I watched the movie last night and was probably the only member of the audience to be rather disappointed not to see more wooden bowls. My big 18″ diameter wooden bowls featured well including one shot where Cate Blanchett as Marian was washing her feet in one but the many smaller bowls didn’t show up much. I guess in the…
On May 12th Ridley Scott’s epic Robin Hood opens Cannes film festival and it opens in UK cinemas on the 14th. Why write about this on a crafts blog? Well having spent a bit of time on set last year I know there was a huge amount of wonderful craftwork commissioned for the film. Ridley Scott is known for the…
In 1998 Stuart King and I visited Romania to study traditional woodcrafts and particularly to visit the last flask turner Ion Constantin. I had heard about him a couple of years beforehand. in fact I went to the world turning conference in the USA where he was billed as attending only to find that they had not managed to sort…
Nice article on the BBC news website today. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8586172.stm Mr Wood gave up his job as a National Trust forester in 1995 to become a professional woodworker, making traditional bowls and plates from local timber using a foot-powered lathe. The last professional pole lathe bowl turner before him, George Lailey, died in 1958 without passing on his trade. Mr Wood…
I have very much enjoyed the ground breaking Radio 4 & British Museum program “a history of the world in 100 objects” The project runs wider than just the 100 objects however with various museums choosing their favourite object to tell a story. The Museum of English Rural Life at Reading have chosen George Lailey’s lathe “This lathe tells…
A nice slide show of me making a bowl on the pole lathe done by Jon Henley at the Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/audioslideshow/2009/dec/09/robin-wood-pole-lathe This is part of a series Jon is doing on craftspeople. I would recommend having a look at some of the others here
Here is a link to a nice article about my work in the Guardian today by Jon Henley. Its in the “work” section.http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/dec/12/turn-a-bowl-pole-lathe In the week there will be a slaide show showing the processes of making a bowl, I’ll post a link when it is up.
So Monday in the House of Lords and Wednesday stood in the rain sawing up logs to make bowl blanks, my life is nothing if not varied at the moment. Today I cut up a sycamore log and I can tell from the blanks that it will make really nice star bowls. I have been out of stock of them…
I have just finished three really rather special quaiches. These are made form burr maple which is a most wonderful wood. It is what most of the original medieval mazer bowls were made from. I love those old bowls and have tried to capture some of their presence in these quaiches. Here is a 13th century mazer from Canterbury. And…
This is going to be a rather picture heavy blog post but I hope it is of interest. We’ll start with a look at traditional management of the chestnut pollards then visit a museum which was the highlight of my time in Galicia. The scene in the picture below has become unusual in Europe in the last 200 years but…
