The Kissing Seat was installed on 12 February 2022, and once the finance was in place I began making it in April 2021. I was making drawings and models for it during the autimn of 2020 and finalised how I was going to make it from January 2021. It was commissioned for the ROCLA Art Trail which adorns the new neighbourhood of Redhouse Park in Milton Keynes, just west of the M1. Redhouse Park is built on what was the ROCLA concrete pipe making works which supplied the drainage pipes during the construction of the adjacent M1 motorway. The genesis for how I was going to make the Kissing Seat was the invitation to buy a pile of old oak beams and posts recovered from a demolished, very dilapidated, old barn situated just up the street from me in Gawcott. Its creation became a journey of sculptural construction and wood engineering.
