Category: Adults
-
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,…
-
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…
-
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.…
-
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…
-
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!…
-
Mencap Woodwork
For the last couple of years as well as a weekly drawing lesson, we’ve been introducing the folks at Nottingham Mencap to the joys of working with wood. Building our skills together, cutting straight to the line, measuring success in beaming smiles & sweat on the brow. It’s jsut a beginning, but already weve seen…
-
Contrast
From the tranquility, and zen-like concentration of relief carving on Saturday, to the explosive and unpredictable creativity of Family Making on Sunday. Our weekend at the Learning Land was a time of opposites, the textures, & the temperaments. It was a delight to watch these beautiful carvings emerge from the wood. Sinuous curves, precise lines…