King of Dust

King of Dust is a stonemason's personal journey through the landscapes of south-west England and the sculpture which first inspired him to pick up tools: the Romanesque. In the early years of the 21st century, mentally exhausted, the archaeologist Alex Woodcock carved a stone for the first time and realised how much more there was to learn about the subject from which he had made his life's work. Determined to understand the work by making and carving, as well as theoretically, he retrained as a stonemason and spent several years working at Exeter Cathedral. Ten years after that first carving a move to Cornwall prompted an urge to re-explore the little known Romanesque (12th century) carvings of the south-west. King of Dust follows a year of these wanderings, being both an archaeology of the images and a meditation on learning the craft. Ultimately it is about the power of medieval art to transform a life.

Alex Woodcock is a stonemason, writer and poet from the south coast of England. Following his PhD in medieval sculpture he spent six years working at Exeter Cathedral, during which time he wrote Gargoyles and Grotesques and Of Sirens and Centaurs. His work regularly appears in journals including Reliquiae and Elementum.