But MccGwire guards the identity of her other private collectors closely, although she will say, 'They have been incredibly supportive over the years and they are very high level.' The Paris-based fashion designer Julie de Libran has been a vocal supporter, having collected MccGwire's work for more than a decade, and has two of her works hanging currently above her bed. There is currently an eight month waiting list for commissions, which she fits in around exhibitions deadlines: 'It's quite a juggle.' Her pieces have appeared in exhibitions all over the world including in Japan, China, South Korea, Germany, America, Switzerland, Canada and Hong Kong. Another was commissioned by whisky brand Royal Salute and unveiled during last year's Frieze London art fair in October at a lavish party at Tate Britain.įurther works are displayed at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris and the NoMad hotel in Las Vegas. One six-metre pigeon-feather sculpture will be installed in the bar of the soon-to-open 1 Hotel Mayfair, London. Her works, which can take years to complete, cost between £3,000 and £100,000.

'I was very proud of the final piece but I had no expectation for its future and had thought that it would end up stored in boxes under my bed.'Īfter that flying start, there was no stopping MccGwire.

'It took me six months to collect and clean all the wishbones and a month to assemble,' she recalls. Three days later she was installing it at the Saatchi Gallery. The sculpture measured five by seven metres, and the advertising tycoon and art collector Charles Saatchi snapped it up on sight. One piece from her graduation show used 23,000 boiled chicken wishbones, from catering suppliers, arranged in a continuous spiral. She started working with feathers and other discarded natural materials after graduating from London's Royal College of Art as a mature student in 2004.

MccGwire, 58, is best known for her feathered sculptures, which coil, flow, writhe and undulate as if alive. MccGwire works aboard a houseboat moored at her island home just off the Thames in Weybridge, Surrey. It's a frosty, sunny winter morning and the artist Kate MccGwire is ushering me into her studio.

Seven feathers concerts