Simon Gudgeon: From Law to Landscape, Sculpting a Soulful Life

Simon Gudgeon has never been particularly interested in following a conventional path. His life has been a process of creating, questioning, and changing direction, guided less by a map and more by a quiet internal compass. He began his career in law, became a celebrated sculptor without any formal training, and co-created one of the UK’s most beautiful and unique landscapes.

Today, he is the founder of The Sculpted Soul, a wellbeing practice that grew organically from the stillness of the world he built. His story is not one of linear success, but of listening, learning, and allowing a life to emerge. It’s a powerful reminder that sometimes the most meaningful creations are the ones we never planned.

A Road Between Law and Art

Simon’s journey began not with a grand artistic vision, but with an escape. “I qualified as a solicitor in 1985 and effectively retired from law the same day,” he says. “I knew it wasn't the life I wanted.” He became self-employed, setting up a landscaping company and later expanding into retail. Then came the recession of the early 1990s. “In 1991, I lost everything — the businesses, my house and my car — and walked away with little more than a suitcase of clothes. It was a fairly brutal lesson.”

For a couple of years, he sold insurance simply to make a living. Then came a small gesture that would alter his course completely. “My mother bought me some paints,” he recalls. “That small gift changed the direction of my life.”

With no formal training, he taught himself to paint, exhibiting his work and gradually making a modest income. He wasn’t following a plan; he was following an interest. Then, at the age of forty, he tried sculpting. “I bought some clay and tried sculpting. Something immediately clicked. I discovered that thinking and creating in three dimensions came far more naturally to me than working on a flat canvas.”

He had found his medium. The lack of formal art education, he believes, may have been an advantage. “I didn't know what I was supposed to do, so I had to discover my own way of doing it,” he explains. “I learned through curiosity, observation, experimentation and, inevitably, a great many mistakes.” This approach — starting before feeling ready, staying curious, and learning by doing — became the bedrock of everything that followed.

The Accidental Sanctuary

In 2007, Simon and his wife Monique bought 26 acres of neglected Dorset countryside. The biggest challenge was financial. “We were first-time buyers and took on a £1 million mortgage,” Simon reflects. “The land was operating as a fishery and, far from having a vision of creating a sculpture park, we assumed it would have to remain a fishery simply to help us pay the mortgage.”

The creation of Sculpture by the Lakes happened almost by accident. Simon placed a few of his stored sculptures around the lakes and began to notice a powerful interplay. “A sculpture placed in the right location could change how you experienced the landscape around it. But equally, the landscape could change how you experienced the sculpture.”

From this simple discovery, everything grew. There was never a masterplan. The park was financed organically, through the sale of Simon’s art. “I would sell a piece and that would allow us to plant trees, create another garden or begin the next project,” he says. “In that sense, the sculptures themselves gradually paid for the creation of Sculpture by the Lakes.”

Over time, he began to notice something else. Visitors spoke less about individual sculptures and more about how the place made them feel. “They would tell us they felt calmer when they were here,” he says. “They talked about peace, stillness and escaping the noise of everyday life. Some described it as a sanctuary.” This realisation changed something in Simon. He began to see that beauty wasn't merely decorative; it was functional. It could quieten the mind, soften the senses, and create the conditions for presence.

The 7,000 Day Rule

As his focus deepened, Simon developed a personal philosophy that continues to guide him. “I came up with the idea when I turned 50,” he explains. “I calculated that there were roughly 7,000 days until I reached 70… Seeing the time expressed in days rather than years made it suddenly feel very finite — and very precious.”

The principle wasn’t to cram achievement into every day, but simply “not to sleepwalk through them.” It became a quiet reminder not to postpone living while waiting for a perfect time that may never arrive. “As I approach the final 1,000 days of those original 7,000, I don't look back and judge them according to how much I achieved,” he reflects. “What matters to me is that I followed my curiosity rather than allowing fear to decide which paths I took.”

This mindset led him deeper into the world of wellbeing. He trained in sound healing, Yoga Nidra and breathwork, and began holding sessions within the landscape he had created. From this, The Sculpted Soul was born, a name that reflects his core belief: just as a sculpture emerges through attention and refinement, so too can a life.

Writing as Discovery

Simon’s explorations found another outlet in writing. His book, 100 Reflections on Life as It Is, grew from his own questions about happiness, ageing, fear and purpose. “The most significant lesson was probably discovering that writing is not simply a way of expressing what I think — it is a way of discovering what I think,” he says.

The book is not a guide to life, but an invitation to pause. “Writing became another form of sculpting,” he explains. “You begin with an idea and gradually strip away what is unnecessary until, hopefully, something true remains.”

This led to the Tiny Manuals for Being Human — small, accessible books on subjects like anxiety, sleep, calm and gratitude. The idea was simple: when life feels complicated, we often need a single thought, not a whole system. “The pause creates a little space between what happens and our automatic reaction to it,” he says. “Perspective allows us to see that there may be another way of interpreting what is happening.”

A Space to Simply Be

Today, Simon’s wellbeing work is a natural extension of the sanctuary he built. His sound baths and breathwork sessions take place at Sculpture by the Lakes, an environment that does much of the work before a session begins. “I believe beauty itself can be important to wellbeing — it softens the senses and helps us begin to slow down,” he notes.

His role, as he sees it, is to create the conditions for people to stop. “During a sound bath there is nothing to achieve. You lie down, close your eyes and listen.” It’s a rare opportunity in a world that constantly demands our engagement. These sessions offer something increasingly precious: a period of time in which nothing is required except to be present.

Looking to the future, Simon remains guided by curiosity, not a five-year plan. He has ideas for more books, including one called The Sculptor of Your Brain, exploring how our thoughts and habits shape our inner world. But he is content not knowing exactly what comes next.

“As I grow older, I feel less inclined to map out the future and more inclined to remain available to it,” he says. “I would rather remain curious enough to recognise it when it appears.”

For other founders, his advice is grounded in this same hard-won wisdom. He encourages them to start before they feel ready and to find joy in the process, not just the outcome. “If your happiness depends upon arriving at some imagined future destination, you risk spending most of your life waiting to be happy,” he warns. “Be curious. Start before you feel completely ready. Put everything you can into the process and loosen your grip on the outcome. The outcome belongs to life. The effort belongs to you.”

Approaching seventy, Simon feels no pull towards retirement, nor any ambition to build for the sake of scale. All his varied projects — sculpture, the park, his writing and wellbeing work — are, to him, expressions of the same idea. They are all about creating space for people to see differently. “Perhaps that is what I have really been creating all along,” he muses, “not objects, gardens, experiences or books, but moments of pause and perspective.”

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