In 2020, confronted and confounded by a unique set of circumstances in our lifetime, we found ourselves like everyone else locked down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Just prior to that we had visited St Mary’s church in Bury St Edmunds during a moment of sorrow regarding an imminent bereavement. We went in search of peace and were staggered by the 22 life-sized carved oak angels that had been looking down for 600 years at us all, with knowing looks from the roof above which they had supported for all that time. They have seen and endured so much and somehow their perseverance gave us a bit of hope that day.

As we went into the first Lockdown, we set out to collaboratively draw 3 of the angels; the King and the Queen and then a life size Gabriel on an 8ft x 5ft piece of watercolour paper. He is the largest collaborative work we have ever done.

We had always intended to take Gabriel back to where he came from and today we did. We were delighted to meet so many of the congregation and to answer a wealth of interesting questions, as we all stood around him laid out looking directly up to his original counterpart. We thank them all for their very warm welcome and kind interest. At time of writing there is a very real chance that he will be displayed one day in the church which has its place in history as “the peoples church”. Integral to the original Abbey, it survived the dissolution specifically because it belonged to the people rather than the Abbot and our image of Gabriel is of the people too.

We are delighted to announce that new card designs will soon be available to purchase in the shop in St Mary’s and the Giclee print of Gabriel is available again in our shop on this web page with a percentage of any sale going to St Mary’s to help with the upkeep of the Angels in hope and expectation that they will look down on future generations. We will update you all soon on further news of Gabriel’s journey home.