logo

Gordon Brown

It was in a shed at the rear of his parent’s home in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, that Longdale’s founder and resident Royal Sculptor Gordon C. Brown F.R.S.A first carved this distinctive pine-tree insignia; a mark which is now to be found on all of his pieces. “I was ten when I first created it. Since then I have carved it on every piece of work that I ever done. I am known as The ‘Tree Man’ in the profession,” proclaims Gordon. His former woodwork teacher though, had another name for his young precocious pupil. “He called me ‘the fiddler,’ because whilst the other boys in the class were making the usual things from wood, I would be fiddling about with it, carving it into different shapes.” Frustrated by nine year old Gordon’s activities, his teacher handed him two pieces of mahogany, demanding that he create something from them. “They were peculiar shapes,” Gordon fondly recalls. “Anyway, I carved a greyhound out of one of the pieces and a stand from the other. My teacher was a bit shocked when three weeks later I took them in to school to show him.” The greyhound proved to be the first sculpture that Gordon actually sold. “A local M.P. purchased it. I don’t know where it is now, “ he laments. At the age of thirteen and a half, Gordon was offered a place at Art College, but on the advice of his father, chose instead to begin an apprenticeship to a local firm as a joiner. Here he was to turn out everything from coffins to cabinets. “I wanted to go to Art College but my father told me to get a proper job instead,” he smilingly recalls. Whilst serving his apprenticeship Gordon continued pursue at every opportunity his desire to carve, devising a notion that one day he would form a guild of craftsmen, all working together under one roof. After a spell of National Service in the RAF, where the only art he was to practise was that of pugilism, he eventually established his own professional workshop, employing five wood carving assistants. Still desirous of forming a guild, Gordon spent many fruitless years in search of premises suitable for use as a base. During the 1960s, many of the pieces that Gordon had created were accidentally destroyed, forcing him to seek another form of employment. Working at Nottingham University, designing equipment for research, provided him with an opportunity to seek out a site to establish as a base and after acquiring an old disused mushroom and chicken farm in the heart of Sherwood Forest, he set about building Longdale Craft Centre - a project that was to take many years. His dream now a reality, Gordon was able to devote more of his time to carving. Using his magnificent hands he was to sculpture many individual pieces, all of which had been privately commissioned. Gordon works in lime due to its fine texture and close grain. This enables him to carve greater detail into his finished sculptures. His collection of eight Ballet Sculptures, created during the 1980s, won him international acclaim and was exhibited at the Royal Festival Hall, London. In 1989 Gordon was made a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts, an honour he his extremely proud of. The commissioned pieces produced by this master craftsman are too numerous to mention but for the stories behind more of Gordon’s work, please select an article from the options displayed beneath the Gordon Brown button at the beginning of this page. An ability to work in bronze as well as wood ensures that he his always gainfully employed. “My work is my life. Each piece that I create has a part of me in it somewhere,” he evokes. A part of Gordon that is definitely present on all his finished creations is his unique pine tree insignia. “Whatever material I work in, I always put that mark on the finished piece,” Gordon confirms. His choice of a pine tree motif as signature to his creations is not surprising, given his special affinity with wood. “All trees are part of a legend and deserve respect. Each has its own story to tell. Like the trees, there is a story in each piece I sculpt.” His unique insignia aside, perhaps this is the real reason why Gordon Brown is known as ‘The Tree Man.’