Last year I helped my friend Jarrod Stone Dahl build a birch bark canoe, it was quite simply one of the highlights of my traditional woodworking life. We only had about an hour with it on the water though and part of the dream was always to paddle a canoe in a proper wilderness area in the far North. This…
Enjoy this wonderful film of turning a set of small end grain bowls using a foot powered lathe in China. I have seen illustrations of this type of lathe before but not film of one in use. The cup chucks seem to have been the norm in the East whilst we in the West used mandrels and worked between centres. The…
Thirty years ago Hitchhiking in the USA I was picked up by a chap in a big old truck heading South toward Richmond Virginia. We became great friends and traveled Europe and the USA together, we lead a 5 week environmental program with students camping and working building the Appalachian Trail, I owe him much of my life philosophy, particularly…
In just over a months time I’ll be heading for the USA to teach at the amazing North House Folk School. I am teaching two three day courses which are already fully booked but also there is a full weekend of activities as part of the “Fresh Cut” conference. It promises to be an inspirational time with events running Friday…
So four months work are coming to fruition with the opening of my first ever show. This marks 20 years as a full time woodworker and it has been a very interesting process. Most interesting has been the challenge to create something new to fit in to an environment that I have admired for 25 years. To create a body…
Back in 2008 I blogged about the need for a traditional crafts organisation. For those that don’t know in the UK we have the Crafts Council which supports the modern art end of the craft spectrum contemporary innovative” craft but we had no similar organisation for those of us who chose to work making more traditional functional work. In a…
Big news, I have an apprentice. I have written before about the problems of apprenticeship into the crafts in the UK today. I was often been asked why I didn’t have an apprentice and also folk would write to me and ask if they could come and learn from me. I have had various folk come from time to time and…
Medieval inspired woodwork displayed in the most perfect medieval house. 2015 marks 20 years that I have been a professional woodworker. To celebrate I have been offered a very special opportunity to show my work in the most perfect environment. Haddon Hall in Derbyshire is a simply incredible survival, a medieval manor house with the best surviving Tudor kitchens in the…
In yesterday’s Guardian I read about an artist I had never heard of yet his work has just broken records at auction for the work of a living artist. Peter Doig’s “Swamped” instantly appealed to me in many ways. It captures the spirit of a natural habitat that I love. It is what I think of as a proper painting,…
This new TV program by the BBC has to be the most anticipated craft TV show for some time. Potter friends were up in arms when the working title “Britain’s best potter” appeared last year asking how could any aspiring amateur deserve the title? Would it be dumbing down? Who could they possibly get as hosts to do it justice?…
