If you watched the program and want to find out more about this sort of craft and where to learn here are some links and resources. If you missed it and are in the UK you can see it on iplayer here. The BBC are not allowed to link to “commercial sites” so the first link must be to Guy…
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…
Over the last week I have been looking over prooofs of the book that accompanies the Mastercrafts series. I guess the first thing folk will want to know is “is it worth buying” and I would say if you can pre-order it at £14 it looks like a bargain. It’s a lovely looking coffee table book with nice photographs…
Dorothy Hartley was born in the 1890’s and spent most of her long life traveling the country and writing about old craft skills, country ways, old recipes and such like. There are many books of that type and most are pretty much like modern day local journalism, it is clear the writer stayed long enough to get the basics of…
The February Edition of countryman magazine features several articles on traditional crafts. I bought it because there is a 4 page feature on my bowlturning work with some nice discussion about the Heritage Crafts Association. There is also a nice feature on the work of Paul Felix who has been photographing traditional craftspeople for 20 years. He has a wonderful…
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…
Another busy day on Heritage Crafts Association work today, but then my workshop is still snowbound so it’s easier to get into Sheffield. First meeting was a very positive visit to Kelham Island Museum to meet the director of Sheffield’s Industrial Museums Trust, John Hamshere. John was very interested in the work of the HCA, enthusiastic and supportive. We are…
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…
My first blog post of 2009 talked about the need for a traditional craft organisation here. Just a year on I feel so much more positive about the future of traditional craft skills. We still have a way to go but the foundations have been laid for 2010 to be the year when traditional crafts become recognised as an important…
