Artist Sophie Hacker with her sculpture Hospitality. DA4720P1ARTIST Sophie Hacker is not alone in drawing inspiration from Salisbury Cathedral, but few have been able to take material used in the very fabric of the building and make it the cornerstone of a new creation.

Sophie (40) is Sarum College's first artist-in-residence and some of her work uses medieval stone that once formed part of the cathedral itself.

Her studio at the college overlooks the cathedral and the idea of recycling stone and giving it new life as a sculptural image came very early in her residency.

"I wanted to use this building as the starting point," she explains, "and I was rummaging around and found a big pile of old stone."

The result was Hospitality - a triptych in medieval stone, highlighted with acrylic and gold leaf with gold thread adding texture.

Its form was inspired by a 15th century icon created by Russian monk Andrei Rublev.

"The Hospitality of Abraham by Rublev created three perfect images of three angels as the Trinity whom Abraham entertains in the desert unaware of who they are," Sophie says. "The idea of the Rublev icon is that these three figures display the beauty and grace of the Trinity. My link in was that Sarum is a place of hospitality."

Further exploration took her to the stonemasons' yard behind the cathedral.

"I started making enquiries about using reject stone and was allowed to because of the links between the cathedral and the college," she says. Subsequent pieces have also used cathedral stone, not all of it old.

"People don't realise that the cathedral has never stopped being built," she points out.

She has used an ancient piece of coursing carved to look like rope and removed from the roof after it became worn, and a piece of medieval alabaster "pleading to be made into something" possibly from a monument removed at some point, but equally she has used modern masonry that has been shaped recently but then rejected for use in the building.

Trained as a painter at the Slade School of Art in London, she has just had her post at the college renewed for a second year. As well as her own work, she runs residential courses at the college and a weekly class for adults in a hall off Devizes Road.

Sophie is no stranger to things ecclesiastical. Her first residency was in Nottingham University's Church of St Mary's in the Lacemarket, where she ran an art gallery and creative workshops. She is married to a clergyman and admits that spirituality informs her work.

Clearly the idea of owning sculpture previously part of a spiritual building like the cathedral resonates with people and a recent exhibition of Sophie's work at Salisbury library attracted much interest.

"Local people move around in the shadow of the cathedral and the idea that this stone has a life beyond the building is what people respond to," she says.

"It's a place of incredible antiquity, so you can hold a piece of stone that some stonemason placed in the cathedral 500 years ago and which has weathered the storms for all that time - that's really exciting."

Sophie knows she is privileged to have access to the stone. "I have to seek permission to take it. The archivists keep the important stone - I just get the rejects," she says.

Finding what she wants is a hit-and-miss affair, but not without its compensations.

"I go looking for particular pieces," she says, "and I never find them, but some-thing else instead that's gosh, wow..."