Claudia Clare

Most people working with clay are wheel-throwing, building, or modelling - all additive processes. Carving is what sculptors do. It reaches back to the ancient prehistoric works of the reindeer herders who carved the horn into representations of epic journeys. Carving in wood and alabaster was a central religious artform of the Medieval Europe and carving marble is what the Renaissance sculptors did in Italy. It has an ancient and migratory history and vocabulary that produced work still admired today. Halima Cassell works with clay as her principle medium but also with stone - including marble - wood, concrete, plaster, glass and bronze. She is a sculptor and her method is carving, not modelling.

'Halima Cassell: 25 Years of Carving' is a definitive record of the artist's career to date and resembles a retrospective exhibition in a book. As Andrew Lambirth remarks in the introduction, it is no substitute for the live display of works in a gallery but a retrospective of Cassell's sculpture would be a major operation, bringing in gigantic works weighing up to four tonnes, from all over Britain and abroad.

Text and images together present a remarkably complete account of Cassell's development, focusing on her thought processes and working methods. It begins with her carving of clay producing geometrically carved forms that are simultaneously pot shaped - a reminder that, 'vessels are sculptural forms.' There's a fascinating insight from Cassell herself on her experiment with glaze where she says it, 'softens the sharp angles of the carving, thus softening the shadow. The work becomes less dramatic as the glaze filters the shadow lines and lessens their intensity,' so she abandons it to work with the raw clay, burnishing and polishing the surfaces to create the sharp lines and dialogue with light that she seeks.

The most substantial essays are those that focus on the work itself, 'Sculpture in the Making,' by art historian and curator, Jon Wood, and 'Shorthand of Thoughts: preliminary drawings and maquettes,' by writer and curator, Judith LeGrove. Both are short but rich in detail and we learn much about Cassell's use of light and space in her work. Her forms are a meeting of pattern, materials, form, light and space and all are intensely visual. There is a group of photos in the catalogue section showing some of her pieces in situ by windows where her interest in light and architectural spaces shines through clearly.

One almost senses a homecoming when Cassell wins a Brian Mercer Award to study stone carving in Pietrasanta, Italy in 2011. She was experienced in carving clay by this time but stone is different: it is hard, heavy, expensive and requires tools and a workshop quite unlike the average clay studio. Undaunted she comments, 'It was almost like second nature when I first started stone carving...the processes of carving and thinking had the same rationale...' When one considers her abiding interest in the carved stone and brick architecture of the North of England where she grew up, it is perhaps not so surprising and by now, it is clear, that taking risks is part of the Cassell approach to making.

The drawing section was fascinating. New to me was Cassell's interest in shards, offcuts and fragments. She keeps them and uses them to explore more ideas like maquettes or preliminary drawings of process rather than product. Some are colour studies, in effect, others form their own miniature architectural experiments. The fragments are sometimes presented as works in themselves - also a sculptural tradition.

Craft and Design curator, Janet Boston's essay introduces us to Cassell's mixed cultural background - born in Kashmir and growing up in Lancashire - and to her interest in travel and how she has used it to expand and refine her knowledge. Cassell talks of the 'universal nature of patterns,' and how their familiarity across nations and cultures brings people together. Her ongoing work - her 'magnum opus' perhaps - 'Virtues of Unity,' reflecting her interest in the things that unite humanity - is also introduced in this essay and developed in subsequent ones.     

The writers all bring personal as well as professional knowledge of the artist to their analyses of Cassell's work. One of them, Jon Costello, an artist and former art teacher, has known her for decades and was her first art teacher, mentor, supporter and even buyer. Such close knowledge of an artist can make the writing nostalgic but there is no hint of this. Rather it strengthens the narrative and fills in some the gaps in a way that readers will find both illuminating and helpful. All the writers successfully platform Cassell and her work, rather than their own ideas and she is frequently quoted which gives us considerable insight into her and her processes.

Monographs often focus on the artist's life rather than their work and Cassell herself is almost too easy to write about: hers is a survival story, a classic 'hero's journey,' which is easier to write about than sculpture. This monograph, however, is self-published and Cassell has brought the same wisdom and discipline to the commissioning of her writers as she does to her sculpture. The result is a fascinating account of her work in every aspect from the beginning to mid-career. It is also one which can inspire others - particularly disadvantaged, early career, and outsider artists - without intimidating them by presenting a sanitised account of a straight march to success against the odds.