Interview to the artist by Rachelle Gryn Brettler, from our Anniversary Book
If I want to make a land jar, a big offering bowl or crucible, I know roughly the piece of wood that I need to achieve that. If I want to work on something that has real scale, I approximately know how big the piece of wood needs to be, but there is always a sense of discovery and chance and that revealing happens every single time you put something on the lathe. I have a series of land jars, all from an English walnut tree.They are similar in size, they are all talking the same language, but they are all slightly different. They have moved, warped and shifted in very subtly different ways. It is lovely to have that sense of unpredictability that goes on even when you are working on making a series.
Different elements — grain patterns, flaws, knots and things within each different piece of wood — have their own unique characters. That discovery is what is exciting because you get all those subtle differences within the material.
Here in Somerset there is a local tree surgeon who has become one of my main sources of timber, and I enjoy working in a way with like-minded people who are not necessarily making things but who see the value in it. He has a big team and they deal with massive trees, and this opens up an exciting mode of working as I am now getting access to material in a way that I have never had before. It has opened up a potential for pieces, not just for turning vessels, but also working more sculpturally because of the sheer size of wood that I am now getting access to. It has changed the way I have been able to work and think about the work I want to make.
I will always accept if somebody offers me some wonderful ash or oak. However, it is often a classic issue of eyes bigger than your belly as there is only so much time and only so much physical work I can produce. It is time critical because wood is a living material. It moves and carries on doing its own thing even before I have touched it. Sometimes that is fine if something moves and it splits and cracks and I can work around that, but sometimes there may be intense periods of working where I cannot leave the workshop, I cannot step away from the lathe.To get where I want it to be, once I walk in and I know the end goal, I just have to keep going until I reach it.
For a larger piece, it is probably two or three days of physical work, but actually that is spread out over months because of the drying time.There is an explosion of energy and you have to react quickly and it is quite fast paced.Then you have this drawn out period of time whilst things have to dry. But whilst drying you get this lovely sense of what they are going to be and how they can be displayed.
A lot of what I do is fun... when burning the wood, it feels quite primitive — being in contact with the materials as well as fire and water. Much of my process, the way I work, is very physical and I love all that physical exertion.
As a child I used to make bows and arrows, swords, shields and dens. I have always loved putting things together, carving, and working with my hands, restoring old tools, axe heads. I have essentially carried on with this into adulthood and now I have more of an understanding of why I love those things and how they can be applied.