A LOCAL farmer has been short-listed, to exhibit at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2024. 

Ill health meant that David Powell, of How Caple, had to restructure his farming business, and from that he discovered his artistic talent.

He creates welded tree sculptures from, chiefly, reclaimed and recycled materials.

David says that sculptures are the result of an unexpected health issue which meant he had to adjust his farming policy.

This coincided with a chance gift from his father-in-law, who had been clearing out his late cousin’s workshop that was full of old materials associated with the carpentry and undertaking business run by the late John Farr, and his father before him.

David also has a love of Bonsai trees and, when he’s not in his shed welding, he can be found potting, trimming and watering.  

In January of this year, David, along with 16,500 others, he submitted a sculpture to the Royal Academy, London, for consideration for display in its summer exhibition.

In March David heard that he had been shortlisted to 4,500 and finally, in early June, that along with about 1,000 others, was told that his work would be displayed.

The sculpture, currently on display at the Royal Academy is titled ‘The Path Less Trodden; the inspiration for which was a poem by Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”.

sculpture
SCULPTURE: David Powell’s The Path Less Trodden’ is currently on show at the Royal Academy. (Submitted)

David explains that although not a reader of poetry he initially found the poem online, but in an interesting twist, whilst clearing out some of his late parent’s belongings, David’s wife Judy came across a book, ‘Complete Poems of Robert Frost’.  

Not only does the book contact ‘The Road Not Taken’, but carefully secreted inside was a letter dated December 11, 1954, along with photographs, written by Cecil Beasley of Maine, USA, who appears to have been David’s mother’s pen-pal.  

As a child, David loved creating a garden on a plate for the village show organised by the Women’s Institute. And with so much beautiful woodland in Herefordshire, The Forest of Dean and beyond, inspiration is never far away.

David, a member of the Herefordshire Guild of Craftsmen, puts his works of art on display at galleries around the county and further afield in Ambleside and Oxfordshire.