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Tale of an Ash Tree
My work often comes from trees where I know some of the story behind the wood. None more so than one particular Ash tree. There are so many different threads of different stories that I see when I look at a piece from this tree. Once upon a time an Ash seed rooted itself in just the wrong place, on a river bank where there was almost no soil and under a cliff so there was almost no sun either. For a hundred and fifty years and more the Ash tree grew tall and thin as she stretched to reach more light, developing a buttress on one side to hold…
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Miniature chair
This miniature chair is made from Laburnum and commissioned by Cymdeithas Ceredigion to be given as a prize at their Eisteddfod. Deceptively simple but this chair was actually very tricky to make. The two sides had to match, the back had to be in proportion, the sapwood had to line up perfectly between them all and there could be no sapwood at the back of the seat or where the back and seat meet. I had sawn, planed and seasoned four to five times this amount of slices but these were the only four that would work together. They had been seasoning for a year as wood cut in this…
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Using the Way a Tree Grows in My Work
Using the way a tree grows enables me to get the most out of the wood I have. Some wood is reliable and reasonably predictable in its behaviour but some wood is “wild” and very unpredictable. Some wood turners prefer to just stick to the predictable. The wild wood can make a bowl warp – something I prefer to celebrate when it happens. It is exactly what I would mean by “using the way a tree grows in my work”. Or in other words “letting the wood have the last say”. The normal way for a tree to grow is evenly around the pith. This ash tree shows the way…
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Swimming With Seals
I couldn’t believe it when I ended up swimming with seals. Near me is a beautiful little cove. It is at least twenty minutes walk and since the path down the cliff at the end of that is very steep with hairpin bends it is usually deserted. At high tide it is just rocks but there is a small beach when the tide has gone out. There are old worn steps carved into the slate rock helping the descent. Who created them a long time ago? Smugglers, maybe? When I haven’t been working this year I have been busy in the garden so I haven’t been swimming once in the sea. 21st…