The "Black Angel" was a piece I created last year (2003) during my time at Newcastle College, we were asked to represent a dream aspect with an element of self portraiture. I chose dream flying, it's my favourite hobby during my dreams. I often lucid dream, giving me extraordinary abilities since there are no rules in dreaming. Flying is my favourite. Through my barely-functioning memory of my dreamings, I have become aware of the existence of a group I can only call my dream friends, and theres nothing we all like more than swooping around parks in dream bodies invisible to all. For the piece I wanted to explore the exhilarating moment, the first time your feet leave the ground under conscious control. You tilt forward, feeling lifted from your weight, your body swings more and more off balance, slowly lifting and finally there is a moment of perfect equilibrium when the power of your belief takes over and you can fly. I tried experiments with a few diffferent techniques, coming a close second, came the idea of elongated slices of my own head curving forward following the motion, but it was discarded in favour of a simpler form simply suggesting the motion, mostly because of time and effort constraints.

The self portraiture element was less easy to figure out. Since I consider myself no good at faces, I went for the plaster-of-paris-smeared-all-over-my-face option. Not a good idea with cluastrophobia, but after washing it all off again I came up with a new plan, I used Playdoh pressed on to my face and cast a mould from that. It worked so well, the playdoh was resisted not by my skin, but by the bone underneath, giving a haunted look to the face, just perfect for a project on Dreams. It is made from terra cotta fired to 1080°c and then coated with various metal oxides (mostly manganese and iron) and fired to 1200°c. The kids love it when they pass it on my stall. It would work great cemented firmly to a plinth in the garden or on a gate post by your front door. Probably would keep away burglars

The dimensions of the piece are about 40cm x 30cm x 30cm

This piece is currently available to buy and I would be happy to sell it for £100