		Tom Newton is a builder and designer. One of his signatures is in brick – the electrical symbol of Positive Earth. With microelectronics at the hub of modern life comes the irony of scale: that the smaller it all becomes, the greater the power this technology has to change the world in a positive, or in a negative way, depending on how we use it.

Electronic Stucco

In the early 1980s, he first explored this theme in a series of electronic stucco sculptures, the designs all based on microcircuitry. Works were purchased by Clive Sinclair, and by the Science Museum.

The Chalk Chip

In the mid-1990s Tom came up with an idea to mark the Millennium, the Chalk Chip. Its potential was not understood by the Millennium Commission, but it had a good airing and gained many supporters. As you can see from the extracts below, written now a decade ago, its relevance increases in strength ... and we hope it will become a reality. It seems it's all about the relationship between technology and environment, and the future of the human race.

	“Like chalk figures of the past, the Chalk Chip could be to symbolise our time. An abstract view of the most powerful piece of equipment on our planet. It comes with a message : to ‘pause and consider’, as it is now the case that this force demands of us dynamic and lateral thought to bring about ideas to help solve the great problems: the environment, curbing pollution, the danger of global warming, morality and much more that now confronts us as a global race. The microchip will play a part in it all, and now it challenges us to come up with the right answers. In a thousand years, will our descendants reflect on this time and perhaps see it as the momentous turning point, the time when we as a world started to get it right, or wrong? Only time will tell, but the symbol of the Chalk Chip will urge people to think positively about the potential for the future of our planet.” The project caught the imagination of the historian Asa Briggs, who selected it from other Millennium projects for a mention in the concluding paragraph of his book “Fins de Siecles – How Centuries End 1400-2000” (Yale University Press 1996); the project was “to add to the chalk hills of Britain a pattern of a chalk microchip …Its [designer] Tom Newton (the right surname) claimed that in a thousand years ‘man will be able to look at the chalk design and identify it as symbolising the very beginnings of microchip technology…everything that man might create in the next millennium will be attributable to one thing – the chip’ “ THE CHALK CHIP 2000 positive earth
Full size template of the Chalk Chip laid out on a hillside near Husbands Bosworth, Leics

Chalk Chip template laid out next to the White Horse, Oxfordshire, from two different angles

Forest Form: the Leaf Bowl

‘Positive Earth’ is about respecting our environment, and not creating unnecessary waste: the Leaf Bowl, invented by Tom in the early 1990s simply ‘borrows’ fallen leaves from the cycle of nature and then returns them as compost when the bowl succumbs to the natural process of wear and tear. Leaf bowls have been popular ever since their first appearance in the early 90s: as long as they are kept dry like a basket, they can be used for all sorts of things – nuts, eggs, biscuits, pot pourri, and they make attractive, original Christmas presents at a very reasonable price. £10 for a small and a large bowl if purchased direct from us – post and packing available at an additional cost depending on destination, min. order 5 pairs – please see our Links & Contacts page for details.

Pallet Furniture

Positive Earth is about reducing our carbon footprint for the sake of the planet, thus by giving used materials a new lease of life to meet our needs wherever possible. Tom Newton’s collection of furniture made out of pallets - an abundance of which are to be found in the Midlands as one of the country’s largest distribution areas – is about recycling, but also about the new lease of life taken on by the old materials transformed, yet encapsulating, somehow, the spirit of the materials in their previous life.

Tom exhibited his furniture at the London 100% Design show in 1995 and at a one man show at the Down to Earth Gallery, Knutsford in 1996 when he wrote about the furniture: “Hendersen’s Bridge, built in the 19th Century from the stone remains of croft dwellings and meeting houses on the Hebridean island of Raasay has for generations been reputed to emit the sounds of human voices and dogs barking: a ghostly bridge. Science has proved, however, that the high iron ore content in the stones of the bridge structure has, by way of a natural magnetic recording, trapped these sounds within, with no sense of time. When atmospheric conditions are favourable, these sounds are released, causing this strange phenomenon to occur.

Science and spirits at work. So it is with pallet furniture. Each pallet section has its own life, its growing, its graft and its destiny. Getting there: some by air, some by seal, but all by land. Each piece contains the sounds and the spirits, to be released…?”

Tom will be exhibiting two Rock 'Rollers (see photo above left)in Diarmuid Gavin's Westland Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show 22nd-26th May 2007. Price £1,500 each. Enquiries and commissions welcome. 01455 552697. tom@cotesbach.net.

The Stem Rack
	One of several product designs developed by Tom is the ‘Stem Rack’, for storing wine bottles (with the labels visible), a simple design made out of reused wood, design registration No. 2061161, November 1996.

Rubha na Cloiche
	Off-grid stone and glass dwelling, Inner Hebrides, built by Tom in the early 1980s; the photo below is a view from the house showing standing stones ‘The Sails’ erected in the early 1990s, and ballista (based on Roman missile hurling catapult).

Building Works
Over the years managing the Cotesbach Estate Tom has put his unique creativity into the many building works he has undertaken here, as well as taking on numerous building works elsewhere. He has used reclaimed and recycled materials to good effect in a number of different ways.

'Broken Heart' door made of pallet wood, Huntsman's Half, 1996	Ongoing building works, Cotesbach Estate 2006, North elevation of Woodland Cottage based on microcircuitry design.

Electronic Stucco

The Chalk Chip

Forest Form: the Leaf Bowl

Pallet Furniture

The Stem Rack

Rubha na Cloiche

Building Works