Leadership Award

Description of work

A senior teacher at Ringwood School in Salisbury wanted to leave a distinctive trophy behind on her retirement. Being called Olive, she asked if the trophy could be made in olive wood. I suggested olive ash as British, less epensive (and less moisture in it for this kind of work). I also used sapele for the contrasting chess type squares.

The trophy is to be awarded to students who have shown leadership at school. We discussed possible leadership symbolism, and came up with a chess king or queen with pawns. I made the pawns different sizes and placed at different heights to symbolise different ages at school, and made the centrepiece ambiguously king or queen as the trophy will be awarded to either gender. The inscriptions at the front, including the school badge, are pyrographed, and three gold engraving plates were fixed at the rear to record annual winners.

In the year following the making of the main tophy, a smaller version was requested to give to the winner to keep. This is shown below - 4" diameter and about 6" high. Cost, with the inscription, £40.

The point within the range for the guide price for trophies similar to this one will obviously reflect the type of objects and level of detail required. And also the amount of pyrography.

The piece is finished to a high polish using tripoli wax followed by white diamond, then lastly carnauba wax.

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