Arthur H. (Nobby) Clark

Arthur was born in Dorset England in 1924 leaving school at 14 to become apprenticed as an engineer before joining the Merchant Navy in 1939. After the war he returned to the engineering industry, working in the UK, the Middle East and finally in Australia, where he and his family migrated in 1963. He retired at the age of 59 from Massey Ferguson's factory, in Bundaberg, when that factory closed.
Wishing to take up a hobby after retiring, he commenced a course at TAFE staying for two sessions, and was introduced to carving by Swiss trained artist Vreni I<oefer, with further inspiration being from a book by Antonio Gaudi of Barcelona. This, plus reading a few other books on the subject was all the training he felt he needed for what he believed would be just a hobby to fill in a few hours time. How wrong that assumption proved, for his wood carving hobby soon became an obsession, occupying him for up to eight hours a day. Today not only is his work his life, but his skills have overflowed to writing for many technical woodworking magazines, and too, he has won several prestigious awards with his exhibits.

Eleven years it took him to carve the seascape The Great Barrier Reef tableau which he now shyly presents to the public, confident of approval, yet paternally protective at the same time. His desire is for the collection to remain Australian, and preferable righthere in Bundaberg where it was carved, yet no one has come forward to share his dream. He will not sell pieces separately from this collection, which now seems to swim like a montage of coral life, overflowing both his garage and entertainment area when set at his home, believing the collection should remain intact.
Enjoy the privilege of viewing this remarkable collection for yourself and I am certain you will agree this rarest of collections should remain a `Must See' to be viewed right here in Bundaberg, which is after all, the southern gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. What a wonderful and priceless drawcard to have out at Hinl<ler Gardens for instance, to be on display for all time, or as an addition to the Mon Repos display, and what a marvelous advert for Bundaberg and Queensland Tourism this would then become.
Dick Giles

The next stage was to make a compartment, out of a plastic car cover to contain the flying chips from the Abortech, and there were plenty of them. All my neighbours have beautiful chip gardens courtesy of this project, and those neighbours who missed out requested I start a new one right away. After I finished the general shape of the shell, I started marking the shell with carving lines using blue marker pen.
Up to this stage, I had use only the Abortech and chain saw. Next I began using Dremel rotary tools, chisels and riffler files to define more intricate details. It was then I decided what the composition surrounding the dominant feature of the clam shell would be.
Then I added reef, fish and shells to complement the clam. As I never draw the sculpture before carving, I left plenty of wood to work with, and designed the whole piece just using the eye.
After carving each detail, I soaked it with multipurpose wood oil to stop any cracking. It also gave a lovely matt finish. When I hold an exhibition, I go all over the sculptures with a damp cloth dipped in the same oil two hours before opening time.
When the carving was completed, I sanded where necessary, oiled daily and buffed with a lambswool buffing wheel until the finish was satisfactory.
The clam shell was the last of the big pieces for Denizens of the Deep, which was shown at the Working With Wood Show in Sydney in July 1995. It took me from 1989 to 1995 to finish the entire Denizens project, working an average of six hours a day.
 

The most asked question at any exhibition or demonstration I've attended has been, "How can you see that in a big lump of wood?"
My answer will always be - you have to look beyond what the eye beholds. In other words, there is to me, a fourth dimension of the form, that your mind sees and not your eye. In other words, we have to train the eye to see. Fantasy land, I suppose. Andrew Lloyd Webber said, in one of his songs, "Open up your minds, let your fantasies unwind". You have to achieve this to be a successful sculptor.
There is a wealth of images in our earthly environment just waiting for you to shape into a work of art. All you have to do is look, pick out a particular form that your eye and mind says "That's beautiful", and go for it. You'll never run out of ideas if you stick to natural form. I've found this to be so with Denizens of the Deep. I think you could carve ten life times and still not run out of form based on the Barrier Reef.
Abstract form is another thing. To create something new in this form is more complex. But there are simple ways of seeing new forms and the one I use is this - I hold one of the more complicated French Curves or an object that can be held in the hand and project it with a light above you and manipulate the object until you get an interesting form in the shadow on a white background, and then I draw around it. Some objects will produce numerous forms and enable you to create form no one else has carved before.
In order to achieve the gift of seeing, we must look beyond the surface matter. We must pick out that moment of light or colour or grain, then carve it into something that people will ask at your next exhibition, when you show them the before and after photo, "However did you see that in that great lump of wood?".