The lady in the Sleeping Child Statue...

Here is a close up of the lady in the statue in the Sleeping Child Garden. The statue was carved by Josefina de Vasconcellos. When she died in 2005 at the age of a hundred, she was the world's oldest living sculptor. Some information can be found here

Interesting information can be found here

It appears Richard Branson had donated money for Josefina to realize The Sleeping Child Garden project here at St Bees Priory.

Josefina was tiny and frail in her appearance but she was still carving large sculptures a few years before her death.

Despite her upbringing where apparently both her parents forbode the subject of religion in their home, Josefina fell in love with the artist Delmar Banner (a painter, academic, and Anglican lay preacher) whom she married in 1930. He led her to be baptized into the Anglican church. They adopted two boys.

Much of Josefina's work is connected with religious subjects and the church. She did a lot of work helping disadvantaged boys realize their potential, by helping found an outward bound type centre. This led to her being awarded the MBE.

I have just downloaded a short video on the Sleeping Children statue link here

This android app will not let me make any links live in this main body of text, so I will continue post from here. Be patient with me. I will try and re edit elsewhere. If I cannot make the links live on this bit, then I know I can do them in comments... I think...back soon... Ah, it appears you need to be on a proper computer to do a link and not a tablet..just to let any confused person know!

By the way, scroll back two days and you will see the photo of the complete statue here