My stay in China was very brief just 6 days but 6am every morning I was up (jet lag) and walking the streets. This was my favourite place for breakfast, the street food is amazing and cheap, clearly many people eat on the street rather than at home. The bamboo steamers are full of steamed bread/dumpling type things, each layer has…
I was delighted to be asked to represent the UK at the International FolkCrafts expo in Gizhou province China. This was a celebration of global folk culture on a scale that is simply not imaginable in Europe. It was organised by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and The International Organisation of Folk Art IOV a very inspirational organisation. Such a contrast…
This is an essay I wrote over ten years ago for Turning Points the journal of the wood turning center (now renamed center for wood art) in the USA vol 16 2003. I think some may find it an interesting read and I am prompted to share it by my friend Jarrod writing about art vs craft on his blog Anyway…
Wednesday 9pm sees the start of the new series of Tudor Monastery Farm and the first craft they cover with will be bowl turning. They filmed at my workshop in the spring when Ruth Goodman and the team visited my workshop and I turned some Tudor style dishes for them. Most of the series is filmed at the Weald and…
I am sure that folk that like my work would love to own an original Tudor pewter porringer. Not the sort of thing that you get the opportunity of very often but on November 24th a fantastic collection goes under the hammer at Wilkinson’s of Doncaster. Here are a few pictures, first the porringers, this is a form that you…
I made this bowl way back in 1996 yet I can still remember exactly where the alder tree came from, what it felt like to work, where and how much I sold it for and I can also remember who bought the other bowl that was made from the other half of the log it came from. But I can’t…
Today a magazine dropped through my letterbox, no ordinary magazine, it was a super glossy all the way from Taiwan and as you can see the theme of the issue was Hadicraft, Art, Heritage. It is a luxury publication in every way, heavy paper, gorgeous images, good design, lots of space. The articles are on the major luxury brands…
OK this post is for my friends the geek spooncarvers of the world, there are not many of us and this post will be of no interest to anyone else so apologies for that, for those of us in the know it has a lot of meaning. Wille sundqvist is the grand old man of the spooncarving world. His book…
This festival was a packed 3 days and there was so much to see. These pics are just a few of my favourite things. This is Beth Moen bowlcarver, main teacher on the woodworking course at Saterglantan and with Jogge Sundqvist organiser of Taljfest. Her bowls are great. now here we have three grand masters of Swedish sloyd. Knut Östgård,…
Well where do I start with this one? I just processed and sorted images from Tajfest the carving festival I taught at in August at the national folk craft school in Sweden. The next couple of blog posts will be mostly images of the things i found inspirational. Much of the focus of the event was on lectures, I gave…
