Tag: wood
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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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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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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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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…
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Three legs better
Four legs good, two legs bad, three legs better! With apologies to George Orwell. It was wonderful to be back on the Learning Land this past weekend, in the warm & hazy sunshine, the day so still that the smoke from the fire rose in a perfect column (apart from when we sat down to…
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Getting some relief
A wonderful day spent this weekend with talented members from the Rufford Arts Society, all relative newcomers to the craft. Precise mallet blows resounding regular as clockwork resulted in some beautiful, tactile and ambitious relief carvings. I came away inspired too, by the willingness to experiment, general fearlessness and good humour! Even their practice peices…
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Can’t wait for spring!
When we’ll be back out on the Learning Land at the Iona School. Each month there’ll be another opportunity to learn, to make, to shape & create with wood. Follow the links to find out more about making a stool, shaping a beautiful spoon, & creating your own decorative wood carving, or download the PDF.…