This piece is being used on flyers etc to advertise a garden exhibition including my work, as part of the Brighton Festival in May. He is carved out of a large slab of Western Hemlock, the tree, not the poison they used on poor Socrates. After I had carved him I was stuck for a title, at last settling on "Smiley". Several people commented that he resembled the beautiful carved faces at Angkor Vat. Later that year a friend returned from a holiday in the Far East, and gave me a lovely souvenir book with many pictures. The text was written in pigeon english, and I was very surprised to see that the carved face most resembling my Smiley, is entitled "Smiling of Bayon". I guess a smile is a smile the world over.
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