I was inspired to make the Leaf Globe series one winter after watching my young children rolling snowballs. As their snowballs grew, the snow was picked up leaving almost bare ground. The leaves, sticks and moss that lay under the snow were all picked up and embedded into the snowball. The globes contain leaf forms based on the Hawthorn, Fern, Laurel, English Oak, American Oak, Bamboo and Sycamore. All of the leaves are hand forged and folded and the arrangement of leaves on each globe is totally unique. Having grown up on a farm in Dorset, Cara's decision in 1986 to study Fine Art in the urban, industrial city of Coventry was a stark transition but it eventually led to her discovering metal as a preferred medium. She went onto specialise in metalwork and design at Hereford Technical college and then further afield working with and learning from artists and metalsmiths in London, Lisbon, Memphis and Berlin. In Berlin she worked with Achim Kuhn, an East German Designer and blacksmith, helping restore some of the cities most monumental copper sculptures after the reunification. This initial introduction to the warmth and malleable qualities of copper fed back into her own work when eventually she returned to England. In 2017 she graduated with distinction from a master of Arts degree programme in Metalwork from the University of the Creative Arts, Farnham. She has recently completed a year as artist in residence at UCA Farnham. With the aim of bringing more light, translucency and shadow into her work she has been experimenting and incorporating cast glass into projects with steel and copper.