I did tests on small stones before collecting and committing myself to the larger ones.

There's a huge number of things that are occurring with the ice works which fascinate me enormously, but it's driven by this kind of frantic race against time. And whilst that creates a huge amount of tension and problems, it's a tension that I think I feed off.

The difference between a theatre with and without an audience is enormous. There is a palpable, critical energy created by the presence of the audience.

For me looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. Place is found by walking, direction determined by weather and season. I take the opportunity each day offers: if it is snowing, I work in snow, at leaf-fall it will be leaves; a blown over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches.

Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.

The reason why the stone is red is its iron content, which is also why our blood is red.

The hardened mass of liquid stones had much stronger qualities than those which had simply torn. The skin remained a recognisable part of the molten stone.