Arts and Culture

Step into Maria Moorhouse’s Sculptworks studio in Dartington, and the first thing you see is dozens of blocks of stone in various shapes and sizes. Portland stone, Bath stone, French limestone, soapstone, marble, alabaster, all waiting to be turned into something beautiful.

Soon, their journeys, spanning thousands and thousands of years, will end in someone’s home or garden via their penultimate destination – Maria’s studio in the room next door. 

Maria moved to the studio at Dartington Hall seven years ago, after previously being based at another studio on the estate. This is where she creates her own sculptures, and where she teaches a new generation of stone carvers. Maria has taught hundreds of people over the years, some of whom are now established sculptors enjoying successful careers. In fact, if you visit any sculpture exhibition in the region, you’re likely to see pieces by Maria alongside those of sculptors she has taught at some point in their careers. 

Other students come to learn stone carving simply for the love of it. Whatever the reasons, for Maria, the opportunity to pass on these age-old skills is everything. She’s a member of Heritage Crafts, a UK charity which was set up to safeguard and celebrate traditional craft skills: “Pretty much the first thing that humans did was to carve something out of stone,” she explained. “But for the future, to keep this ancient craft going, we need more people to learn it.”

Maria’s own stone carving journey started when she left school. Undecided at that point what career she wanted to pursue, the one thing she was sure about was that it had to be creative: “I always got pleasure in getting stuck into something artistic, and I loved making stuff out of plasticine when I was young.”

So, at the age of 16, she signed up to a two-year arts course at a college in Hertfordshire: “I tried life drawing, fine art painting, graphic design, textiles, photography, and sculpture, which came under pottery back then. But I didn’t want to throw pots, I wanted to do sculpture in clay. I got really into sculpture in my second year. I knew it was what I wanted to do.”

After a Foundation Course, Maria studied for her degree in Canterbury, where again, the course was multidisciplinary: “But I focused on sculpture and it’s where I found stone as a medium to work with. There were one or two students in the year above me who were carving, and I got a bit of stone and started carving. It was the start of a love affair! It was one of those moments where you think, ‘right, this is what I’m meant to be doing’.”

After graduating. Maria set up a studio with another artist in Kent and made sculptures which were commissioned from private clients: “But I got itchy feet, I wanted something new.”

The “something new” was actually something very old because she moved to Weymouth to learn the ancient skill of stonemasonry: “I learnt from all the old stonemasons – architectural stonemasonry, ornamental stone carving, letter carving, it was wonderful. It added to my existing skills, and I began to feel that I would like to teach.”

Which is when Maria headed to Devon. She did teacher training for adults and started working in adult education in 2002, as a tutor with Learn Devon: “It was hard, but I learnt a lot in that job, such as the psychology of people and understanding people’s needs. Some wanted a hobby, others wanted a career, some wanted company, for some, it was for their mental health. It was a melting pot of everybody from all walks of life.”

Maria spotted the potential of some of her talented students and helped them as they started out on their stone carving careers. One of them was Nicola Axe, who’s now a successful stone carver with a studio at Cockington in Torquay. Nicola, together with three other students – Gareth Jones, Wendy Bristow and Kay Barling – joined Maria in setting up the Sculptworks collective and they demonstrated at Bovey Tracey Contemporary Craft Festival for four years: “That helped them as well as me, before they went off on their own careers.”

With her own work taking up more of Maria’s time, she left Learn Devon and moved into her new studio to focus on her stone carving work and teaching courses: “I love this studio. It’s my sanctuary. It’s such a beautiful, light space, very tranquil.”

At the time of this visit, Maria had just finished painting the wooden floor pristine white in time for September’s Devon Open Studios. With a completely empty space, your eyes immediately settle on the three sculptures positioned at one end of the studio. Collectively, the series is entitled Life Cycle. Individually, they are called Creation, Emergence, and Sleep. These are perfect examples of Maria’s sculptures.

“All of my work tends to be around things that inspire me in my environment, and I’m interested in folklore and spiritualism,” said Maria. “This comes out in two ways: in ancient themes, and I also like to create work with female forms, delving deep into emotions and spiritual growth and into how we evolve as time goes by. Creation is on a rock of water, which is about emotions, Emergence comes out of a ball of roots, and Sleep is curled up in roots, being consumed back into the earth.

“I’m also very much a traditionalist in the way I work,” she added. “All of my tools are tools of old, they’re pretty much the same as in medieval times. And I have a favourite chisel, I can do wavy lines with it, which is my signature, I’m known for my wavy lines.”

Maria works directly, without a clay maquette, preferring the liberating nature of working this way: “You have a piece of stone, and you see what you can find in there. You might have a theme in your head, and you just see what comes along. I’ll sketch directly onto it, but you can’t do it wrong. If a piece falls off, you just re-invent it. It’s very freeing.”

Maria carves in between her teaching courses which run over three 10-week terms each year. Her students are both beginners and improvers: “Stone carving takes time, but everybody can do it. With gentle nurturing, before you know it, you can create something.”

For those wanting a taster, she runs weekend letter cutting workshops. The next is on 10-11 May 2025. 

She also does weekend workshops for absolute beginners, using soapstone. The next workshop is 21-22nd June: “Soapstone is easy to work with and it’s beautiful. It’s soft and coloured and you can complete something with it over a weekend, which is very satisfying.”