January 2009 saw a bunch of press articles about “the last master cooper”I put links to some on them in my blog post here. There was clearly something about a craft which everyone had heard about being potentially endangered that struck a raw nerve and warranted a lot of news coverage, all good news for traditional crafts and shows the…
Last week I posted about visiting a traditional Sheffield pocketknife maker with Jon Henley from the Guardian. Now you can see Jon’s slide show here. Appologies for wrong link posted yesterday. http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/audioslideshow/2010/jan/26/sheffield-pocket-knife-trevor-ablett If you like it why not post a comment here or sign up to the guardian site and post a comment below the slide show. The more interest…
Visiting Trevor Ablett last week reminded me that I never posted pictures of the folding knife makers I visited in Spain last October. There were many similarities and some differences between the two businesses which I would like to discuss at the bottom but first some pictures of the workshop. This is Antonio Diaz Bermudez of Taramundi a traditional knifemaking…
I just wanted to share with my blog readers a rather wonderful blog by a Savile Row Tailor Thomas Mahon. “The English Cut” This was an early blog post from March 2005 “I do think the institution that has clothed most of the world’s most influential people for the best part of two hundred years deserves Heritage Status. And it…
On Friday I visited Trevor Ablett one of the last of Sheffield’s pen and pocketknife makers. Trevor is on the left with Reg Cooper bowie knife maker on the right. I have visited Trevor a few times now and bought quite a few of his knives. I tend to give them as gifts when we visit folk on behalf of…
Jon Henley’s article on Mike Turnock the last sievemaker is in the guardian today and online here. As always it is a really nicely written article and there will be a slide show showing all the processes of making a sieve on Tuesday next week, I’ll add a link when it is up. The photo of Mike is not very…
Tonight I set off for Galicia, Spian where I will be staying with friends Anna Champeney and Lluis Grau. I will be helping them with a seminar on internet marketing for craftspeople. In Spain aparantly few traditional craftspeople have websites though I just checked and internet access levels are not far behind the UK. One of the things I will…
Yesterday was a day of meetings in London, Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust were very supportive of the work we are doing with the Heritage Crafts Association, the advisor on heritage issues at DCMS had some useful leads and the highlight of the day was meeting Mark Jones director of the V&A who as well as being an advocate of modern…
Last craftsperson from Lincre woodland festival this is Ben Willis. He was an apprentice with Mike Abbott 3 years ago and is a very competent pole lathe turner. He is also a freelance journalist and has written for I think he said the Telegraph and Guardian on environmental issues. At Linacre he was turning rounders bats out of the gorgeous…
Another fine craftsman at Linacre was John Richardson chairmaker. He makes fine ladderback chairs in the arts and crafts tradition. John lives on a narrowboat in Leicestershire and has a second boat as a workshop, this keeps his overheads low and his chairs are very reasonable though he is really semi retired now and does not make so many. I…
