Clare Howcutt-Kelly meets Ryan James 

A blue Transit pulls up outside my house at about 5am one morning in May. It’s riding suspiciously low as if laden with a load of gold bullion. The driver – tall with a no-nonsense Yorkshire accent – invites me to look in the back. I slide open the door and on the floor is something bulky. It is not gold but it is precious, and I’m shocked it’s not protected with bubble wrap at the very least.

“It weighs a tonne. Literally”, he explains with a tone that suggests I worry too much, “Well, it won’t go anywhere will it?”

It is going somewhere. It’s going to RHS Chelsea Flower Show and we’re going, too. But ahead of us is a three-hour drive into central London in a questionable motor.

Ryan James is a sculptor and carver and the work in the back of the van is a wall fountain for designer Holly Johnston’s Bridgerton-inspired garden sponsored by Netflix at the Show. Carved from a single block of sandstone, it features a cameo portrait of Penelope Featherington accompanied by the words ‘even a wallflower can bloom’ which are, Ryan says, carved to resemble the Netflix font.

I have packed a Thermos of tea and Ryan rummages around before offering a stained old mug to have a quick brew before we set off. There is an ease about Ryan – he lives in the moment, talks freely and is solutions-orientated. Conversation is easy, the opposite of trying to get blood out of a stone.

Ryan has a degree in fine art from Plymouth University but when it comes to sculpture and carving, he is self-taught. When I first visited his workshop at Traditional Stone in Horbury he admitted he didn’t know the names of all the tools, but who cares? He most definitely has command of them.

He’s been figuring out his own way most of his life and, as we talk – I can hear the voice of his inner child; his wonder and curiosity has never been snared by the trap that can, at times, be adult life with its routines and responsibilities.

His parents Dean and Susan, brother, Sean and wife Jade are, he reveals, his biggest influences.

“Mum’s really artistic and my dad’s a builder, but he’s always had an artistic side. Whenever we’d go on holiday, he’d always be pointing out the architectural carvings and features. I’ve always loved da Vinci and the way he figured stuff out and that type of that drawing – a fusion of engineering and art.”

Surprisingly – and I must suppress a smile when he says this – at 14, he was a member of the local walking stick making club. Every Thursday night, he would “go to this working men’s club, have a pint of John Smith’s and talk about walking sticks.” An interesting hobby for a teenager in the 90s perhaps, but he won first prize at the Penistone Show for the first stick he ever made – so who’s laughing now?

“I loved making walking sticks, loved whittling with my penknife. Me and my brother used to carve out initials into a potato and melt lead on a fire in the garden and pour it in. I loved anything to do with carving and I remember Sean and me always up to something. He's always been really creative and is fantastic at drawing. He produces really quirky stuff and has helped me come up with some great ideas."

By eight, he was carving stone – an ammonite first (which is on display in his workshop) and then his dad taught him the basics of carving and lettering: “I carved an Elvis sign for my nan because we’re all huge Elvis fans.” Later, his GCSE coursework carvings included a mouse and a snake.

Of all the work he keeps in his studio, a portrait of his granddad, Leonard, is perhaps the most poignant. Carved in Spanish alabaster, he completed it during lockdown as a tribute to his granddad and the older generations who struggled with isolation when restrictions were imposed.

When he talks about what and who inspires him, there is more than a doff of the cap to the North’s industrial heritage. “There’s sculpture in what they did –old bridges and things that they made.”

Yorkshire’s rival county, Lancashire also produced one of his heroes, Fred Dibnah.

“Skint Northerners worked hard but didn’t really reap the financial rewards. My granddad used to work in the pit as an engineer so doing a portrait of my him came from all that, I wanted to celebrate a normal working man rather than being a portrait of a royal or a famous person. Art shouldn’t just be a luxury for the rich.”

For immortalising his granddad, he won the Tony Stones Award at the Society of Portrait Sculptors FACE2021 exhibition. It was this piece that gave Ryan the push to become a full-time sculptor. But it wouldn't have been possible without the support of Jade who continued to work full time.

“Jade is mega. I run all my ideas by her first. I tend to go for a more monochrome colour palette but Jade brings colour into every aspect of our life together.”

At primary school, Simon Todd, a Yorkshire artist and creator of wood and stone site-specific sculpture gave a talk at his school which also sparked something in the boy who loved his pencils.

And his pencils are still one of his favourite tools today, you’ll find them all over his workshop and tucked behind his right ear. He begins each project with a highly-detailed sketch before working out the scale. I’ve never seen him use a computer and there’s no mention of CAD software here. Instead, he keeps A4 hardbound sketchbooks close by and fills them with intricate drawings of projects in various stages – some just seeds of ideas that might one day bloom.

As coincidence would have it, one of his first sculptures was carved on site where Simon Todd’s wooden statue had once stood in the village of Clayton West where Ryan spent his childhood. Called the Spirit of Clayton West Sculpture, it celebrates the local heritage and those who contribute to the community; there are nods to his own family – his grandfather worked at a local mine while his grandmothers both worked in the mills. There are local landmarks carved into the stone including the church where his parents were married and plenty of animals including his dog Eiger, (who died before it was completed) are also carved there.

One of his most notable projects was the creation of two four-tonne griffins for a private client. You’ll struggle to spot the differences between the pair of them although he can. This process for him was I think, a defining moment in his career and he developed his own working methods – a numbered grid system hand drawn onto each griffin, the use of a mirror and trial and error. Thankfully, not too much of the latter. He shared much of his progress on his Instagram account, and this was how most people came to know his name.

For the griffins, he used Howley Park sandstone quarried in North Yorkshire. Clare Dunn who worked for Marshalls at the time made the introduction and arranged for Ryan to visit the quarry and select the blocks. The team at Traditional Stone transported them back and prepared them by cutting a flat base. When the griffins left the workshop months later, you could sense these beasts had clawed their way into his heart and made an impression that would remain with him for a lifetime.

By Ryan’s own admission, 2024 was an epic one, completing the griffins, creating the Bridgerton bespoke fountain and he also travelled to New South Wales to work with fellow Yorkshire native, Emma Knowles, founder of Stone of Arc and The Great Australian Stone Festival.

In 2024, Ryan also expanded his team with the addition of Endrit Rama who had worked for a larger company back home in Albania. With a degree in Classical Sculpture his drawings, like Ryan’s are intricate. Of Endrit, Ryan says: “He’s brilliant, very learned with clear methods and knows how to do mega architectural carvings. He knows all sorts of techniques and I’ve already learned a lot from him.”

Endrit’s first large-scale project with Ryan was the bust of a Highland cow and animals –  real or mythical –  are often being shaped into life in the workshop. He spends a lot of time studying anatomy with a focus of muscle definition and his pursuit of translating fluid forms into stone can verge on obsession: “I can’t let things go if they aren’t right. That’ll do just isn’t me. I’m striving for perfection.” He reveals he dreams of creating a monument “like those in Trafalgar Square or Nelson’s Column.”

Author Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey” and although he died in 1882, he could have been talking about Ryan.

Ryan’s career will certainly outlive that Transit van, navigating bumps in the road in his own way and with plenty of humour.

There will be stories to tell – in a Yorkshire accent, of course.

• Ryan can be found on Instagram @rjjsculptor

Italcer, a benefit corporation and design hub for Made-in-Italy ceramics led by CEO Graziano Verdi, and backed by funds Mindful Capital Partners, Miura Partners, and Capital Dynamics, has received approval from the experts of the European Commission’s LIFE Subprogramme Climate Action. This is a funding program for environmental and climate action projects, for its patented plant that will eliminate CO2 from ceramic production processes.

For the first time, an industrial plant will not only eliminate CO2 emissions created during production but also transform pollutant waste agents into raw materials for use in various industrial sectors, helping to reduce environmental impact. As a result, the process becomes complementary to ceramic production.

It is estimated that the first pilot plant, which Italcer will build in Sassuolo (Modena), once the financing of approximately €6 million is approved, will not only eliminate all emissions produced to date, totalling around 5,500 tonnes of CO2 per year, along with other fumes and gases, but will also allow for an additional environmental savings of 3,700 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The particular design of the system allows it to be applied in many industries that currently use fossil fuels, making the patented technology scalable and impactful.

The plant, which has passed the European Commission’s assessment, is capable of eliminating CO2 and other air pollutants from production processes, converting them into value-added products that can be used as pure secondary raw materials for other uses (such as precipitated calcium carbonate, calcium nitrate, and calcium sulfate and sulfite).

The calculation considers the entire production cycle, including emissions associated with the manufacturing of high-quality products, compared to traditional methods of producing them.

This innovative process, which has already received a patent for industrial invention and is the result of approximately €2 million invested by the company in research and development over recent years, uses ‘Industry 4.0’ solutions that allow constant and automated production control with a positive environmental impact.

Graziano Verdi, CEO of Italcer Group, explained: “We are thrilled to announce that our Group has received praise from the European Community for this important innovation. This recognition highlights our commitment to sustainability. Italcer Group's environmental policy is based on a strategy that aims for realistic decarbonisation of production processes. We have long been committed to promoting the development of a circular economy, seeking to reuse waste materials from processes and turning them into raw materials for other industrial uses. We plan to invest an additional €50 million over the next five years to create an industrial-scale plant that we estimate will generate €80 million in additional revenue over the next seven years thanks to the application of this patent, considering both the sale of secondary raw materials and savings on CO2 taxes”.

This innovation has received approval from the experts of the LIFE Subprogramme Climate Action, who awarded the project 69 points, well above the required threshold of 55 points. The plant also stands out for its very low energy impact, as it leverages exothermic reactions that occur spontaneously, reducing energy needs and improving overall efficiency.

Italcer Group, which expects to close 2025 with a turnover of approximately €380 million, has always been committed to the challenge of decarbonising the production process. The company has invested in developing this groundbreaking emissions treatment technology, aiming to achieve ambitious sustainability goals with the support of Prof. Isidoro Giorgio Lesci.

In 2024, Italcer Group also launched the first 100% electric kiln in Spain, which saves 1,500 tons of CO2 per year. In the same year, Italcer was awarded the Sustainability Award, ranking first among Italian companies for its environmental commitment.