Pluscarden Abbey Opens New Women's Guest House

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00:00The idea for most people staying at a monastery is that they want to take part in the activities.

00:18So there's eight church services every day and there's work in the garden and things

00:26like that.

00:27So it puts the guests more in the heart of things here and gives them an overall better

00:33experience I think.

00:35Anyone who comes round the corner there and sees it for the first time, they say,

00:38Oh, look at that!

00:40And it looks like it's been there forever but it's all fresh and new.

00:57I've been carving stone since 1978 and I've studied in Italy, studied architecture as

01:25well so I have an intuition to what I can do and I respond to what exists here, which

01:33has been cut, what comes down to us from the medieval period and even from later periods.

01:40So I'm able to speak the same language in stone.

01:43But you've also got to think about a sculpture that is fitting for now, not 1301.

01:51And I'm not a sculptor working in the 13th century, I'm a sculptor working in 2025.

01:56So we have a modern brain but I try and work in the medieval way.

02:00I always leave the eyes to the last minute.

02:03So it's the soul of the spirit of the sculpture coming in.

02:06And today is the feast day of Saint Joseph so he's just arrived right on, bang on cue.