Author: ByOurHands
-
Chasing After Mastery
Just taking time to remember another beautiful weekend carving spoons with a keen cohort of fresh whittlers. We so love witnessing the way people’s appreciation of their own abilities shifts and changes over the day: Invariably when folk pause for a moment, look up from intense concentration and realise that somehow a curved, smooth spoon…
-
A Radical Act
Once the din of axes had subsided, surrounded by fresh heaps of wood chips, the sound of birdsong and the quiet curling of fine shavings from the knife, thoughts of the ordinary world were mere memory & talk turned philosophical… The simple contentment that comes from slowing down and making something functional, beautiful & tactile,…
-
Perches of a Different Order
Beautiful work this past weekend, creating simple seats, from cleft wood, growing as dear trees that defined our horizon only weeks ago. A giant ash that has already defied many attempts to bring it to the ground judging by the twisted, scarred and buckling trunk & silver birch half a century old or more, battleground…
-
-
A Fine Fleet of Vessels
Remembering friends gathered by a well fed fire. Kettle boiling constantly, whistling a wedding march. It was a beautiful way to spend a December day, a privilege for our family to join in the Nag Do (not a stag do) celebrations before Jeff and Jo’s wedding. Over the day rough cherry logs were split, carved…
-
Making peace with the Norns
We interrupt this broadcast for some mild metaphysical musings… Wrangling with the tangling of the warp and weft of the universe. Beginning the day in a mood that felt something like this: What to do? Spring is here apparently so some cleaning is in order, inside and out. A few choice pieces of ash, crabapple…
-
A Spoonful of Sunshine
On Sunday it felt as though the world had run right past spring and into summer without stopping or looking back. The air was so warm, but the acid green hawthorn leaves, cherry blossom and bluebells coming through planted us firmly in the season. Carving spoons is a wonderful way to connect with the here…
-
SkellyWeg & The Flower of Love
After looking at the work of M C Escher, Fiona at Mencap was inspired to make these two wonderful woodcut memento mori. Carving into the smooth limewood was a challenge at first, getting the right angle, shifting weight & muscle, but by the final cut Fiona was nimble and expressive with the tools, even surprising…
-
Rustic Sensitivity
Two words that describe an intensely physical day, working in what must have been the warmest room at Lakeside Arts Centre (was it our relentless energy or the muggy weather?) with attentive makers, turning a recalcitrant tree or two into 8 beautiful stools (give or take). Wonderful. Hard work, handful of blisters, but so rewarding!…
-
Re-wilding
Last week saw us visiting Gresley woods down in Derbyshire, a lovely young woodland, slowly healing the scar of an open cast coal mine. The site is brimming with ash, oak, birch, hazel and alder, which we used with local families to make wooden toys, while beautiful fairy houses were built in the meadow behind…