Heritage branding is all the rage at moment, the marketing buzzwords are heritage, craft, hand made, authenticity but how many of the products behind these words are the real deal? Today I saw an absolute cracker. It seems Dulux are getting envious of Farrow and Ball‘s increasing share of the luxury paint market (Dulux after all was first coined in the…
QUALITY. I always struggled with the commissioning process. When it gets to that point where you hand the work over I never knew if the client really liked it. I think that is a self doubt many craftspeople feel. Several years ago I met a blacksmith who told me he never felt that doubt. In fact he knew what was best…
Glastonbury is the biggest outdoor festival of the performing arts in the World. It is so very special. I first visited around 1984 when there were small free festivals all over the country. Most folk walked in to Glastonbury for free though I think some paid. Today it’s attended by around 175,000 people and tickets cost £225, a huge metal fence…
In 2003 UNESCO created an important convention for safeguarding heritage, 168 of the worlds 198 countries have signed up to the convention but a few are being left behind including the UK. The UK used to lead the world in heritage management and our heritage is one of the main reasons tourists visit us so what is going on? UNESCO say “Cultural heritage does…
As the year draws to a close I tend to become reflective and to check I am really doing what I want to do with my life. This year I am more reflective than normal, a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine died after a short illness. Paul was a lovely, lovely man, he was one of those…
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…
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…
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…
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?…
