Hawthorne

A selection of some of the many pictures taken today while out walking today, some lovely textures and forms to work with.

As above, Hawthorne.

Ornamental Cherry

Little Boxes

Box making is enjoyable but I tend not to get much time to make them. This one however is one I have recently finished, inspired by Far Eastern ceramics and architecture.

Black Bird

Pretty much each year we are blessed to have several species of birds nest in bushes just outside of the front window of our home.

This is a picture I managed to take of mother Black Bird sitting on her nest. There is another nearby as the sounds of little voices can be heard as the parents fly in and out, however the habitat being left alone is more important than me getting a picture, I was only able to take this one as I could just see into the bush and using a zoom without having to disturb anything. But the picture is not brilliant as I was just over a meter away and I am no David Bailey.

Such a wonderful time of year.

Recently finished pieces

Recently I was contacted by a mixed media gallery the owners had seen my 'Impermanence' series and other sculptural work and have asked me to supply them with nine pieces. The piece here is the first of these pieces, lots of work to do but and it is rewarding to have this type of work being sought after, especially as the gallery owners of 25yrs in the business to date have not included  turned wood until now, normally  accepting only ceramics, glass and fine art.

Spring is just around the corner. !!

Spring is late coming this year, today being the first day I have felt willing to go into the garden without wearing wooly hat or rain coat. The sun was shining the birds singing and I just put the kettle on, brewed a cuppa, grabbed my camera and chilled in the darden for half an hour.

Macro photography I find particularly interesting, the colours, textures and shapes of items we often just walk past are inspiring beyond imagination for use within my work.

These are a few I snapped, and while I will not be posting much wood turning as such, I thought I would share these.

Update

Not much to update you on!. This year has been extremely hectic so I have not had much time to blog, in fact I have little time to do  anything other than meet deadlines. Up early and  to bed early and if to bed by 0100 hrs and I have been doing well.  This has taken me away from making which is where my passion lies, this is fine as it is all part of being self employed but I have missed the enjoyment of creating.

In the main the projects I have been working on are coming to a close so I can concentrate on some sculptural pieces I had been meaning to start some four months gone as well as finish pieces sat on the shelf that have been neglected. So I am having a few days off and then will be disappearing into my workshop to lose myself in my sculptural work.

Slowly I am diverting away from what I have made before, not because I do not enjoy turning in the round, just that I have never been able to sit still and there is so much fun stuff to do, not to do it would be a waste. This new work will not take the place of, but be an addition to my other work.

The next event is Yandles Spring Show where I will be demonstrating for Crown Tools, this I enjoy very much as it is a busy but fun time.

Inspiration from Nature

   Here are a few macro pictures that I snapped lately. In no way do I class myself as a photographer with my obsession of photography having started with the want to record anything I find of interest, whether I think it can be used at a later stage or not in my work.

There is no doubt for me however that the perfection in nature is all we need to study to find  inspiration for my work. I guess I could study it for the rest of my life and only scratch the surface.

To date I have amassed just over 3000 pictures of texture, shape and colour, these I dip into for ideas. Sadly I never have enough time to produce the volume of work I would like as various projects have meant in the short term I have been taken away from my love of creative, but these are coming to a close, so hopefully by late spring I will be back on track making and putting into the solid some of the many ideas I have been working on in my sketch book.

Web Site Update

Recently I have been upgrading my web site to go along with my new work, which as previously mentioned is a long way off, but hey I can't rush things or life gets too serious and all the fun is taken out of it.

Over my time involved in turning I have gone through many transitions.  I have met many many amazingly creative friends who have helped me develop,  as well as having been invited to many wonderful locations around the world to demonstrate and partake in creative projects. I am very privileged to have met and shared with these people and have come to realize that we are all on the same path, the same journey of exploration, soul searching for expression through our work.

More and more my mind has been moving away from turning as a way to express myself and more towards sculptural work. This is just another transition that will take some time for me to navigate but one that I do not see changing.

The more I delve into what others see as diverse work, work that is not produce purely on the lathe or in the round, the more resistance is projected by some as to what is expected of me, my work and that of other makers who choose a more diverse route.

This is of course a natural response as the unfamiliar for all of use is met with suspicion. A friend once told me that choosing a different path to the normal is one that is often walked alone. However this for me is not a negative, and I see that all the chatter going on around only constrains the senses from the beauty that is in front of us.

So I am looking forward to a new path of which I know will take some forceful determination from myself to cut certain ties and expectations that I and others have of me, all things of course are in a continual state of transition, either coming from or going to, this is after all for me what makes it so exciting.

Finished

Here is the finished piece.

An idea I have been trying out for a while and this is the first decent one I have made.  Composition and simplicity are current themes that interest me and this is the result of my thoughts.

Where is all the time going

Since my last entry I have been trying to catch up on various projects which are taking much more of my time than anticipated. This should not be a surprise I guess, as anything I do seems always to need twice the time I set aside of it. Partly due to the way I work as if I am not enjoying something and the bills are paid then I just stop, not conducive to being organised but then I find being organised often too structured and tiresome, life is too interesting to rush around on a treadmill.

The sculptures that I am making are only just being starting and will be some time, the added time thinking about them has however resolved some technical issues that I was unsure of. In the mean time I am delving into other ideas to give myself some release from being sat at the computer.

The more I have become involved in  turning the less turning I seem to do, other than teaching and demonstration, still it pays the bills, I enjoy it and it gets me out and about.

Things will settle down.

The picture here is a snippet, with a twist, of a group of pieces I have been developing.