About Bamber & Clarion

Bamber

I was born on a full moon in 1961.

After studying industrial design in West Sussex I went to London in 1983 to make my fortune. I started work as a furniture maker, prototype maker, model maker, then side stepped into making stuff for pop videos, TV commercials, museums etc.

I designed and fitted out a narrowboat, and lived on the canal in Hoxton when it was definitely not trendy.

After many adventures in the media world as a maker of anything and everything I set up a new company Bamber’s Special Projects and reverted to designing and making bespoke furniture for private customers.

I never made my fortune in London and in 2005 my wife and I and our two young children moved away from Hackney’s Murder Mile to the wilds of South Shropshire.

I have had exhibitions of my art, which can be found here.

I have recently been on the Accidental Gods podcast  discussing this pilgrimage with the host Manda Scott and with Benjamin Christie, of the Spine of Albion Pilgrimage.

I will be on the Sustainababble podcast after I have done my first five day’s of this walk. It will be available from about 18th October.

As I wrote the About Clarion piece below, I wondered what Clarion would write about me:

A tastie looking human who is very friendly and caring but who has had me suspended from the ceiling of his workshop for 18 months. When is he going to let me out for this big adventure?!

Clarion

Clarion is a sculpture of a male polar bear created by Bamber Hawes
He, (the bear not Bamber), stands 10ft (3.1M) tall on his hind legs in an enquiring, bewildered stance.

Construction:
His skeleton is made of a few fine bamboo poles bolted together and fixed to his thin plywood foot prints. His shape is formed from masses of willow withies wired together and then skinned with special heavy duty tissue paper bonded together with external PVA glue. He is fire proof and waterproof.
He is translucent, so if his specially adapted lights are fitted inside him ~ he glows like a paper lantern.
Or as in the photos of him on the Stiperstones, he glows with a wonderful sunset behind him too.

He weighs only 37lbs (17kg) and can be carried in various ways:
– On two bearers shoulders using two parallel wooden poles, aligned front to back.
– By four bearers holding the ends of two lateral aluminium poles that link through the wooden poles.
– If it is very windy he can be easily carried lying down with him wearing a special body harness.

Bamber says of Clarion:
I do not think of him as a friendly cuddly bear, but as a bewildered, frightened beast that is angry about what humans have done to his world.
If he was a real polar bear he could run at 40km/hr. (25mph) and eat 45kg (100lbs.) of blubber at a sitting. As the world’s larger four legged predator, they have a range of up to 600,000sq km (250,000 sq. miles). A polar bear’s skin is black.