The peacocks were created by myself and Tracey Parr for and with The Larmer Tree Festival It was a great weekend and plenty of people helped us on Friday to create Francis and Cuthbert.

In response to a few hints by organisers, we came up with the plan to create a Peacock wedding for the wedding lawn. The piece was part of the ‘Adorning Art’ workshops at the festival; people dropped in and made recycled plastic bag flowers which formed the tails/train. We’re very thankful to those who took part, some making mounds of flowers, others working until the end of the day on the final designs. Meanwhile Ben (Tracey’s bloke and all round essential 3rd member of the team) worked with passers by to adorn the Peacock structures.

The Origami Peacock wedding guests, were also created in the adorning art workshops with another artist … annoyingly/predictably we were so full on busy that I didn’t even catch there name… but the guests made a brilliant addition to the installation.

The Making of Francis and Cuthbert

On a couple of beautiful sunny days Tracey and I got to make the peacock structures. This was my first venture in to making anything large scale in willow, but I really enjoyed it; I find the process of working in willow quite meditative. Once the peacocks were created the next challenge was to get them in the van … Note to self, always check this before making! Anyway they just fitted in and off we went to the festival.

The Adorning Art workshop was lovely, lots of people were keen to get involved and many mass produced flowers for us so that we had plenty to make the trains look impressive. The installation, of course, took twice as long as anticipated, but they were finished ready for the evening’s festivities and looked amazing.

Design for The Peacocks

With most major pieces I’ll do sketches and then a maquette in wire to work out the design and the best way to construct the pieces. I thoroughly enjoyed creating the little maquette for Cuthbert and if I hadn’t already enough to do, would like to make more mini sculptures.