The call of the wild

Sculptor Hamish Mackie once shared a shower with a cheetah and faced a bull elephant's demonstration charge. He reveals to Charles Harris what it takes to capture the spirit of a wild animal in bronze

- Charles Harris

WILDLIFE sculptor Hamish Mackie was born left-handed. His Cornish school insisted he change, sometimes binding his left arm. This produced some curious consequences, including mirror writing, and perhaps diverted him from academic subjects. Influenced, however, by favourable accounts of unusual artistic talent, Radley accepted him, and there, tutored by an exceptional art master, Paul Kilsby, he was introduced to sculpture. He sold a clay sheep to a school parent and never looked back.

'Failing to get into the army,' as he puts it, he met the established animal sculptor Mark Coreth—well on the way to pre-eminence— who encouraged him, saying: 'I will tell you everything I know on the basis that you will tell the next person.' Thereafter, 'self-taught and influenced by Rodin and Bugatti', he has made, at 51, more than 500 works and a remarkable reputation for energetic creation.

Sculptures, especially perhaps of animals, tend either to be extremely smooth—such as the polished, streamlined evocations of Geoffrey Dashwood (