Revisiting Eggenfelden: my first large woodcarving and the first piece made using chisels, carved and painted over twenty years ago

In the summer of 1995, an international environmental work camp was held outside Eggenfelden in Bavaria. I was the only British person there, with other volunteers from the US, Canada, France, Germany, Slovenia, Poland, Czech republic and Lithuania.

We worked with the LBV (Landesbund für Vogelschutz), a local environmental group, to transform a disused electricity substation into a wildlife sanctuary with spaces for birds and bats to roost. It was a great time, camping in the adjoining field and cooking for each other.

Woodcarving had interested me more and more over the previous year but I'd only produced work using found timber with my Opinel knife up until that point. As the construction project drew towards a close, I asked if it would be okay to carve a date plaque for the building. With a piece of softwood (probably larch), a gouge and two carpenter's chisels donated by the neighbour, the date plaque took shape. I painted it and then fixed it onto the tower. 

With the help of Emmanuelle, a French volunteer, the two metal doors on the structure were  also brightly painted.

At the end of the work camp a small conifer tree was put onto the roof, the traditional way that the end of a building project is celebrated in the area.

At the time, I never got a decent photo of the carved plaque and had always regretted it. The panel was the largest project that I'd worked on for several years afterwards and it was also my first carving made without using my knife. I often wondered if the panel was still there and what it looked like.

So last week, with mounting excitement, I sat in a car travelling along a dusty farm track towards the same spot. The satellite view on Google maps had told me that the building was still there, but were the panel and paintings?

As the car pulled up next to the tower, I pretty much threw myself out and ran round to the other side. There it was, aged but with the colours still visible and the whole panel looking in much better shape than I'd feared!

The painted doors hadn't fared quite as well, with one almost completely faded and rusted away.

However, the birds and bat on the main door were still quite easy to make out. I wonder why someone had gone to the trouble to paint out the blue tit sitting on the fencepost?

It was fantastic to see that the plaque was still there and also that the tower was clearly still very much serving its purpose as a wildlife refuge. 

Making insect hotels as a workshop at Southmead hospital

Insect hotels are basically compartments filled with things that insects like to hide in; dried plant stems, leaves, rotten wood etc.

I worked with Esther Coffin-Smith, the sustainability officer at Southmead hospital to give visitors, staff and patients at the hospital a chance to fill their own hotel and take it home with them.

The boxes were made in advance using exterior plywood and heavy-duty EDPM rubber. These materials were all recycled offcuts very kindly donated by the Bike Shed Company. To fill them, we had strips of recycled corrugated cardboard (which lacewings like to live in), rotten wood, bark, dried stems of cow parsley and hogweed (not hemlock), pieces of bamboo and leaves of London plane (Platanus x acerifolia). 

It was great fun to create the patterns of stems and other materials and we also had twenty-nine children from St Theresa's School join us to build their own hotels to take home.

At one point, someone began to play on a nearby piano which was a very nice addition! It's the first workshop that I've run that has had Ragtime music played as an accompaniment.

The boxes each had two holes drilled into the back, so that they can be hung up in a sunny spot to attract solitary bees or a shady place for other insects. 

Ideally, I would also have put metal wire mesh over the front of each box to prevent birds from pulling out the fillings looking for the insects hiding within. Obviously with large groups of children the cut metal could have caused injury, so it was thought best to leave it out of this workshop. A coat of exterior varnish on the outside of the boxes may have helped them last a bit longer outdoors as well. Thanks Esther for inviting me along for the day.

Boiling Wells in St Werburghs, Bristol: Images from 2001 and 2014 - Spot the difference!

In the late summer of 2001, some photos were taken while work was being done at Boiling Wells. St Werburghs City Farm had just taken the site over on a lease from Bristol City Council and had started work on turning the derelict wasteland into a space for teaching and activities with young people.

Lots and lots of people from Bristol and further afield have visited this place and have a lot of affection for it, so here's some snapshots of that time for you to enjoy. Thanks to whoever took the original ones from 2001 and also to Jon Attwood, who gave them to the Farm.

I've taken photos a couple of weeks ago to show what I think is as close to the same view as possible,  although Boiling Wells has changed so much that it's guesswork for a couple of them! The images from 2001 are on the left, followed by those from 2014 after each on the right.

 

 

 

 

New Forest of Avon Products Cooperative website!

After a long process of designing, the new Forest of Avon Products Coop website is online! I've been a member of the coop for about 7 years. It aims to encourage the use of locally grown and sustainably sourced wood products wherever possible. There are about 35 members at the moment, who range from bespoke furniture makers and fine carvers to roundwood framers and timber growers.

Why not check out the site? It's at:
http://www.forestofavonproducts.co.uk/