'Inspired'- a fine craftmanship show at Ashton Court mansion in Bristol

I went to have a look at the 'Inspired' exhibition at Ashton Court yesterday, which is organised by Sue Darlison. The work on show was pretty mindblowing, some technically superb and very beautiful furniture making. My little point-and-shoot camera really can't do the work justice unfortunately! Like any sculpture, you really need to see it first-hand to appreciate it.

'Allium' by Simon Nugent

 Alun Heslop

The table and box at front are by Scott Woyka, the stacked boxes by John Jacques. I can't remember who made the mirror and guitars, but they were also stunning!

 

 These images show some of the beautiful detailing that could be seen, the toolmarks on Martin Grierson's piece (above) reminded me of the carefully laid out adze marks I once saw on a native Canadian totem pole (shown on the right).

Rhys Gillard's elegant bench design is in the foreground. All the work on show was about as good as contemporary furniture making gets. Well done Sue!

Bristol street art... out and about in Bedminster

Bit different from my stuff, but I was cycling through Bedminster in Bristol at the weekend and took a couple of snaps of street art that particularly caught my eye. Bristol has some really incredible works of art painted in it's streets, partly (but by no means entirely) because of the connection with Banksy, I suppose. It's great to see some of the offbeat and interesting things that have been painted when one is wandering about town.

I think this was done by a German duo called Herakut. They may have been in Bedminster for a big street art festival held there called 'Upfest'. I like it a lot.

Bristol wood carving workshop

At the weekend, I oversaw a woodcarving workshop for my driving instructor at a staff social that he and his family were running. A really nice idea - rather than just sitting about talking shop, an activity is run at each social so that the staff can try out different skills, with their families. There were about 15 people in all and everyone got stuck in and had a go at relief carving some nice pieces of seasoned oak and sweet chestnut. They all seemed very happy with what they made and even an unexpected hailstorm didn't dampen the occasion. Those who wanted to also had the chance to try carving a spatula with a knife and hook knife.

Thanks to Jeff and his family for inviting me along to run the workshop and, if you need to learn to drive, you can find them at http://www.chequersmotoringschool.co.uk/

A totem pole and a sign

The totem pole is finished and I'm very pleased with it! When installed, 3 metres (10 feet) of it will be above ground and 122 cm (4 feet) below ground. It is carved from British larch. I'm particularly pleased with the portrait at the top, although it had to be carved solely from photos as the pole is a surprise gift for someone I've never met. Hopefully the likeness is close enough!

Another little job recently was making a carved oak sign for St Werburghs City Farm in Bristol, to be fixed onto their new play area. It is a 'thank you' to a former trustee of the farm called Martin Maudesley, who is a local professional storyteller and a very nice guy too. Martin studied aphids as his postdoctoral research, so the sign has an aphid on it as well as a long-taied tit (the latter just because they live in the area and are one of my favourite local birds)

Memorial plaque for Bailey's Court school

I went to Bailey's Court primary school in Bradley Stoke, Bristol, today to install the oak plaque which I was asked to make to commemorate a boy who went there called Ryan.
Some of the children helped me to fix it onto a log which had been set into the ground there. It is next to a beautiful bog garden and pond (which had a frog in it!). I also had the chance to meet Ryan's mum. It was great to hear that she and everyone else liked the plaque very much. I'm sure that Ryan would also have loved the garden that has been created in his memory.

Baileys Court primary school have a website, which you can see by clicking here

Tutoring, Brisfest and a giant scorpion near Pucklechurch village

A real mix of stuff going on last week. As well as continuing to work on the totem pole commission, I ran a one-to-one woodcarving tuition session for a client at my studio, with all tools and materials supplied. We covered creating a clay maquette to work from, through to roughing out the final carving.

Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to finish the carving in a day, but Francis told me that he felt the session had gone well and he'd learnt a lot about carving and thinking in three dimensions, which was what it was all about! It went well enough that I'm considering running more one-to-one tutorials at my studio in the future, if there is enough interest.

The next day, I loaded my bike trailer and headed out to run a day-long drop in workshop on a new section of cycle path near to the village of Pucklechurch. The day went really well and was organised by the brilliant Rachel Goodchild from Art Express (there is a link to their site here) . The sun was shining and quite a few people had the chance to try their hand at woodcarving, so that the carved board was finished by the end of the day. The plan is to use it as a backrest for a bench, which I will be carving soon. Watch this space!

The carved board shows a scene from a Carboniferous-period swamp, about 300 million years ago. There are coal seams in the area around Pucklechurch, which were formed from material laid down in ancient swamps like this. The animals living in these swamps included giant scorpions 70 cm (about 28 inches) long, giant dragonflies with 60 cm (2 foot) wingspans and Arthropleura, a huge ancestor of centipedes which grew to about 260 cm (8.5 feet) long! Some of these giants were shown in the scene that we carved...

From Pucklechurch, I headed over to 'Brisfest', a two-day music festival held in Ashton Court, Bristol. I'm a member of the Forest of Avon Wood Products cooperative, which promotes local, sustainable timber use. We had a stall at the festival and it was great fun spending time with other woodworking friends.
Sunday at the festival was pretty wet, as you can see from the rain streaks in the uppermost photo below. Even so, seeing De La Soul live made up for it!

Stoke Park 'Woodland Celebration' and totem pole carving

Last Sunday, I ran workshops in Stoke Park, Bristol carving pendants. This is the same park where we built fire pits and benches last month (see previous posts). Although it was the first day out for my new gazebo, the rain held off and everyone seemed to really enjoy making their pendants.

Apart from this, I'm still working hard on the totem pole commission. The pole has moved into the woodshed, so that I can work on it when it's raining as well.

I have also made a clay model for the portrait that is to go at the top of the pole. It's difficult to carve someone that you've never met, using only printouts of a few reference photos, but hopefully having the clay maquette will help me to get a reasonable likeness. Of course, the final face will have ears and a normal amount of hair - this model was important to understand how the parts of the face alone relate to each other.