Thomas James Wagstaff

Thomas Wagstaff is an artist whose craft is inspired by a natural instinct going back to his childhood, where he expressed his calling whiling away the hours with Indian Inks in hand. Although he possesses an 'O' Level in Art, he is otherwise self taught, very much the type of man who once he sets his mind on learning a craft does not quit until he has mastered it on his own terms, this natural promethean characteristic informs his work and can be seen in the steely eyed passion in which he creates shape and figure out of the amorphous. At present he is enjoying a renaissance in his love for porcelain/mould making and modelling.

As with many great writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, artists like Thomas are expressive of their life experiences. At a young age he enlisted in the British Army and served in Northern Ireland, an experience he has never forgotten which gives him direct incite into the struggles of man both from a historic level and having to make it just through the day on 'Troubled' streets. His service to his country has given his oeuvre a resilient backbone which can be felt in his pieces sheer energy. Mr. Wagstaff proudly counts himself as member of Britain's Corps of Royal Engineers, one of the Military's most highly regarded divisions, these are the soldiers who are charged with duties such as bridge building and mine field clearance, whilst often still having to operate as combatants in the violent theatre of war. This "Sapper" Sculptor has been asked time and time again to build by the hands of fate and now he has been rewarded by peace to create out of his own heart's desire.

Ten years on the next adventure in Thomas's amazing life was as an oil rigger, working offshore on the Ocean Bounty, where once again Lady Luck smiled upon him and gave him experience rather than an early end. It is there on the high seas that one of his signature pieces, that of a "Roughneck" figurine, rose out of the depths of his creative soul.

Today you have the opportunity to acquire Thomas Wagstaff's fine yet primal handiwork in porcelain, truly the embodiment of skill, sculpted and wrought out of the internal furnace of a man's walk of life.