His odd costume tells those in the know that he is a fully trained craftsman traveling and looking for work to broaden his experience. In Germany folk instantly recognise this and so it makes life easy to get lifts when hitchiking or folk will simply offer him food and lodgings in exchange for some work. His pack was made by another journeyman and has a steam bent wooden frame with leather straps. He has been traveling for nearly 3 years with just his belongings in this pack.
This is his journeybook a rather wonderful handmade, leather bound book in which the various people he works for make notes. He is not allowed to write in it himself and when in Germany each day he will get it stamped at the local post office to prove where he has been and that he has not gone back to the two areas he is not allowed (his home and the area he did his apprenticeship)
In medieval times crafts across Europe were governed by guilds. The guilds had many functions, they acted as a brotherhood and looked after their members in times of hardship but most importantly they acted as the protector of quality. They managed the schemes whereby folks made the progression from raw apprentice to journeyman to master and they also controlled who could practice and who could sell their products. It was rather draconian with searchers employed by the guilds checking for people selling goods, if they were not guild members the goods could be confiscated, bought at rock bottom rate or if substandard broken up. Apprentices would pay a master to teach them their skills over a 5 or 7 year period then when they became a journeyman they would travel and work in many different master workshops broadening their skills before perhaps taking the tests to become a master themselves.
By the 19th century in Germany like England the guild system was on it's last legs and from around 1850-1870 there were no journeymen. Then the system was revived and ran with small numbers until the 1980s when typically there would be a few dozen journeymen on the road at any one time. Over the last 15 years there has been a tremendous expansion in interest from people who want to really immerse themselves in craft for many years and today there are around 800 journeymen on the road.
It is a very serious undertaking, first there is the three to five year apprenticeship with one master in timber framing, cabinetmaking, blacksmithing or whatever, then you join the journeyman organisation and set out for a minimum of 3 years but often up to 5. Along the way they stay in many countries, meeting and living with the local people, working in exchange for food and taking on occasional paying work to refill the coffers. The main purpose though is exchanging skills, so it was that Dietrich came to me. We carved spoons, turned bowls worked a couple of days on a bridge project and the last day he was here we built a small timber framed gateway together.
And then it was time for Dietrich to pack his bags and head on his way. Next stop Bristol to buy some tools, then briefly to Germany and then some time in Sweden where he is hoping to learn birch bark work. A rather wonderful life for a young man, it is travel but with a purpose and giving as well as taking wherever he goes. He makes me look very small, I am not really Dietrich is very tall. If you see him or anyone else dressed like this on their travels do offer them a bed for the night and a meal.
I get asked this question a lot so thought it would be good to make a blog post which I can refer folk back to.
In the world of Bushcraft most folk go for the Gransfors Bruks small forest axe, it is recommended by Ray Mears which no doubt helps it's popularity, it is like Rays bushcraft knife, a bit of a "jack of all trades, master of none" compromise and I personally think there are better options.
Axes always tended to be designed for use two handed and have long (around 30-33") handles or one handed use and have short (around 14-16") handles. One handed axes are often called hatchets whilst the longer handled axes of various designs were for felling, limbing and splitting. The Small forest axe is sort of between these at 19" so you can just about use it two handed though it never feels right or you can use it one handed but the long handle stops it pivoting nicely when held close to the head and used for the sort of controlled carving that I do a lot of.
If I were to only have one axe (a terrible thought) it would be a Gransfors Bruks Swedish carving axe. This axe was designed by Wille Sundqvist the Swedish mastercraftsman who first inspired me in my work and it is specifically designed for one handed carving. It will do everything though. It will fell a tree at a pinch and split it into firewood but if you do a lot of that I would strongly recommend an axe with a 30-33" handle. This one excels at carving objects with curved surfaces like spoons but is also very good at hewing flat surfaces to make beams, given time and a woodland it would be possible to build a house and it's contents with this axe.
It has 3 drawbacks, first it is expensive at around £80, second it needs someone with reasonable forearm strength to use it properly and they don't make a lighter version and third whilst Wille designed it to have a slightly longer bevel on the left side to help control carving and they used to come that way it now comes either completely flat on the left like a side axe or with an even bevel. Out of the two I would favour the even beveled one as the flat sided one tends to dig in a little and be more difficult to carve concave areas. (update 17/5/11, I have been talking with Joakim Nordkvist
Managing Director at Gransfors and it looks like we may get the grind returned to the original, watch this space)
Another axe from the Gransfors stable that I rate highly is the wildlife hatchet, these are quite good value at around £50 the handle is 14" same as the carving axe but the head is around half the weight at about 1lb. Anyone can use this axe and it is the only axe I would consider carrying in a backpack. Again it would be possible to fell and limb a tree with this axe though it is perfect for light carving work, such as spoons or tent pegs. When choosing an axe I suggest you use the heaviest axe you can carve with for 20 minutes or so without getting at all tired. If you can manage a heavier axe the weight will do the work and you don't have to swing as much but a lighter axe moves more quickly and lots of small cuts remove wood just as a few large ones do.
This is sounding a little like an advert for Gransfors Bruks. I do like their axes and the beauty of them is they come sharp and ready to use and with a sheath to keep them sharp. There are many much cheaper axes that work very well but I have yet to find one that is cheap and comes well sharpened for carving. One of my favourite cheap axes was sold for a while by Argos and reduced for a while to less than £5. I imagine most of these cheap axes are made in China but all that I have tried have been good steel and well tempered, they have all however come very blunt, not just needing a sharpen but some major grinding work to get them working properly so I tend not to recommend them unless you have a power grinder and know how to reprofile one. Searching the web for the best deals today this Bahco axe looks about perfect, an 800gm head on a 14" handle.
Update 17/5/11 I bought a Bahco axe and it was OK but also needed significant work with a file to get the bevels set and a good cutting edge, it is a good head weight and shape for carving but needs some work.
Another axe which looks good value, I have heard good reviews of but have not picked one up yet is the husqvarna hatchet These retail just over £20 but come with sheath and sharp. I have not had one yet to know whether the bevels are good for carving as they come but it sounds a good option.
Another nice option is to look round your local car boot fair and buy an old axe. All our grandparents generation had hand hatchets for splitting kindling, at boot fairs they tend to have loose handles and be completely blunt so need a new handle and a regrind but it is a joyful job to bring one of these old axes back to life. Here are a few typical ones. And blog posts on making and fitting a new handle here
This is the sort of carving I tend to do with axes, the axe does matter but correct technique is much more important. Video currently without sound but still shows the techniques.
We have been regular visitors to YSP since moving to the area 15 years ago. Just 5 minutes off junction 38 of the M1 you will find seveeral hundred acres of rolling parkland dotted with sculptures by Henry Moore, Anthony Claro, Barbara Hepworth and many more. A few years ago they built a new visitor centre with a great cafe and indoor gallery spaces. They have a rolling program of exhibitions, a couple of the most memorable for me have been a major Hepworth retrospective and last years Andy Goldsworthy exhibition.
The current show is the lifetimes work of chainsaw sculptor David Nash. I have never been a big fan of Nash, whereas with Hepworth, Moore, Goldsworthy, Richard Long, Brancusi I find most pieces of interest and maybe one in five are really great with Nash I find the hit rate is rather lower. The work tends to feel a little formulaic and frankly as someone who can use a chainsaw well I generally feel I could, if I chose to, make similar pieces. With Long there is genuine artistic innovation and with Goldsworthy there is just a very high level of craftsmanship and an eye for beauty which is impressive. So I was not expecting to be wowed by the show but always enjoy a walk around the parkland anyway.
I came away far more impressed than I had been previously. Nash has been highly prolific and there were a huge number of pieces, too many in fact and they were crammed in, the good and the average all together. I think if only the best 50% had been shown with a little more space and impact it would have been very impressive.
Here are a few of my favourite pieces. A number of columns carved over several years, click for a larger image, the one in the centre I particularly liked and may even make one for the garden.
These are big. chainsaw carved then burnt, the globe at top of the hill is very big indeed though made up from beams rather than carved from a single lump.
The museum staff were comparing this to a Brancusi, it is an impressive big chainsaw sculpture but it is no Brancusi.
This is a flight of steps, all blackened by scorching and with coal between, my mate Andy is inspecting them with critical eye as he works on the footpath team at the Peak District National Park and installs many steps. We enjoyed the piece being called "an intervention" and will have great fun next time we are bridge building or step building proclaiming ourselves to be making "interventions".
For me though the works that were best were the simplest and with the least pretensions, here a cube, a sphere and a pyramid, carved and scorched.
The best (for me) piece of all is easy to miss. In the bothy there is a video of a wooden boulder Nash carved around 1970. He dropped it into a stream near his home and photographed and filmed it for 30 years as it gradually made it's way toward the sea.
YSP is always worth a visit if you are driving up the M1 and if you need an excuse for a day out then this show is definitely worth going to see.
We all know that as a country we have to tighten our belt and spend less. In Jeremy Hunt's first speech as Culture Secretary he said he could assure the arts community that it would not be a soft option for cuts though he also wanted to promote American style philanthropy within the art world.
There is now a bit of a stir in the arts world as cuts to arts funding in the region of 30-40% are expected. This article outlines what is ahead for the arts as the department of Culture Media and Sport are told to cut their staff by 35-50% (and when I was last there to meet Director of Culture Mick Elliott I was told half the staff were currently working on the Olympic preparations)
"Arts organisations are bracing themselves for a torrid time because Hunt wants to keep publicly-subsidised free entry to national museums, on the basis that it improves tourism and the wider creative economy. An initial trawl has also found little suggestion of waste or mismanagement in the preparation for the Olympics in 2012. This effectively leaves arts, media and heritage...
Arts Council England, which receives £445m to give out to 850 organisations around the country, has warned that it would have to stop funding for at least 200 organisations."
The Crafts Council are one of those 850 organisations receiving a grant of £2,808,584 this year. See the other 850 here
The arts community are obviously upset and feel this sets British culture back to the dark days of 25 years ago. This article is typical of the mood though a quick google search on "arts cuts" throws up dozens all saying similar.
And this is the environment into which the Heritage Crafts Association has launched itself and is going looking for funding...hmmmm not very promising perhaps. Having said that I have often prided myself that I survive in my own business with no public subsidy by making things which people like to use in their lives and are happy to pay for. Many traditional craftspeople I talk to have noticed little fall off in sales due to the economic downturn, perhaps folk recognise that it is time to stop buying masses of stuff that will be in landfill in a couple of years and they want fewer things but with a little more meaning.
I feel that recognising traditional crafts as part of our heritage and promoting them a little as such would not only give very good return on the investment and be great for tourism but also bring us in line with international heritage policy. Our current position which only recognises buildings and monuments as heritage is rather an anachronism.
If you like the idea join the HCA as a friend and help us make a difference.
In 1997 I visited Wharton Eshericks house in the USA and was utterly charmed. The whole house is a piece of functional sculpture. Centerpiece is the spiral staircase which has been much copied elsewhere. It is rare for me to find the work of a 20th century woodworker that I admire as much as that of medieval woodworkers but here was one.
That staircase lives in my mind and is a great inspiration, I also have a large photo of it framed on the wall. The story told at the Esherick museum was that the design grew from Esherick's sculptures but 13 years later I came across a design of staircase that was sufficiently similar that I can hardly imagine that Esherick was not aware of it. This one dates from 1522-30 France and is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It has been in their possession since 1909 but I have never seen it before, whether it has been in store or hidden in a gallery I did not visit I do not know but it is superbly presented in the new medieval galleries and I think is probably my favourite object in the world.
I could cut and paste info about it but better to just post a link to the V&A website.
As with Eshericks stair the beauty is in the detail of the execution. The coarse but highly skilled toolmarks, the mark of a master craftsman. working at speed.
And just for fun to see what folk think this video is what brought the staircase to mind today, it only appears in the background behind a modern architect designed tea house. I like the tea house and find it though provoking but can't help questioning the build quality and thinking that the textures are an imitation of the workmanship that I love and will not last.
I seem to have had quite a run of bridge building recently, I don't think I ever posted finished pictures of the last one so let's start with that. It has apparently become the place in Bradfield for wedding photos which I find rather flattering. Someone mentioned that a previous bridge at Goldenclough in Edale appeared in a [photography competition in Sheffield.
So when building these bridges I start with a tree, sometimes it takes a long time to find the right tree but in this case the National Trust had just the right tree growing a few hundred yards down the road., they felled it for me in February before the sap rose. And this is Dietrich a German journeyman who spent a few days working with me.
Marking a straight line down the tree.
and cutting along the line freehand with a very big chainsaw.
And the fist slab comes off.
Cutting the curved profile, the slab from the top will make the matching handrails.
then we winched the main beam down toward the road.
The idea of being a journeyman is that you travel and expand your skills (Dietrich was a full trained time served cabinetmaker before he started his journeyman time nearly 3 years ago) So as well as playing with some big timber we spent some time in the turning workshop and Dietrich made a couple of nice bowls.
The journeyman structure is very interesting so I shall make another post about that soon.
I have just finished a little batch of quaiches and am really pleased with them. I first started taking a real interest in mazers and quaiches when writing my book on the history of the wooden bowl. Up to that point I had regarded mazers as overly ostentatious and not my thing. When I started handling original ones in museums everything changed. No one could fail to fall in love with them, they are very, very special.
The quaiches have become a personal favourite and sharing a good whisky with good friends from a communal quaich is a very convivial experience. If I didn't know how contentious whisky was I would recommend single cask Balvenie but I am sure everyone has their favourites and personal taste.
When I first talked to silversmiths about mounting these for me the quotes were in the region of £250 but I found a young Sheffield silversmith Owen Waterhouse who was as passionate about them as me so we visited the museums together trying to work out how they were made. It took a few years and a lot of experimentation but the result is that we can now make them fast enough to be able to offer them at a very affordable price. The perfect thing for a wedding present or special present for a whisky drinker.
See the latest quaiches and a mazer just added to my sales blog here.
Each area of the British coastline evolved particular types of traditional boats developed to suit the shoreline and the local fishing methods. The Lerret was the boat of the Dorset coast read more about them and how they were used here and here. By this time last year there was only one Lerret left in seaworthy condition and that was built in 1923 but now there are two.
This is a wonderful story, Gail McGarva was grant aided by the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust to build a new Lerret at the boat building academy in Lyme using the old techniques and it is now just about finished. The launch will be a public event and I would be going if it was not so far away. Gail will launch the new Lerret from the slipway in Lyme Regis at 1130 on Saturday 31st July.
"We took the lines from the last seaworthy Lerret -'Vera' of 1923 to create the 'daughtership'. The shape of the boat is wonderful- a true reflection of the evolution of form and function.The boat was designed to be launched from the steep stony shelved beaches of Lyme Bay and her shape wholly reflects this. Flat-floored in the midships with the most swooping curves to the double ended stems. I am persuading the elm into shape with the help of steam and patience. The build of the Lerret has ignited a whole oral history project.People have been coming forward with their photographs,drawings and stories.In conjunction with the Lyme Regis museum I am applying for some funds to create an oral history book and exhibition speaking out the stories of the Lerret."
As a traditional woodworker myself I have the utmost respect for wooden boatbuilding and for me this style of small clinker built vessel is just about a beautiful as they come. Directly descended from Viking and Saxon boats the construction techniques have changed little. Steam bent planks are overlapped and joined by copper boat nails. I use the same nails in my oak bridges, they grip really well and don't react with the tanin in the oak. I think there is only one place left making them John Reynolds in Birmingham and when you phone up they put a batch through for you the size you want.
Here are a few more pics of the build in progress.
Gail McGarva is clearly a remarkable and motivated woman dedicated to preserving these skills and the whole living history of these vessels. She was interviewed on woman's hour last year and you can listen here
I heard several years ago about a remarkable scheme in France, when they realised they were on the brink of loosing the skills to build their regional boats the French decided to build a new on of each of their regional boats. The boats were I believe sponsored by local businesses and afterwards used to take tourist on trips. Each town then had a new local boat but more important the skills were passed down. It was felt important that rather than just preserving and fixing up old boats they should build a complete new one and that each generation say every 25 years or so they should build another so that the skills could be handed down again.
We have so many regional boats from Whitby Cobles to Flatners, Norfolk Wherries to Thames sailing barges. How wonderful it would be to see a new one of each built every 25 years, how inspirational it could be for the local community and what a wonderful hands on way to learn about local culture and heritage. I imagine the children who helped Gail McGarva steam bending the timbers for this boat will remember it for many years to come.
If you want to see just how old the design is have a look at the pictures of the 1000 year old faerings from the Gokstad ship burial on this website
And here are a few pics of the Gokstad fairing, and the Oseberg ship taken when I visited the viking ship museum in Oslo in 2004
I am delighted that the Headley Trust have agreed to support the Heritage Crafts Association with a grant of £30,000 to pay a part time administrator for 2 years
HCA has come a long way in just 18 months and primarily funded by donations from the committee (totaling over £5000) and more recently by supporters signing up to the friends scheme (now totaling over £1500 thank you). We have been limited in what we have been able to achieve because we all work full time and do HCA work in our limited spare time.
There are many things we could have done but have not had time to. For instance the Heritage Lottery Fund are keen for us to apply to the "Your Heritage" scheme to fund some local craft projects. The craft map is just the start of finding out who is practicing traditional crafts in the UK and helping to support them. We hope that an administrator will help us to expand this project, to create a searchable database which will help folk find craftspeople more easily and link directly to their websites. We wish to work towards commissioning some more detailed quantitative research into the state of traditional crafts in the UK. This has been tremendously successful for the National Heritage Training Group as a way of finding what the position is and accessing funding to deal with the issues highlighted.
It will take a little while for us to draw up a job description, person spec and advertise the post but we hope to attract a talented and committed person who can help us really move HCA on to the next stage of it's development and start to make real differences to working craftspeople.
Whilst at the Museum of English Rural Life a few weeks ago Terrence McSweeney told us the wonderful story of his mother's basketmaking. I asked him to email me details which I am sure others will enjoy as much as I did so here you are in Terence's words.
In 1976 there were only a few professional basketmakers in Ireland: Blindcraft in Dublin, the Shanahans of Carrick-on-Suir, John Delaney in Limerick, and the Quinlans in Tallow Hill. My mother learnt first from Blindcraft and later spent a year under the guidance of Joe Shanahan of Carrick-on-Suir. She has been making baskets ever since, but only made a living from it until the early 90's (before children). The following is an extract about the Shanahans from Joe Hogan's book Basketmaking in Ireland:
"The Shanahans managed to remain working full time at baskets even during the time of least demans in the late 1960's. Joe and Mikie Shanahan were grandsons of John Shanahan who set up the business.... The Shanahans were one of the few firms in Ireland to have made the quarter cran herring basket, which was used by the fishing industry until the late 1960's. With the decline in demand the Shanahans enlisted the help of Córas Tráchtála, the Irish Export Board, who put them in contact with the Irish pavillion in New York, through whom they were able to establish a valuable export market for their baskets in the USA. This led to Joe taking part in a promotion at Bloomingdale's Store in New York in the early 1980's. Joe and Mikie also featured in the documentary series Hands, ... As a new generation became interested in basketmaking, Joe and Mikie found that people were looking for apprenticeships, and while they were hesistant at first, believing that basketmaking was a trade with little future, they subsequently trained a number of apprentices... Mikie Shanahan died in 1983 but Joe continued to run the business, sometimes with the help of apprentices, until his own death in 1992."
Of the 4 or 5 people to be apprenticed to the Shanahans Catherine Hayden (my mother) and Barbara Kelly in Co. Wexford are the only ones still weaving. Basketweavers were notoriously secretive about their skills in Ireland and my mother tells of how difficult it was for Joe to teach people from outside his family in the beginning. While there my mother learnt in very much a "production" setting and this resulted in a very high standard of work. Interestingly I have noticed, as I learn from her, that there are numerous stylistic and technical peculiarities in my mothers work which I have never seen anywhere else. Speaking to Joe Hogan (an authority on the craft in Ireland) I have realised that these peculiarities are specific to the part of Ireland where the Shanahans worked, the Suir valley, and may well have been at risk of disappearing.
Finally here is my mothers statement from the crafts council website: "I feel very lucky to have learned my craft of basketweaving, 25 years ago, from Joe Shanahan, Carrick-on-Suir, the last in a long family line of traditional basketweavers. They cut and gathered their willows from cultivated sallie on the islands of the river suir. My main objective is to continue to make solid robust, traditional baskets following the weaves and techniques that were passed on to me. I would also aim to allow some of the traditional designs to evolve and improve, which tends to happen naturally as I try to make every basket better than the last."
It was wonderful to hear how Terrence valued this part of his and his country's heritage and that despite living in London and training as an osteopath he continues to be a keen advocate and practitioner of traditional crafts. This reminded me rather of the situation in Sweden where many people from all walks of life still value this part of their heritage.
Back in April after a day breaking stones for a new footpath I wrote asking if hard work was good or bad.
Jeff one of my blog readers in the US mentioned a new book by Matthew Crawford. "Shopcraft as Soulcraft:An Inquiry into the Value of Work" It was not out in the UK so I ordered it from the US and now I have read it I can highly recommend it. It is not written from a craft perspective but from someone who fixes old motorbikes, something I have spent many hours doing but the ideas are totally relevant to anyone who works with skill with their hands. Matt studied philosophy and worked for a New York "think tank" before opting out to run a bike repair shop so the discourse may get a little esoteric for some at times but it is peppered throughout with amusing and insightful personal experiences from the workshop.
The good news is that it is now available in the UK and since we don't have "shop class" we get an Anglicised title "The case for working with your hands; or why office work is bad for us and fixing things feels good." It is a polemic, starting from a set position and defending it rather than an objective balanced inquiry but it is done in good humour. It doesn't really consider the possibility of a balanced life consisting of good office work with some fulfilling physical activity in leisure time.
One new idea which I had never really considered went a little like this. From the 1950's onwards physical work and blue collar jobs have been looked down upon as people began to look forward to the knowledge economy, we let China make everything and we would make money from information technology. For quite a few years it looked like an office job was the thing to have and manual work was never going to get you anywhere. The point that Matt makes is that now the office has gone through something not unlike the industrial revolution, where jobs have been deskilled and most of the decision making has become formalised and standardised. Individuals follow formulas instead of making decisions themselves. Once the job has been deskilled companies are finding that they can outsource those office jobs to places where wages are cheaper too. In fact looking to the future with instant global communication there are not a great many jobs that can't be outsourced to areas of cheaper labour except the skilled trades such as building, plumbing, fixing cars. So Matt argues if you want a job for your kids with a certain future encourage them to learn a trade.
I very much enjoyed the book and would recommend it, I think that having intellectual folk make a conscious choice of working with their hands and writing eloquently about it raises the status of manual work which I feel is a good and honourable thing.
For another write up see this article from the Telegraph and just because I love old bikes too let's finish with a picture of Matt in his workshop with a gorgeous old bevel drive Ducati.
Years ago I loved to experiment with wild food and worked my way through Richard Mabey's "food for free"
After a couple of years experimenting with stewed nettles and the likes I came down to half a dozen wild foods which I still enjoy when in season but the rest are the sort of thing which in the words of Crocodile Dundee "you can live on it, but it taste like sh*t."
Elderflower fritters are one of those wonderful seasonal treats and incredibly easy to make. Simply crack and egg into a bowl add a good sploosh of milk then keep adding flour and whisking until it is a good coating creamy consistency. Dip your elderflower in and slop it straight into the fry pan.
As it begins to set trim off the stalks with scissors and flip it over.
Give it a minute on the other side to get a lovely golden brown drain for a second then flip it into a bowl of sugar. Eat whilst warm. This is serious indulgence, warm oily, sugary batter is reminiscent of fresh cooked donuts but with the fragrant flowery taste of the elderflowers. Yum yum.
Just clearing photos off my camera, it was interesting to see how dry and brown everything was down south, I think it is only when you travel abroad and come home that you realise how amazingly green Britain generally is. Driving home coming back into Edale we met sheep in the road which made us feel like we were back home.
Then it was a quick turnaround and off to Norfolk Show.
The woodland crafts area there is in a beautiful setting. It is a long way to drive for 2 days and I don't sell much but I meet up with some of the best green wood workers in the country and we have a very enjoyable time. Simon Lamb a local spooncarver and HCA supporter came and helped me set the stand up and talked to folk about HCA whilst I was turning. We were set up next door to Robin Fawcett
One of the great entertainers of the green wood world is "Wocko the woodman" a lovely chap and very capable woodworker. Recently he has been learning cooperage and was showing folk how casks were made.
We did a live interview for BBC radio Norfolk on the work of the Heritage Crafts Association. I remember years ago finding live radio or TV stressful but like most things it gets easier with time.
A new addition to this years show was a wheelwright, Nick Lyons, here he is chatting to ancient woodwork specialist Richard Darrah.
And his nice hand cart. Like many wheelwrights working today he learned his trade on the NETS course at Hereford which, after over 30 years, closes in July.
The woodland crafts area has been run for 20 years by my friend Eric Rogers and since he is near his 80th birthday he has decided this would be his last year. We organised a whip round and bought him a selection of wonderful craft items including one of Owen Jones swill baskets.
With Simon to help I was off site by 7.30 and home by 11pm though with a 8am start it was a long day. Yesterday I set out all the bowls I turned at Glastonbury and Norfolk to dry in the workshop, they need to have air flow around them to stop them going mouldy and will dry naturally in about 6 weeks. These are porringers.
And a mix of Mary Rose and Irish style bowls.
I love to see work piled up like this, an art critic once wrote of a collection of my work in an exhibition in the USA that they were "as alike and heartwarming as slices of crusty bread."
