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WALCHA sculptor Stephen King says he feels like "the pressure's off" having won his first Sculpture by the Sea title last year, but concedes there are still a few nerves around unveiling his latest creation to a worldwide audience.
Sculpture by the Sea, at Bondi in Sydney, is the world's largest annual free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition, earning an international reputation since the first show in 1997.
Mr King had had entries in all but two of the events when he won for Fallout last year, a significant boost to an already enviable resume and a welcome $60,000 injection to the bank account.
He was back in Sydney late last month for the installation of Fallout in Headland Park, Georges Heights, its new permanent home.
When The Leader spoke to Mr King last Thursday, he was preparing to take this year's entry to Sydney tomorrow, a logistically challenging exercise when the sculpture you're dealing with stands 11m high and 6m wide and comprises 40 different pieces.
Given it will have to be trucked down in pieces, Mr King has devised a letter-and-number system, to ensure everything goes back where it should when it comes to reassembling it.
He says he feels a lot more relaxed about his chances this year, after finally claiming the Macquarie Group Sculpture Prize, the highest cash award for sculpture in NSW.
But to be a two-time winner is obviously a dream, and his latest entry, The Folly, has every chance of delivering.
It's made from stringybark timber found on his Walcha property, and has as its inspiration the decorative structures, or follies, made popular by English gardeners.
Mr King said it used a simple tongue-and-groove technique and while "not conceptually exciting", he hopes the sculpture is "visually pleasing" to the exhibition's vast audience, which last year numbered more than half a million people.
"I like the way the light falls on it ... the windows through the timber," Mr King said.
"It's playing with geometry, really."
There'll be no rest after he returns from Sydney, either, with Mr King earning selection for the first time for Sculpture by the Sea's sister event at Aarhus in Denmark next May.
"I've been trying for a number of years ... so to finally be accepted is very exciting," he said.
Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney starts on October 23 and runs until November 9.