About
Barney was born during WW2 on a pacifist agricultural community to artistic parents Dee and Roy based in Lincolnshire
From an early age he was always making, altering and improving things. Any spare time was spent in his uncles’ village garage filling petrol and generally being the gofer. In return he was helped and advised on hotrodding his first car, a 1928 Austin seven Chummy which he bought for £5 at the age of 10. More cars and a motorcycle followed which were housed in an old chicken shed surrounded by car wrecks.
At age 17 he went to Lincoln Art school for a year before attending The Royal College of Art for 4 years, studying product design. This was a great experience learning all about wood, metal, plastic, paint etc. and how to use the relevant tools and machinery. This was the era of rebellious pop artists at the college and the Common Room social life was a riot. For his major degree project he designed and made a futuristic one-armed bandit (see photo).
On leaving college he ended up working in a design company, where, among other things, he designed a metal crutch for the NHS ( which is still current today, over 50 years later).
However the corporate world didn’t appeal and he’d been going back to the Lincolnshire chicken shed at weekends to make brand new Victorian stripped pine furniture for selling in the Portobello Road. This expanded into making pine kitchens for arts and media people.
By this time he was living above his workshop in Notting Hill Gate. Kitchens lead to designing and fitting out houses and eventually bars and restaurants.
He spent the rest of his professional life designing restaurants and bars all over the world, from China to Argentina and many countries in between
During all this period still finding time to both make and commission artefacts and artworks to adorn these projects.
He retired from the leisure industry aged 63 and since then has returned to his real passion, sculpture, which he fits in, between looking after 100 acres of nature reserve surrounding his house and making, repairing and restoring things for friends, children and grandchildren