ARTIST & CRAFTSMAN

	Alex trained as a property maker at a free-lance studio supplying mostly London’s West End theatres and major tours.  In 1966 he became head of the Props Department at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre where for some 16 years or so he made and designed props.
Having been head-hunted by the BBC to set up a props-making department at Pebble Mill, Birmingham, he left after a year to start his own props studio, Pollex Props.  Based in Sutton Coldfield, the business supplied props, costumes and art works to theatres, television and film companies throughout the UK and overseas.
	During the course of his career Alex has worked with such eminent designers as Ralph Koltai, John Bury, Henry Bardon, John Napier, Finlay James and Terry Parsons.  He has been responsible for many coups de théâtre, including a successful on-stage beheading and a deus ex machina in the form of a flying Viking galley.
Firebrand was added to Pollex Props in 1993,  enlarging the range of services on offer to include flaming torches and special fire effects, and in 1996 the company moved to the west coast of Scotland where it continues to thrive.  Alex also has a teaching diploma and gives illustrated practical lectures in props-making to college  and university drama departments, as  well as a variety of other organisations.
Since moving to Argyll Alex has had the opportunity to redirect his talents and has become a successful artist with pieces going abroad as well as into private collections in the UK.  The range of techniques acquired during forty years as a master property maker informs his idiosyncratic portrayal of the world around him.  Having spent so long realising other designers’ ideas, in recent years he has thoroughly enjoyed exploring texture and form for his own pleasure.
	His fine art interpretation of the environment ranges from impressionist landscape through collage, and assemblages, to wood and metal sculpture.  He has exhibited at Kilmartin House Museum; the MACK, and luckenbooth Galleries in Tarbert; The Archway, Lochgilphead; and the Equine Exhibition, Ludlow Festival.