Jan Bruce Sculpture was founded in late 2023, and since then I’ve striven to form a distinctive style and express universal, relatable emotions through my work. For me, the forms have to evoke feelings to be successful, even if those feelings differ from person to person. I hope that everyone who views my works will find a sculpture that somehow connects with them and their life experiences.
Born in Bristol, 1968. Sculpting is my happy place. My potential as a sculptor was discovered by the talented artist Myrtle Pizzey, an art teacher at my secondary school and to whom I’m eternally grateful. Additionally, I was lucky enough to be mentored and inspired by Myrtle’s husband, the sculptor Tony Pizzey, who was at the time head of the school art department. It was under his guidance, at the age of 14, that I began stone carving, and my love of sculpture soon turned around my secondary school experience.
I went on to study sculpture at Brighton Art College, during which time I was encouraged away from stone carving and I moved into kinetic art using wood and metal.
After graduating in 1990, I had a brief stint working for a Welsh masonry firm before joining the Bristol Sculpture Shed, a part of Artspace, a large artists’ collective based in Bristol’s docklands and which later became Spike Island.
My skills expanded and, after a number of productive years as a struggling young sculptor, I began to pick up mould-making work for a pioneering young company called Limbs & Things, that made medical training models.
This work escalated to the point that I was taken on full-time as a modeller and ultimately a product designer, and I remained in this role for 10 years. It was creative in a different way; it was a unique and challenging R & D role. I worked with an energetic and skilled team of sculptors, many of whom had been at Artspace with me. However, it took all my creative energy, and I reluctantly had to give up my sculpting studio and concentrate on earning a living.
I went on to become a self-employed product designer for a further 3 years, working on diverse products for a number of innovative companies.
By this time, my wife and I were longing to leave the city and live a remote rural life, preferably in the Scottish Highlands. To help make this possible, I retrained as an electrician. While building the electrician business, we were searching for the perfect plot on which to build our dream house. visiting many idyllic and less idyllic locations, but the dreams and finances didn’t match up, so we remained in Bristol for another 10 years, by which time we had 2 children. The country ‘escape’ eventually happened in 2016, when we discovered Herefordshire, rented while looking for the perfect spot, then settled a year later in Garway Hill, in what we fondly call the ‘West Highlands of Herefordshire’.
I continued to work hard as a self-employed electrician, with little thought that I would find time to return to sculpture.
In 2023 however, having scraped through the worst of Covid and lockdown, I reached a mental low point. Part of my recipe for recovery was getting creative again. By September, I had rediscovered my identity as a sculptor, and was determined to get carving again. I built a small stone carving studio, ordered a ton of Portland stone blocks and got to work carving my first sculptures in 30 years.
Thankfully, my feeling for stone had stayed with me, and it felt as natural as breathing. I was back where I belonged at last.
After some experimenting over winter, I found a simplistic but distinctive style that allowed me to depict emotions from my past and present experiences. New forms would queue up in my head, waiting to be carved.
After a chance meeting with the wonderful artist Brittany Davies, curator of the Craft Gallery in Hereford, I was invited to make some pieces for the 2024 Spring exhibition. I was also encouraged to apply for the H.Art annual prize, open to all Herefordshire artists. The exhibition was a great success, and the positive feedback gave me further confidence to push forward. To add to that, I was awarded the H.Art 1st prize, which convinced me that my life was finally on the right path.
