Grace Captured In The Grain

Using pine and driftwood, carver Geoff Bickley replicates the form and movement of Cornwall’s seabirds

- Diana Woolf

CORNISH SCULPTOR

Geoffrey Bickley stands in the breezy autumn sunshine looking out over the Hayle Estuary, the most south-westerly in Britain. At low tide its shallow pools and sandbanks are a haven for migratory birds, gulls, waders and ducks. Here, among the reeds, the rippling water and the soft call of the birds, is where Geoffrey finds the inspiration for the carvings he creates.

“If I didn’t live here, I wouldn’t be able to do my work,” he says. “When I am stuck for ideas, I come down to the estuary, and I always see something that catches my eye. When the tide is right, you get hundreds and hundreds of birds.”

Geoffrey has been carving wooden birds for the last 25 years. As well as those that visit the estuary, such as oystercatchers, terns and egrets, he will also sculpt the birds he sees in the woods around his home further up the valley. His favourite, however, is the curlew. “I love them as they are so graceful,” he says. “With their long legs, they are like ballet dancers.”

His love of seabirds comes from a life spent living and working by the sea. Born in Exmouth, he moved to Cornwall in his 20s to work as a crayfish diver, a job he held for 12 years. Geoffrey has also worked as a fisherman and lighthouse keeper. As a diver, he used to enjoy the underwater view of gannets throwing themselves into the sea to catch mackerel. But it was his days on the Seven Stones Lightship that truly sparked his interest in birds. The ship was moored off the coast of Land’s End, where it provided a perfect stop-over for migratory birds. “They would land on board exhausted from their journey, and I was amazed at the number of different species I spotted,” he says.

Start of a new career