’s imagination, creativity and technical ability.

Bill continues with his teaching of woodcarving and writes for several woodcarving magazines.  His pieces have been purchased by collectors in the UK, Australia, USA, Norway, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Bangkok and Saudi Arabia. 

With a short, twelve year career of carving on a full-time basis now behind him, Bill Prickett has achieved high status and recognition worldwide with his wood sculptures and bronzes.  Just what will he do next?

The main inspiration behind Lesley Prickett’s etchings and sculptures comes from her love of wildlife.  Lesley has spent many hours with animals, watching, studying and photographing them.

Lesley was born in Hampshire.  After a period of employment, she undertook a course in hotel and catering at college.  Lesley spent some years living in the Cotswolds and it was during this period that she joined the Oxford Printmakers Co-operative.  Lesley says this is when her artistic career commenced, when she learned about etching. 

When Lesley moved from the Cotswolds to Surrey, she began producing sculptures as she did not have access to printing facilities for her etchings.  She joined the Surrey Sculpture Society and began sculpting both animals and the human form. 

Lesley diversified a little and completed an evening course in mould making.  She then moved to Kent, hired her own workshop and began specialising in producing sculptures, mainly of wildlife.  Over the years, Lesley has developed her work and she now creates her pieces in clay, before taking a mould of the piece and creating sculptures in marble, bronze and iron resin, all in limited numbers.

In due course, Lesley would like to explore and master the technique of firing in clay, thereby extending the range of sculptures available from this self-taught artist whose work deserves to be recognised as original, true-to-life and endearing.

Martin’s love of making articles in timber commenced before he started producing his wooden flowers and vases nearly twenty years ago. 

While at school, Martin used his interest in wood in conjunction with another interest, music, and made various musical instruments, including an electric guitar.  Although, his father had taught him ‘the basics’ of woodwork early on, Martin left school and became a musician.  In his six years as a musician, he travelled with the band on two high-level world tours before returning to England.

Martin openly admits that he did not attend college and “started late on in life”.  He worked as a kitchen fitter and then learned the craft of a cabinet maker with an Oxfordshire based company, which produced traditional country furniture such as Welsh dressers and refectory tables, as well as bespoke pieces.  Martin decided to start his own business producing bespoke pieces of furniture.  However, as this became unviable due to the recession in the late 1980’s, Martin diversified into the production of his wooden flowers, which he has consistently improved over the years.

Martin’s logical mind and his determination and perseverance towards developing his pieces have allowed him to produce a simple, yet timeless, product that is now in homes around the world.

Having completed their degrees in Three Dimensional Design – Ceramics, Lorraine Taylor and Nicky Smart created Penkridge Ceramics.  That was in 1984.

Lorraine was born in Wigan, Lancashire, and Nicky in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire.  Both Nicky and Lorraine studied art at O and A Levels, Lorraine also having undertaken study in ceramics at those levels.  They met while studying Ceramics at the Wolverhampton Polytechnic and, after having thoughts of creating a business together, Penkridge Ceramics was born.  The name Penkridge Ceramics evolved as a result of Lorraine and Nicky’s location and the type of art being undertaken.  The business began at Penkridge, Staffordshire, but moved to Walsall in 2002 as it had outgrown the workshop space.

Lorraine and Nicky enjoy the challenge brought about by creating new pieces for their collections.  Some pieces have been created because a particular fruit or vegetable appealed to them, while others have come about as a result of a request from collectors.

Nicky and Lorraine, as Penkridge Ceramics, have exhibited at various events over the years including Harrogate, the Chelsea Craft Fair and Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire.  For the last five years, they have exhibited at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show in London and received commendations in 2006 and 2007.  In addition to Penkridge Ceramics exhibiting as part of joint exhibitions in various galleries around the UK each year, various periodicals have published articles on the artists and their products. 

Over the years, Nicky and Lorraine have been received commissions from The Netherlands, the UK and the USA, while individual pieces of Penkridge Ceramics have been sold around the world. 

Stephen Smith was born in a small village in Herefordshire. He joined the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company in 1968 as an apprentice artist. Stephen then worked for Kingsley Enamels and later Moorcroft Enamels, as a designer and artist, and developed the technique of painting articles internally as well as externally.

In 2006, Stephen returned to painting on china and commenced producing products under his own name.

Terry Halloran was born in Yorkshire. He joined the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company in 1972 as a trainee artist. Terry joined Kingsley Enamels in the early 1990’s, later to become Moorcroft Enamels. He also painted enamels both internally and externally.

Like Stephen, Terry is also painting on china and producing work under his own name.