I am sat up late for the third night in a row doing the first sift on applications for our Heritage Crafts Association administrators job. We shortlist on Friday but have 250 applications so we are doing a pre sift before meeting. Just reading through 250 applications takes a lot of time but we want to do everyone justice. All…
There seems to be a real movement gathering momentum asking questions about how we live our lives, particularly looking at the benefits of working with our hands and making things whether as a profession or as a hobby. Tomorrow a new book is released in the UK written by Mark Frauenfelder the founder of the most popular blog in the…
This week is half term so my son Ollie has been helping out on my bridge at Padley Gorge (someone must have had a vivid imagination when they names it) Here we have just fixed the handrails on using copper boat nails. and the lower rails mostly fitted. I had a day cutting bowl blanks too, thought I would…
John Hayes speech mentioned this painting by p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Daniel Maclise of Peter the Great, Tsar and founder of modern Russia. Peter is not the posh gent to the right that is the English King William III, the scene is the shipyard at Deptford and…
Honest pots is a wonderful exhibition on currently at York Art Gallery, and the pot above is my favourite in the show. A glorious 18th century slip decorated dish, if I could find someone who could make one of these today I would love to use it for lasagna, pasta bakes or pies. The idea of the show is to…
Les Compagnons Du Devoir operate a skills training system rather like the German Journeyman system I talked about here and here It is a huge organisation with a 70 million euro turnover and responsible for around 6000 apprentices and 3000 journeymen at any one time. Yesterday I attended a meeting in York where we learned more about the system and…
I just came across a fantastic report on traditional crafts in Michigan USA. It is a tremendously positive look at how traditional crafts can be recognised and promoted as part of the heritage and tourism industry. Here are a few excerpts and the link to download the pdf report is at the bottom. Many state arts programs offer some form…
The Woodlanders was a great book written by Thomas Hardy written in 1887, clearly Hardy’s best novel since one character is “the hollow turner” or bowl turner. Today I received a copy of “Woodlanders, New Life in Britain’s Forests” a new book by Ian Edwards. And here is the blurb“Across the UK, people are rediscovering the spellbinding magic of our…
Just wanted to share a great link to a video of a wonderful old Japanese craftsman cleaving bamboo down to 0.1mm. Having spent many hours sat beside my friend Owen Jones the swill basket maker I am pretty faniliar with this sort of cleaving but not to this fine a finish. Follow this link to the 8 minute film of…
This afternoon we popped down to a lovely local event, apple day at Shatton. It was a celebration of everything to do with apples. I was delighted to sample varieties that I had been considering planting and to hear how well they grow in the local microclimate which is pretty harsh. The doors on the barn where the event…
