Melanie Deegan The gallery has original work by Melanie for sale.  Melanie Deegan Please click on any of the images below for further details. My sculpting career started in the 1980’s when I spent several years working as a woodcarver with Ray Holloway in the Somerset village of Draycott. This gave  me experience of a wide range of projects involving anything from restoration  work on Wells Cathedral and other churches to carving butter prints for the  National Trust. After a series of bizarre nightmares about the butter prints I  decided that I had probably carved a few too many and took my career in a  different direction. It was not until 2006 that I began to think seriously about taking up sculpting  again and joined a sculpture group meeting every week in Ilminster. Initially I  was working in clay, learning about mould making and casting then moved on  to try other materials including plaster, lost wax bronze casting and Newplast. I  then came across Jesmonite and started to experiment with different  approaches to casting and laminating. Inspiration for my sculptures comes from various sources including  photographs, paintings and real life. Being base in a rural area of South West  England there is plenty of wildlife to be found locally along with farm and  domestic animals. My plans for the future include a number of large sculptures  suitable for outdoor locations in addition to working on some interesting  commissions.