Category: Making
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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…
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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!…
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Experiencing work
Monday morning didn’t feel quite right somehow. Last week we spent a wonderful 5 days in the company of Haydn who chose to do his work experience with us. So engaged and commited was he, that we almost wonder what we’ll do without him. During the week, he worked so hard, and all over the…
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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…
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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…
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Spooning
A trio of spoons whittled and hewed, from trunk to tableware, in just one day. One Goliath and two Davids, ash & honey locust sawn & split, crazy sapwood scent of fresh bread dough! A trio of makers learning, not only how to make a spoon, but the skills to work with wood, to follow…
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Unicorns are real!
We can lay another myth to rest too, the folly that says that old dogs can’t learn new tricks, or that younger ones don’t want to interact with anything unless it flickers and yells from behind a glass screen. Yesterday was an exhausting, exhilarating experiment. Our first day Family Making on the learning land. We…
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As seen on TV…
Just off camera to the left! Blink and you’ll miss it. The commission to create not one, but a trio, of identical drinking bowls arrived shortly before Christmas; A present perhaps? A set of three as a gift? No, props for CBBC’s fourth series of Wolfblood! In last night’s episode the healing concoction was ground…
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More Meadows
Another glimpse into the lime-tree-legacy being spread from the Meadows. We worked with the Meadows Youth Club, introducing traditional hand skills & building beautiful stools from the wood felled for the tram works, filling the room knee deep in curled shavings. It was heartening to see the young folk’s suprise & delight at the quality…
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Stools with a story
While we’re on the subject of stools, here are some splendid seats carved lovingly in the Meadows at the end of last year. The stools tell the stories of the hands that made them; each one a unique piece of furniture. They also add a new chapter to the lives of the 150 year old…