Sculpture by the Lakes reopened to the public on Tuesday and there's already a line-up of events planned for its 10th year.

The serene sculpture park was created by sculptor Simon Gudgeon and his wife, Monique, who moved there in 2007.

So, how did it come about?

Simon said: "I wanted something with a studio and this place came up - it didn't fit any of the search criteria - we were looking for a barn and an acre. We looked at it because it had a fishery and brought it - we thought it had to stay as a fishery.

"When we moved here, I had a sculpture in storage and put it out, then I made a couple of other big ones and after a while we thought, 'why don't we make a sculpture park?' which is obvious, it's built for a sculpture park.

"Initially the idea was to have it and show clients larger sculptures because if you put them into a gallery, it looks out of scale, out of context, it looks massive, it doesn't work at all, so having it in the open air, you can place it and the sculpture enhances the landscape and the landscape enhances the sculpture.

"We did that for a while and every time we created a new area it had to be maintained and we got more and more until we thought, 'we've got to open to the public', so we opened to the public in 2011, 10 years ago on June 4.

"It's just grown ever since, there hasn't ever been an overall plan, it's just gradually developed, it's been very fluid and organic how it's worked. I keep coming up with new ideas and developing different things."

What's next for Sculpture by the Lakes?

"Last year we opened a new gallery here," Simon added, "we've got the café as well and April 12 we're opening up a retail outlet, which is going to be called Artisans' Bizarre.

"In December we had an exhibition in the gallery called the Artisans' Bizarre, we had 80 artists, mostly local, supplying products - ceramics, textiles, prints, metal, glass - and we had a wonderful display in there. It worked so well and we had thought about doing a retail outlet for some time."

The area previously used as outdoor café seating will be used to display sculptures for smaller gardens and a new plant stall has been added. Simon also makes barbecues and fire bowls so there will be a display of them too.

What events are currently lined up?

"We've got a huge amount of events planned for this year, so far all of them are going ahead," said Simon.

"We've got FORM - The Sculpture Exhibition. The last five days of that we've got the Dorset Garden Festival, which is May 12 to 16 when we will have traders in anything related to the garden and big displays.

"In June/July we have the Dorset Arts Festival for a second year. The real criteria of the arts festival is that anybody exhibiting has got to be making, it's not just a static exhibition space, they've got to be creating, exercising their crafts and people can come along and actually see how things are created. That's going very well, we've got about 60 artists so far."

The last one is Wellbeing by the Lakes, which will be a bit different to previous years. Rather than pay an increased entrance fee with nearly all classes within it free, it will remain at £12.50 with some free talks and exercise classes with the option to book classes as wanted.

Simon added: "What we found was people came here and wanted to do them all and never relaxed. The majority of people didn't even walk around the park.

"You can just come in and relax, you don't have to do any classes, we'll have a market place and a main stage. We're saying to all the instructors who come and are paid for classes to do a free one, so I think that will work quite nicely.

"We're doing that for all our festivals, the entrance fee is staying the same, even if we've got an event on here, we're not raising the price for it.

"For the Dorset Garden Festival, we're saying to the traders that we're not going to charge then a stand fee, so they can come and exhibit for nothing, as long as we don't have to provide them with a tent or electricity. The Dorset Arts Festival is the same, we charge a fee for that but that's just to cover the cost of tents."

When did your sculptor career begin

"It started age 40," Simon said.

"It came about purely by accident. I went to university and studied law, went on and qualified as a solicitor, hated it and retired the day I qualified, so I did the full six years and walked out fully qualified and thought, 'no'. I looked at the senior partners in the firm and thought I don't want to be like that, they are there for the money and not really enjoying.

"So, I left and I didn't know what I was going to do, so I started doing a load of different things and wasn't making any money really so started with garden maintenance, I was living in London at the time and started a business doing that."

One of his clients was a property developer who asked Simon to landscape the garden of a home he had converted into flats.

"I didn't know how to landscape a garden, so I brought a book and read about it. I landscaped that garden and set up a business in London called Flowerpot Men. I had about a dozen people working for me in the end, then expanded into retail - small garden shops in Southfield."

However, the economy took its toll on the business and rising interest rates didn't make it sustainable.

Simon said: "So, I walked away from that with a suitcase of clothes in my early 30s and didn't know what I was going to do.

"I went out and got a job selling insurance, then my mother brought me some paints and I started painting and thought I would really like to be an artist."

Simon became a house sitter and would spend his days painting.

He added: "Normally, if you painted a picture of their dog, by the time they came home they bought that as well.

"I did that and built a career as a painter and exhibited and then I was in an art shop one day and bought some clay. I put it in the cupboard and did nothing with it. I always thought there was some strange alchemy in sculpture that you could create this 3D object.

"One day I was tidying out the studio and found the clay and I just fell in love with, it was magical, it was lovely.

"The first piece I did, the edition, sold out within three or four weeks and it grew from there. Now, three generations of the royal family have my work, I'm the only living sculptor with a sculpture in Hyde Park, I've got one on Carriageway Drive as well, Nick Mason, the drummer from Pink Floyd has got one, the founder of Cirque du Soleil has one and there's one outside the Cirque du Soleil headquarters in Montreal - so all over the world really.

"It's never too late to change career, do what you want. I'm now 60 and making fire bowls.

"You've got to keep looking at different things to do, I wouldn't want to get into a rut, it's what drives me, finding new skills."

For more information about Sculpture by the Lakes, opening times and events, visit sculpturebythelakes.co.uk

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