Work — Maia Gaffney-Hyde

‘Spolia Index’
Kreider + O’Leary
University College London
Purbeck Thornback ‘Frieze’ & reclaimed York stone paving, 2026

The carving and letter design for this project was part of an installation created by Kreider + O’Leary for the celebration of the Bicentenary of University College London. Kristen Kreider and James O’Leary are a poet and an architect who collaborate to make performance, installation and time-based media work in relation to sites of cultural interest and political significance. Their installation ‘Spolia Index’ sits inside a newly constructed room inside the Wilkins Building, the original UCL site on Gower Street. It is comprised of a 15m ‘Frieze’ of Purbeck panels into which I hand carved a line of poetry written by Kreider + O’Leary, the letters are 130-180mm high.

Interspersed across three walls are pieces of ‘Spolia’ York stone, taken from the renovated quad outside the Wilkins building, these I carved with ‘glyphs’ to Kristen and James design, which reference drawings made throughout the project. The sixth ‘glyph’ was designed in collaboration with the students and staff of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre. There is also a neon installation interacting across part of the ‘Frieze’.

The images above show the work installed at the end of April 2026, for more information on the project and everyone involved please see the Kreider + O’Leary website. All images © Richard Stonehouse.

Sundial Commission
Welsh Slate, bronze gnomon, 1150 x 800 x 30mm, recessed into the stone wall of a cottage in Devon; Welsh Slate date and initial plaque, 200x100x20mm, 2025

If you are interested in creating a sunidal please read more here on the comissioning process.

The Norfolk Churches Trust
St Peter’s Corpusty
Broughton Moor Green Slate comemoration plaque, 450 x 445 x 40mm, fixed in the chancle floor, 2025

This piece came about through the collaboration of the Lettering Arts Trust (LAT), the Norfolk Churches Trust (NCT) and the Friends of Friendless Churches. The chuch, St Peter’s Corpusty, was the catalyst which led to the formation of Norfolk Churches Trust and since 2022 is home to one of the LAT’s Art and Memory Collections; 17 modern headstones surrounding the church and four smaller works inside. The plaque was commissioned to commemorate the full reopening of the building and church yard to the public since work began to save the church in 1969. More information on the history of St Peter’s Corpusty can be fonud in the guide book Do the Stones Speak?.

St Peter’s provides an engaging setting for contemporary lettering, set on its’ own atop a hill just outside the village of Saxthorpe. The plaque in Broughton Moor green slate shares the space with the only surviving floor tablet in the church. It’s carved date is 1650 and it memorialises Edmund Pooley, who died at the age on eleven months and eight days, the son of Sir Edmund Pooley, of B[r]adley in Suffolk and Dame Esther.

The size of this piece was chosen to fit into the dimensions of the floor tiles, to be informative and not dominate the space. The letterforms are lowercase and influenced by late 17th and 18th century lettering which can be seen in churches across Norfolk. Characterised in this instance by letterforms that are particularly fluid and slightly condensed to fit a plqaue with the same dimensions are the floor tiles..

In June 2025 the stone was blessed as part of the Eucharist service.

Headstone Commission
Broughton Moor Green Slate, 1000 x 600 x 50mm, fixed in Swanley Village, Kent, 2025