As with all my work, whether it's a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, I'm trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. Working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal energy of the stone.

Some of the snowballs have a kind of animal energy. Not just because of the materials inside them, but in the way that they appear caged, captured.

The relationship between the public and the artist is complex and difficult to explain. There is a fine line between using this critical energy creatively and pandering to it.

I'm cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames.

Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.

I'm not a performer, in that I don't like the public, but I work in that respect.

The main source of my income is through the commissions of the large-scale works and big sculptures, the projects.