traditional crafts organisation in Slovakia

I just found out about this organisation in Slovakia and they have a nice English website which is worth a few minutes browsing.


"Creating utility and decorative items according to old patterns or according to one´s creative ideas is a very attractive form of free time activity. It is the reason why ÚĽUV promotes the crafts courses for adults and young people as a form of lifestyle. Working with crafts, people learn about cultural traditions of their ethic group, gain deeper knowledge of natural materials and manual production technologies and, last but not least, they learn about themselves."



http://www.uluv.sk/en/web/home/

They are funded by the ministry of culture  and support crafts in many ways, running shops to seel work, arranging workshops and apprenticeships, annual exhibitions and a magazine, the current issue seems to feature fan carved birds something which my friends Del Stubbs in the US and Sean Hellman in the UK would be interested in.

I would recommend 6 minutes watching this English language video giving an overview of the work and ethos of the organisation. You need to download it and have something like media player to make it work.


http://www.uluv.sk/en/web/uluv-the-cultural-organization/video-about-uluv/



A link from this site also took me to the European Folk Art and Craft Federation a grouping of national craft organisations which looks very interesting.



http://www.folkartandcraft.net/

using wooden bowls and spoons

Wooden bowls and spoons are a joy to use, wood is a natural insulator so keeps your food warm without having to heat the bowl first and mealtimes are quieter without the scraping of metal on ceramic. This was dinner last night.

The duck bowl was one I made a couple of years ago and is painted with natural home made paint, recipe here.

The spoon with the asparagus is one of our typical Swedish inspired serving spoons and the lovely serving slice with the peppers was made by a friend Peter Kohidi a very talented carver from Hungary.

and just to show I love ceramics too this is the same Swedish inspired spoon serving couscous from a bowl by one of my favourite potters Svend Bayer.

After use all our woodware gets washed up in hot water with detergent just like the rest of the dishes, even washing up is a quiet and enjoyable experience.

wooden bowl carving course

I have just finished a very enjoyable 3 day bowl carving course. These 8 bowls were carved by 4 course participants.

This was only the second bowl course I have run, the first was a great success with students making 2 bowls each and a fantastic standard of work. I was unsure though whether we were just lucky with a very talented group and whether future groups would do as well. One of the pleasures of running courses is the nice folk that come along and the camaraderie of all working and learning together. This time we had just 2 folk who had been on previous spooncarving courses and the others had done varying amounts of green woodwork from quite a bit to none at all. Everyone had lots of enthusiasm though.

We work by clamping a halved log in a holding device I call a bowlmate (plans to make one on the website) and the bowl is hollowed using an adze. I have tried all the available adzes and my favourite is made by Hans Karlsson in Sweden, they are not cheap but they work very well. It is possible to hollow the bowl with a gouge but much faster with an adze. After the adze we tend to smooth the surfaces with a gouge and curved knife.

After shaping the outside with an axe and pushknife final finishing with the curved knife again.

a

A little bit of refining the outside lines with a straight knife. I particularly liked Stephen's bowl with a ridge like a ships keel.

Carving this way is tremendously absorbing and we find it is important to stop every hour or so and have a walk around otherwise folk tend to get tired and that is when accidents happen.

 

And here are some finished bowls. Bowlcarving is a not quite as accessible as spooncarving in that you need to make a holding device and need a few more tools but it is tremendously rewarding and the results are beautiful and useful. Who wouldn't appreciate one of these bowls as a gift?

wabi sabi

Very busy and behind with work at the moment but lots of interesting things which would be nice to share when I get time.

Today I just wanted to share a few thoughts on wabi sabi.

Ever since Bernard Leach went to Japan and wrote about Japanese aesthetics there has been great interest in the Japanese ideas about beauty. I was first introduced to the ideas through Leach's adaptation of Soetsu Yanagi's "The Unknown Craftsman". When I first read the book it was a revelation, it felt like it gave words to the feelings I already had, it gave a vocabulary to describe how simple humble things could be more wonderful than the glamorous and bling end of material culture that is often highlighted in Western museums and galleries. It suggested that the Japanese had words that explained these concepts which did not translate directly and had lots of subtle nuances difficult for outsiders to grasp but gives a fair explanation of the concepts in English.

"A certain love of roughness is involved, behind which lurks a hidden beauty, to which we refer in our peculiar adjectives shibui, wabi, and sabi."

Yanagi discusses shibui at length but suggests that wabi is to ephemeral a concept for most westerners to grasp. How tantalising a concept, not surprising then that wabi and sabi have become much used terms in the Western craft world even if we don't understand what they mean. We have this feeling that there is maybe something there that we admire, that if we could understand, would help us more fully understand the simple and humble in our own material culture. I suspect to some it also sounds rather grand using words that we don't fully understand in another language. There are numerous books on wabi sabi a typical one from my bookshelf is 'Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers". These are mostly written by Westerners trying to interpret what they think they have understood in the Japanese concepts for us. The above book is subtitled "Wabi Sabi is the quintessential Japanese aesthetic. It is the beauty of things imperfect, and incomplete. It is the beauty of things modest and humble." This actually sounds closer to the meaning of shibui than wabi or sabi to me though I have an incomplete understanding of all these words and prefer to use English terms which I understand fully.

The impetus for this post was what I think is a great blog post by a potter in Japan. Euan is a Westerner but he has lived and worked in Mashiko for 20 years (the pottery Village where Hamada lived and worked) This is the first paragraph of his post which I hope will encourage you to visit and read the rest, it is the simplest, clearest explanation of wabi sabi I have read, clearer and more comprehensive than most books on the subject.

"Just as in English there is a whole vocabulary available for the discussion of Art and Beauty, so too does such a vocabulary exist in Japanese. There is a tendency among people with a passion for and some experience in Japanese art to use the word “Wabi sabi”, and yet so little understanding of what the term refers to. Leonardo da Vinci said that, “If you cannot explain something, you don’t understand it.” To be anecdotal for a moment, there was one young American anthropologist who had studied pottery briefly in Mashiko, who gave a slide lecture here to coincide with an exhibition of American ceramics. Anything in his slides which seemed even vaguely Japanese influenced he described as possessing “Wabi sabi”. One of the thirty or so professional Japanese potters in the audience enquired, “What do you mean by Wabi sabi?” He laughed as he responded, “Nobody knows what Wabi sabi means!” The entire audience laughed also, but the young gentleman never realized that it was not because they agreed with him, but because of his naivety. Wabi sabi is not some mystical secret, but a basic aesthetic principal. Merely because he didn’t understand it doesn’t mean that it cannot be understood."

From Euan Craig's blog  11 may 2010

I would argue that we do not need Japanese words to understand these concepts, English is a remarkable language. What has been lacking in Western aesthetic discourse is an understanding of the humble, the simple. Perhaps the Shakers in the US came closest to this in the West. I remember in 1998 visiting the ethnographic museum in St Petersburg   This is a truly marvelous place, a grand imposing building, not unlike the British Museum or the V&A in London.

Inside are not the finest pieces of art and craft which form the material culture of the 1% at the top of society but the ordinary objects which formed the material culture of the 99% of Russian society. Where could I see the equivalent in the UK? Why do we always highlight the bling over and above the humble and the simple?

Radio 4 You and Yours on Sheffield heritage skills and HCA craft map.

Last week I was away on holiday but Radio 4 did a nice piece on the plight of Portland Works and the traditional Sheffield trades housed there. I did a brief interview the week before which is included toward the end and if you are in the UK you can listen to it on iplayer here Portland Works item starts at 16m 53s you can drag the slider bottom left to go straight to the item.

At the same time Daniel Carpenter put the Heritage Crafts Association crafts map live here  

It is already generating a lot of interest and lots of folk are sending their details in. Daniel is flat out trying to input them all. The map promises to be a really helpful tool to find traditional craftspeople. I personally am looking forward to being able to find interesting traditional craftspeople when I visit different parts of the country.

Robin Hood the movie, they didn't drink from bowls.

I watched the movie last night and was probably the only member of the audience to be rather disappointed not to see more wooden bowls.

My big 18" diameter wooden bowls featured well including one shot where Cate Blanchett as Marian was washing her feet in one but the many smaller bowls didn't show up much. I guess in the editing suite they went more for fighting than eating which is probably understandable. What I was most disappointed by was that in the scenes of drinking and revelry (of which there were quite a few) no one was drinking from bowls. They used all manner of things from glasses to leather pint pots but not bowls. This is a shame as the vast majority of medieval images of people drinking show folk drinking from bowls and that is backed up by the archaeological evidence.

I had hoped since the set designer had worked through my book on the history of bowls and ordered lots of drinking bowls that we may for the first time see on screen folk drinking from bowls but it was not to be. Ridley Scott always said he "was not making a documentary" and the image they went for was a reinforcement of the public image of merry old England  with folk songs and quaffing pint pots of beer, it would not have surprised me to see a Morris dancer.

I now realise the set I visited at Shepperton was London and my lathe turners workshop was just outside the castle doorway I didn't see it in the film though.

The film covered only the start of the Robin Hood story and was left waiting for a sequel so we will have to wait and see how well it does at the box office.

crafts, environmentalism and green woodwork

Is craft environmental friendly? There have been a spate of "craft and environmentalism" conferences recently, I haven't attended any, the last one was in Plymouth so the choice was a day each way on the train or an hour in a plane, many folk flew. I have had a very long standing interest in environmentalism and came to craft through working in conservation but I have never sold my work on a green/environmental type label. I am just back from the annual meeting of the green wood workers and pole lathe turners, an event inaccessible by public transport and without any lift-share arrangement. Many green woodworkers make their living by being paid to demonstrate at shows which necessitates driving often long distances. I don't know but I suspect driving 5 miles uses far more energy than running an electric lathe for a day. Using a foot powered lathe is not necessarily environmental friendly.

I guess what I feel is that in order to sell work on an environmental ticket we need to conduct a total audit of the production process, the sales and delivery chain and the lifespan of the product too. Today is my birthday and I was delighted with a gift from Nicola of a merino wool top from howies.

howies as a company do just this sort of research, see their blog here http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/footprints/know-thy-enemy/ 
"Making our products uses this much energy:
8%
Bringing our products to you from our factories around the world consumes this much energy:
3%
Washing and ironing our products uses this much energy:
80%
As a company that wants to find the lowest impact way to make its quality clothing, that long red line needs all our energy.
We have to start designing products that need to be washed less.
It might take us some time. But at least we know who the enemy is."

howies products are not cheap but they are so well made they last and last. I struggle to find a pair a decent work jeans that last more than a few months but I bought three pairs from howies in the sale and they have outlasted all others (18 months very hard wear and still perfectly presentable. It is true they can also be washed less and still look presentable. I like this philosophy, I am far from perfect myself, it is difficult in a rural area in the 21st century UK to live an environmentally sensitive lifestyle. We are so car dependent. I wonder what our grandchildren will think, "Jees Grandad you mean you drove 5 miles in 2 tons of metal to get someone else to cook your dinner?"

So is craft environmentally friendly? I don't think it is inherently any more or less so than many other production methods and since I and most other craftsfolk drive a car we are part of the problem not the solution. I don't sell my work as being environmentally friendly, this year I will fly to Japan (last long haul flight was 2001, one long haul flight uses all your individual carbon allowance for a year) next week a friend and I ride our motorbikes to Italy. I have heated our home with carbon neutral wood for 20 years and pedal a foot powered lathe but still in global terms I use far more than my fair share of the earths limited resources.

Bradfield Bridge

Just a few more photos showing progress on my new bridge. It looks over-engineered for the tiny stream but 6 weeks ago the water would have been lapping just under the main timbers.

Cutting the last handrails.

 If you look closely bottom centre you'll see a newly hatched family of mallards.

 View across the cricket field.

It's all coming together now, the bridge is pretty well finished just a bit more work on the pathway to finish next week.

Gransfors Bruks axes

Gränsfors Bruks are a small company who forge rather nice axes in Sweden. They started forging axes in 1902 but the advent of chainsaws and the move to mass produced drop forged axes meant that the company was strugging by the 1980's. In 1989 they took the bold move of choosing to market themselves on their traditional workmanship. Where all axes at that time were ground all over the surface Gransfors started to leave the forging marks and they get the smiths to mark each axe with their initials. They also talked to various top woodworkers and redesigned their range to suit particular needs. My favourite the "Swedish carving axe" was designed by Wille Sundqvist.

I bought one of the first in the UK about 1995 (actually I couldn't afford one back then but swapped it for a bowl) and it is as good as new today. This change in direction was a very wise move and allowed Gransfors to survive and thrive whilst other axe manufacturers were going out of business.

This short video shows the technology used to forge most Gransfors axes, it is fast but there is no time for error by the smith.

 

If you watched that video and thought it was fast and efficient you may be surprised that it was  outdated technology in the 1980s. So what was replacing it and how are most axes made today? I can't find a video of drop forging axes but this one shows sledge hammers being made in Korea which is much the same process. It is amateur hand held video but an unusual glimpse inside such a factory. It is actually a good way of producing axes quickly if there is good quality control on the grinding and finishing but I like to support European companies and I like to think that the workers can be proud of the skills they need to develop and have some variety in their work. I know I would prefer to work at Gransfors than in this workshop but at the same time I am fascinated by the speed and efficiency.



In the UK celebrity endorsement of Gransfors by Ray Mears has helped sales particularly of his favourite small forest axe. Personally I find this axe too much of a compromise, I like the small one handed axes, either the carving axe or wildlife hatchet and I like full size axes for felling and firewood, the one in the middle does niether job very well. This is Ray comparing 3 Gransfors axes.



Being a small company with limited production Gransfors do not normally offer sponsorship so we consider ourselves very privileged to have been given some tools by them to send out to Japan for the Kesurokai event. The ethos of Kesurokai or kezuro-kai is the sharing of tools and techniques. The Japanese really appreciate high quality tools and interestingly favour well made new tools to old ones. In Europe we often favour old tools and often hear "they don't make them like they used to".  In return for Gransfors generosity we shall be providing them with photos, and hopefully video too, of the tools being used on the project.

These are some of the tools we shall be sending out, particularly the big broadaxes, and drawknives for hewing and peeling softwood logs. Gransfors also do a range of completely hand forge axes and I am told one of the best hewing axes is their "1800 model broadaxe" but sadly these are only made occasionally and they didn't have any stock for us to take to Japan. I look forward to trying one some day.

And one final video to show the difference between forging methods, this one again from the Gransfors workshop but showing "hand forging" although it still uses power hammers there are no moulds or formers everything is done by eye. The second half of the video shows the axe being used to hew timbers for a log cabin.






Just to show that I use these axes myself this is a vid of me carving a spoon blank with the carving axe, currently without sound due to a dispute between Youtube and WMG but hopefully enjoyable without sound. Folks that have been on my carving courses will hopefully recognise all the various different cuts and not spot any dangerous ones.

new blog layout

I hope regular readers are not put off by the new blog layout. I am not very technically minded which is why blogging software works well for me, it is so easy to use. Having said that I look at friends who  blog with wordpress or typepad which seem to integrate much more easily to produce a whole website.

This is Nicola's typepad site on the Kesurokai Japanese woodworking exchange. http://nicolawood.typepad.co.uk/kesurokai/

Last year Nicola set me up a sales blog as a gallery page, it was integrated into the main site and needed a bit of deep delving into the HTML code to fit it in there but once done I could update it as easily as editing a blog post.

Now we have moved on a little and Nicola has reworked the blog to give it similar branding to my website and made it wider too, I am not sure why blogger standard settings are narrow but I like it a little wider. Most important though up at the top you will see tabs to click on to take you to my bowl gallery blog (updated with my current for sale bowls last night and 3 are off to Denmark in this mornings post) Also there is a link to our woodcarving courses and the main website.

I have no idea how hard or technical it was to set those tabs up but I am now much happier and no longer left envying my wordpress chums. Blogs are great ways of connecting with like minded folk and sharing but if you run a business it is good for your readers to jump easily to whatever it is you make. I run at between 250 and 500 blog visits a day at the moment, I enjoy it when folk make comments in the comment box at the bottom or drop me emails. Most of our carving courses are fully booked and the bowls seem to sell as soon as I put them in the gallery but I think it is important to make it easy for folk to see what you do. If you don't show your work and tell folk how much it costs it takes a pretty dedicated customer to buy from you.

how to carve wooden bowls

Carving wooden bowls is a wonderful thing to do. It is a bit harder physically than spooncarving and requires a few more dedicated tools but the results are wonderful. Here are a couple of bowls carved by students on our first bowlcarving course.

I have been carving bowls for some time and before starting to teach I tried out all the different systems I have seen other folk using and was not really happy, particularly with the holding devices and tools used for finishing cuts on the inside. In Sweden they tend to use a low bench for the adzing standing astride it then kneeling beside it for gouge work,

Here is my friend Steve Tomlin at work on one.

Wille Sunqvist also uses a sort of sloping chopping block. My friend Michail Schutte uses a nice version of this and I thought I may go this route. Here is me trying it in Germany.

 

And these were the bowls I made.

The problem with this is when adzing you need to keep coming at it from both sides which means continually reversing the bowl so it is hardly worth jamming it in place. For teaching new learners I wanted a system where they could work from both directions whilst standing upright and ideally I wanted something that you could carve the whole bowl on, inside and outside.

I love David Fishers bowl horse for carving the outside but this is quite a serious bit of dedicated kit for a serious carver. David's bowls are beautiful and for the work involved very good value too.

and then there is the system used by Guy Mallinson and Maurice Pyle, neither seemed to fit what I was after.

 

A whole lot more experimentation led to a new design of holding device which I found worked really well. You work standing to the side and can quickly turn to adze from either direction, the blank is held by a simple wedge but holds really solidly.

Having trialed the system with friends, and our kids I was happy enough with it to make 8 of them for my first bowlcarving course. We had a great time and the techniques worked better than I could have hoped (or maybe we just had a particularly great set of students). This blog post last November showed the whole process

We decided the device needed a name and ran a competition on the green woodworkers forum where folk came up with many good and entertaining ideas but we finally christened it the BowlMate.
Nicola has produced plans for the BowlMate and put them on the website where you can also download a printable PDF.

And for those that would like to learn carving why not come on a course. The cost is just £225 including delicious lunches and Edale is a beautiful place to visit. Our bowl courses are being featured in an article in Living Woods magazine out any day now so if you would like one of these places best be quick.


Course details here

Robin Hood the Movie, Russell Crowe, Ridley Scott and craftsmanship.

On May 12th Ridley Scott's epic Robin Hood opens Cannes film festival and it opens in UK cinemas on the 14th. Why write about this on a crafts blog? Well having spent a bit of time on set last year I know there was a huge amount of wonderful craftwork commissioned for the film. Ridley Scott is known for the detail of his sets and now I can see why.

 Even the stonework of the caste was convincing, I had to touch it before I could be sure whether it was stone or not.

I made lots of wooden bowls varying from simple humble drinking bowls and dishes to high status silver rimmed mazers. I sent this set last February see blog

 Then when they started filming apparantly Ridley Scott liked them so much he wanted a load more so in April I sent these.

 In July I got to visit the set and set up a bowlturners workshop with my old lathe, piles of shavings from my workshop floor and a set of tools I forged for the set.

I had imagined a set would look very fake or at best it would look OK from a distance and that when you walked round the back of a building it would all be plywood and screws. In fact it was more like walking round an ethnographic museum. There was lots of wonderful craftwork, baskets, coracles, rushwork, I heard the ropeworks at Chatham made "an awful lot of rope" 

This is a  blog  post from my set visit with links to some of the makers I knew about.

There is plenty in the press at the moment, this Telegraph article  suggests that Robin Hood is a corruption of "Robin in the Wood" which gave me a giggle. I hope it will be a good film but I know the set in the background will be worth looking at.