WG Hoskins wrote “The English landscape itself, to those who know how to read it aright, is the richest historical record we possess.” (p14, ‘The Making of the English Landscape’, 1955). Few people know how to read landscape but it is a wonderful thing with layer upon layer upon layer of history. I was recently sent this picture as part…
These Bowls and plates are commissioned for a new shop in Mayfair called The New Craftsmen. I am really pleased with the way they have turned out, bowls in sycamore some flame blackened, plates in beech. The blackened bowls are something I used to do quite often 10 years or so ago but have not done recently. I still have some of…
It’s a long way from my normal habitat of an old workshop filled with woodshavings but here I am at Buckingham Palace for tea and cakes at a garden party, the Queen was wearing pink too. For anyone that is interested “tea” involves cucumber sandwiches with fresh mint leaves on mothers pride style white bread with the crust cut off and lots…
This is quite some distance from the sort of green wood carving that I enjoy or the medieval woodwork that inspires me but I love to see anyone who does stuff purely for pleasure and it’s lovely to hear him talking about his work. The pliers cut from a single piece of wood are pretty cool and the chain form…
For a long time it has been possible to buy clothing cheap and not know the true costs, by that I mean the thousands of Indian cotton farmers that have committed suicide in the last ten years or the thousand killed in the horrific Bangladesh factory collapse. Well there are alternatives. Today my new jeans arrived in the post and they were made…
This is a friend Sharif who has been on several courses with me over the last few years. He has become a very good green wood worker and he clearly has a friend who is good at the filming and editing. I love the noddy head spoon dance with pounding beat. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33sdZvX3TqI] You can see more of Sharif’s work on…
This is a nice one of the Chiltern chairmaking industry [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP5_OJxNccY] And this one feels even more dated I grew up watching this stuff, the Generation game from 1974, with my mate Stuart King doing chairmaking unbelievable that Bruce Forsythe is still presenting today. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sYfJPENO3c]
Professor Trevor Marchand is fast becoming a hero of mine. Why? because he understands what he calls “the remarkable skilled knowledge of craftspeople” Now I posted a film of this guy a few days ago but this one is better, it gets better the further you get into it and the questions from 30 mins onwards are great too. Lots of…
I spend a lot of time posting about my woodworking and other fun stuff here and often forget to update the most important bit of my various online sites, the gallery pages where people can buy my work. In fact most fo the pages have been showing “currently out of stock” for ages. I do have some nice bowls now…
My mate Barn Carder carves spoons. The BBC just made a lovely little video of his work and his London spoon shop. You’ll have to visit the BBC site to see it, I hope it works outside the UK too here is the link Barnaby Carder – who calls himself Barn the Spoon – spends his days sitting in a…
