Sultanate of Oman
Recently I have been designing potential designs for the city of Muscat, a great and exciting challenge in country that was a real pleasure to visit. The ‘Dhow’ sail design featured is merely an initial concept, but I hope to be working on some monumental designs over there in the near future.
Return to Charybdis: It’s been a number of years since I saw this sculpture in Windsor Great Park (Queen Elizabeth Temperate House) - My first ever Whirlpool creation. Taking the two children along was an interesting moment (when I installed it in 2005 I didn’t have any). Being very much a ‘hands-on’ piece, it was an instant hit and I had to stop Rufus climbing into it!
Strangely, and unlike on any other sculptures of mine, it currently has a coating like rocks do in rivers, which the caretakers rub off annually to reveal the copper. Although the vortex is less visible with this blackened effect, it looks very good, and is all the more mysterious.
For the record, my son’s haircut is something that only his 5-year-old sister can fully explain!
This sculpture just installed - though we still have a stone-covered mesh to cover the pool and the electrics have yet to be put together (along with those in the house!) I built the first version early this year, which is on the website; this one needed denser metal to cut down on the splash as the water rotates around the coils. Have also managed to improve the flow efficiency a bit. Not an easy one to make… but they never are! Will photograph properly in due course 
2011 is the year that I finally departed the amazingly romantic (if bat-infested and usually sub-zero) workshop of Welful Lake for the convenience of nearby Hazelton. So following on I really needed to continue with a long-overdue re-write of the website. I am very new to blogging, but will mention all news and exhibitions here from now on….
Goodbye Welful Lake, goodbye old website…. will have to do a new brochure next…
Giles Studied at City and Guilds of London and at Kingston, Graduating in 2000. Since then he has followed a punishing schedule to create yet more ambitious and original designs, to which end he has firmly established himself as a leading player.
Working with his father Ranulf Rayner, a fellow creative and accomplished artist, on several projects, has added to the ability to make the impossible achievable. They still keep a close link in their operations from Gloucestershire and Devon.
Water sculpture by Giles is not made just to be both aesthetic and intriguing, but also to appear quite unbound by any decade or period. To achieve eye-catching creations that can fit in with settings often several hundred years old is a challenge to which he has set himself with successful dedication.
