Public servant to sculptor: David Smith's new career lets him express his concerns about climate change

Mr Smith, 60, was most recently the government relations manager for the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Canberra and, before then, had been involved in policy around the environment, energy efficiency and climate change.

Being a "diligent public servant" who delivered policy for the government of the day, he "watched quietly in the background", absorbing the work of the scientists he liaised with, but keeping his own views to himself.

"I had to be very constrained and diplomatic," he said.

"Now, I just recognise climate change is an existential threat, one of humanity's greatest challenges, which we will either rise to and succeed in getting through or if we don't, will bear the consequences. It's a serious issue."

Sculpting has been a full-time pursuit since his retirement late last year, his workshop set amongst his garden in the hills on the eastern edge of Queanbeyan. He'd been tinkering with his sculptures for a number of years but decided to become an artist full-time.

"I finally got to the point where I thought, 'I'd rather be doing this'," he said.

Mr Smith has made smaller works that are a call for action on climate change, one a series called The End of the Anthropocene.

"It's a somewhat tongue-in-cheek interpretation of what the world might look like in a couple of hundred years' time and with massive sea-level rise and what the sea creatures might be," he said.

"That's partly informed by exposure to AIMS, a fantastic group of marine biologists who are working, I guess, at the coalface of climate change."

He's also carved a niche doing commissions of larger pieces for the garden, a copper anglerfish here, a funnel-web spider there.

And his first exhibition will be held at the Rusten House Art Centre in Queanbeyan from September 30 to October 31.

"I'm now just throwing myself into it," he said.

And finding his real place in the world.

"This is more passion work," he said. "I've always enjoyed working with my hands. The public service was knowledge work. I always used to find something to do in the margins of my day just to keep working with my hands but now just creating 3D forms and using materials and creating structure out of unformed starting materials is very satisfying. It emerges as you go."