Author: ByOurHands
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Friendship version 1.0
This was first published a couple of years ago, not long before many many things changed. It’s here now, as a record of where we thought we might be heading, a signpost that shows a way, almost-but-not-quite the right direction, a reminder of the optimism that’s still going to nudge us a whisker closer to…
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Still Open Hearted
But closed to the public. We trust that if you are reading this you are safe and well. Opening and closing, hopefully more like a petal than a portcullis! In, and out, like breathing. Up and down, left and right – two hands trying to juggle axes, coming together to pray for some healing, reaching…
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carving place
Around a scratched and gouged workbench a group of Syrian men (and one notable Iraqi) came together to share skills, songs, stories, and to make a woodcarving. For some, this was a chance to reconnect with old tools that they knew so well from home, to share their exquisite talent & joy in making. Others,…
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Revealing The Treasure
Pictures from last months relief carving class. Warm light, playing over subtle tactile traces, left as our students stripped away whatever wood wasn’t necessary for telling their own creation stories: Tales that sometimes shifted in the making/telling. Watching the tools move over the wood, skillfully revealing a little more of these beautiful designs each moment…
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Mr Ainsworth’s Odyssey
Over the last few months there has been a veritable procession of photographers & film makers visiting the studio, hoping to capture something tangible among the woodchips. These beautiful pictures were taken by Barry Ainswoth as part of an ever lengthening journey he is undertaking around the country, recording small, creative workspaces: Documenting forgotten, endangered…
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A Better Place to Sit
Starting with a firm place to stand, a still point from which to safely swing an axe, the fulcrum from which to move the Earth. Carving it into new, more fitting shapes. Ending with dog-tired, aching bodies and with a better place to sit and rest, to sit and contemplate, to sit and tell stories.…
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Pretty Windows
Each year for the past ten nearly, our city has picked a cold dark night in February to get enlightened! We tried to do our little bit, along with some amazing artists and makers all across the town. The streets were full of puppets, glowing sculpture and interactive illumination. Our new studio windows proved a…
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Shedding Something
If things have been quiet here lately, it’s because we’ve been slowly, ever so slowly climbing out of an old skin, and settling into a new one. For the past 10 years we have been working and dreaming out of this half-fossilised concretion of a shed, like hermit crabs: Scuttling off to collect, make, visit,…
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Graduating with Full Honours
As part of Welbeck School’s Children’s University project we were asked to give some aspiring students the experience of woodwork. No one imagined that the wood in question would be enormous, raw trunks of willow, birch and oak tree, with bark, twigs & leaves still attached. Undaunted our charges took to splitting, chopping, drilling, shaving,…
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Weaving The World
Wishing everyone a hopeful January 1st, and a year that might begin with “a happy sound… Love!” Remembering back, 6 years ago working with amazing young people, classes 1, 2 and 4 at Greenfields Community School, working together to weave a whole world. 80 triangles sawed & stuck & woven into a geodesic wonder. Four…