Childhood Stones and whalebones

Alexander Carrick was born in 1882 in Musselburgh, Scotland. His father and uncle ran the family forge, Carrick's of Musselburgh, in the little town which lies on the eastern edge of Edinburgh. For generations the Carricks had been blacksmiths. In the 17th century his covenanting ancestor had been taken from Ayrshire and imprisoned in the Bass Rock for his religious beliefs. When freed he settled in the nearby village of Athelstaneford, setting up a forge.

Carrick’s mother, Elizabeth Leith, came from South Ronaldsay in the Orkney Islands. The Leiths were a family of tailors and Elizabeth was a talented dressmaker whose work was always in great demand. She had left her native islands and was working for a time at Holylee, a house near Peebles. The young Alex visited his mother’s family on South Ronaldsay and it was there that his uncle, John Leith, helped him to whittle a model boat from a piece of driftwood found on the shore. It perhaps isn’t being too fanciful to wonder if these islands of stones and whalebones might have made a deep impression on the psyche of the young boy. The Orkneys are bare of trees and it is rock features, both natural and man-made, that make up the natural and cultural landscape. This might explain his deep affinity with his true medium, stone, while his artisan background established him as a supreme craftsman whose vision as an artist and sculptor was always three dimensional.

He did continue to visit the Orkneys as a student. There he studied St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall and he apparently based the distinctive lettering or font, which he often adopted for his memorials, on the lettering carved on a stone in the kirkyard which he photographed.

In 1897 his father purchased his apprenticeship, to work as a stone mason in the yard of Scotland’s great monumental sculptor of the time, Birnie Rhind.

Anne Scott once told me that when asked as a child what he wanted to do when he grew up the young Alex said that 'He could think of nothing finer than making the shells for pies!'

Left - 'Geology' at the King's Buildings, Edinburgh University, is a nice example of Carrick's genius for simple, elegant composition. I think that the face of 'Geology' is very similar to Carrick himself and I feel that it may well have been a self-portrait. If so then this seems apt as stone was truly Carrick's medium.

Right - 'A Boy Putting a Stone', one of Carrick's earlier works which was exhibited at the RSA.