Clorinda Goodman

Clorinda Goodman has been stone carving with Matt Caines in the Community Art Room in the crypt at St John on Bethnal Green for the last four years. She has also been drawing, largely thanks to Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn and Revd Regan O’Callaghan.
She says:

"I have completed only three carvings in stone, as it is a lengthy and absorbing process, and it has had to fit round my full time work commitments and my first love - of singing – mostly liturgical music in a church setting.

As an academic child, art went by the wayside after O levels. I have had to make a real commitment which has turned out to be immensely rewarding. I am beginning to explore shortcuts – like firing my latest terracotta maquette of the Queen from the Lewis chess set, which I am also carving in Clipsham stone. Few people work in traditional materials like Portland stone. Given the huge amount of art destroyed at the Reformation, it seems a crime to lose these traditional skills that have enhanced our sense of the divine, worship and place so hugely."

Clorinda is a regular worshipper and choir member at St Mary’s Woodford, and has recently written an article for their Parish Magazine prompted by her second piece – ‘Eden’ – now re-named ‘Ancilla Domini’ (see above).