Moon Cloud Strike

Moon Cloud Strike

Moon Cloud Strike

By: Ron Dutton, 2006
Medium: cast bronze
Size: 108mm
Cast by: Silas Tonks
Issue: The Medal, no. 49 (Autumn 2006)
Edition: 34

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Ron Dutton needs no introduction to readers of The Medal. A founder member of BAMS and the society’s current president, Ron Dutton has been active in creating medals since 1974. He has exhibited widely and completed many medal commissions for an extensive range of clients including the Royal Mint and the National Trust. A major retrospective of his work was held at the Royal Coin Cabinet of Sweden in 2004. His interests also include the encouragement of medallic art internationally through the work of FIDEM, of which he is the British delegate. Moon Strike is Ron Dutton’s fifth medal for BAMS and the first since 1995. The artist writes: ‘The medal, as many will understand, offers wonderful opportunities to experiment and develop ideas on a small scale. This I have now done for some thirty years, beginning with the explorations of my garden, creating celebrations of the landscape and using word and image. It has been a time of fluctuating enthusiasms, triggered by responses to the environment and sketchbook ideas. ‘During the preparation of my seventieth birthday exhibition, held last year in my hometown of Nantwich, I realised that one of the themes I had returned to over the years was images of flight and flying. Initially modelled in clay, these depicted overviews of landscape as seen from the air, but more recently the dynamic forces of the bird forms themselves became the focus. Reasons as to why I make particular medals are sometimes difficult to describe but this current work has roots combining memory, reading and, yet again, my immediate surroundings. ‘My studio looks out onto a number of bird feeding tubes and tables. Throughout the winter there is a daylong flutter, swoop, twist, and dive that catch the eye. Constant challenges and combats with no clear resolution. The writer Philip Pullman touches the romantic within me. So much action takes place in cloud-swirling skies, wind-driven flight and eternal conflict, capturing and enriching the imagination, immersing you in a fantasy world. All this is stored within the mind and gradually leads to such medals as Moon Strike. A fantasy, a memory, a celebration of taking part in life.’