At their Monday art class my children were introduced to Andy Goldsworthy and his work. They were both inspired by his sculpting of natural bits and pieces mostly in their natural setting.

That evening my son Ben said to me “I want to make a sculpture”. So I offered that the next day after school we ride over to a nearby bay and see what we could find and make.

Which is what we did.

The absence of any autumnal trees and their fire-coloured leaves initially left us scratching around … until we found sticks!

On a lovely slab of natural sandstone we began to build a stick tower. Pentagonal based, about a foot in diameter and after maybe an hour we had a 2 foot tall structure with a platform roof of smaller sticks. And a leaf topped flagpole of course. What fun!

As we’d started building, a couple of sticks wouldn’t stay where Ben wanted them and I suggested we didn’t need to worry about that, rather allow them to find their own place in the structure. He was very happy to think like that and repeated it a few times to himself, like a quiet mantra.

At dusk and under a stunning sunset, we left our tower standing, imaging what people who wander by might think of it.