I just see myself as an object in the final image. I know I'm experiencing it when I'm there working on it. I'm there to be worked with, as anything else that I work with.

I soon realised that what had happened on a small scale cannot necessarily be repeated on a larger scale. The stones were so big that the amount of heat required was prohibitively expensive and wasteful.

Design implies a sense of mapping something out and then you follow the plan.

I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole. I find nature as a whole disturbing. Nature can be harsh – difficult and brutal, as well as beautiful. You couldn't walk five minutes from here without coming across something that is dead or decaying.

I think that I'm always trying to get beyond the surface appearance of things, to go beyond what I can just see.

We often forget that we are nature.

In contact with materials, I can see so much more with my hands than I can just with my eyes. I'm a participant, not a spectator. I see myself both as an object and a material, and the human presence is really important to the landscapes in which I work.