I just posted these off tot heir new home St Fagans museum of Welsh Life. They are copies of iron age bowls found at the Glastonbury lake villages. I have been very very familiar with the drawings for many years but never made them up before and as is often the case the finished artefact is very very different in 3d than as a scale drawing. I have not realised just how big they were.
This one with the lid was a serious weight when on the lathe, the square sides cut very inefficiently from the tree and mean that I can’t get bowls out of the middle as a nest too so all in all they took far more work that I had anticipated. It is always interesting to make replicas of important pieces though and a learning experience. I made them on my pole lathe, in my book I discus the different types of lathes that could have been available in the Iron Age, I think it most likely they were turned not on a pole lathe but a two person strap lathe.
This fun commission is a departure from my usual work, I am not really a carver of this type of work but it was done for folk I like a lot who needed it in a hurry. This is the logo of Hiut denim, as someone commented recently they are jeans made by cardigans. I’ll add a film below to give the background story and you’ll see why I love them. The first image is a very quick sketch produced to show the sort of design I had in mind and to the right this finished piece carved through weathered oak. Folk who know the brand will know how this sort of fits with their image.
Thats great work on those big bowls Robin ! And I wish the denim company every success bringing back work to skilled people wanting to get back to what they know . To much industry has gone with nothing coming back to replace it 🙂
Great bowls and carving Robin.Sadly the jeans at £230 are a little out of my price range!