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My long awaited return

21/11/2019

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Literally re-turning unfinished pieces ready for another Designers and Makers Market at the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate this December 14 and 15th.
This piece has a cheeky smile, like a model at a fashion show, showing off her hat!
Turned several years ago from a very green piece of field maple, stored in the rain after felling the tree in our back garden. After a couple of years, I discovered some interesting discolouration was occurring, so I took it to the lathe. It was still quite wet and liable to warping or splitting so I put it aside until last week.
The ‘hat’ is bubinga with an ebano support, it’s a kind of cheeky design leaving the form precarious and unbalanced. It must be leaning, close to falling and the spalted patterning suggests faces and expressions almost recognisably human. The hat can be turned, and the head tilted into numerous postures.


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November 25th, 2017

25/11/2017

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At the Turner gallery

Showing work at the Turner Contemporary?

Well I am delighted to say that receiving such recognition is a great boost to the creative mind!

In commemoration I have invested in card payment equipment and associated professional presentation paraphernalia.

At the same time, I am once again faced with the usual dilemma of how much to charge for my work? At previous exhibitions (all three of them) I have received contradicting remarks about my prices. Some say I am asking too much, and others say I am not asking enough. So now I have concluded that if somebody doesn’t want to pay the asking price I can assume they don’t want it that much. This makes it easier to relinquish my favourite pieces of work, trusting that they will be treated with suitable respect and reverence!

There is no doubt that I am feeling a little anxious as well as a good deal of excitement about displaying and maybe selling my work amongst such a fine group of designers and crafts persons.

Those of you who are intending to come to the Turner next weekend will also have the chance to buy a signed copy of my book.

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when material defines the form

25/10/2017

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I often ask myself, when does an experiment become a work of art?
In the eye of the beholder I guess.
There is a growing collection of wood in my yard, from logs to branches, complete root balls excavated by a generous friend, interesting finds from specialist stockists, driftwood off the beach and salvaged furniture parts.
Settling in my world from all parts of the world.
Here are two pieces which have inadvertently become one. My dear brother with an exceptional eye for grouping objects beautifully, took these pictures for me in my studio.
Both pieces are based from a burl from a kind of Australian gum tree. One cups a relic held high, balancing delicately on a driftwood branch as if left there by the tide. The other revolves around like a moon, or circumambulates as a pilgrim might around the remains of their master.
The spiralling and complex grain of the burls with a startlingly contrasting bark have patterns like exploding stars. And very hard and heavy to handle!
I guess I should come up with a title for the composition… but not yet.
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The Reliquary

11/6/2015

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Being part of the Thai Forest Tradition of Buddhism for such a long time it is only natural that certain aspects of the culture rub off onto one’s character after a while.

On nearly every temple shrine, and most shrines at people’s homes you would find a Buddha ‘rupa’ or image, flowers, candles, incense and a collection of personal spiritual memorabilia like a photo of a teacher and precious remains or relics.

The Buddha gave permission for the fragments of bone and ashes from his funeral pyre to be enshrined in stupas. These became focus points where devotees could offer respects and gratitude to their teacher who had passed away. Nowadays we see a vast array of relics enshrined in reliquaries of numerous shapes and sizes from vast mountainous structures in India, Tibet and all parts of South East Asia to tiny glass vessels high on a shrine shelf in a devotee’s home.

There is something very touching about preserving some element of a loved one or respected teacher in an elevated place, a venerated position in the home or temple as well as in the heart and mind. I know from my own experience how important it is to recollect my blessings and especially those beings that have helped me.

To take something that may be quite small, then pace it in an honorable position, safely and with reverence is the purpose of the reliquary. You might even keep your mother’s wedding ring in one alongside her photo? Some enshrine a lock of hair or a small stone from a memorable place spent together. Then on special days, anniversaries or as part of a daily practice we can offer incense, flowers or anything that helps to cement the feelings of gratitude and love for that person.

Many of my designs have an organic expression as they follow the contours of the wood and look wonderful next to flower arrangements.



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Exploring Wood

2/3/2015

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From an early age I have always been fascinated by the colours and textures of many objects made from wood. As a professional model maker the more abstract block models of high tech buildings made in boxwood were far more satisfying than ones finished to look like steel and concrete.

Every tree has its history etched in layers. Each year a new season of growth and stasis leaves a discernible band of colour and texture in the fibres of every branch.  The swelling trunk with its grain reaching upwards enveloping branches as they reach out to the side, leaving ‘knots’ in a plank sawn from the tree.

Recently I have been exploring chunks of felled apple trees form a nearby orchard. Regularly pruned they are full of scars, tortured and contorted sometimes diseased the wood is full of interesting features.

Living as a forest monk in many parts of the world I was often captivated by the characters of so many different trees in their varied environments. I was reflecting on life in a jungle with each branch competing for light, or roots clinging to rocks for stability. Strangling and smothering each other, spreading seedlings in their thousands trusting that one will survive. They are also homes for in numerous creatures that nest in crevices or bore into fibres and leave their marks.

 In Thailand I lived in forest huts with beautifully polished teak floors, in England huts with cedar shingle roofs and plywood walls.

In my wooden creations I like to use contrasting colours and grains. Most designs are principally dictated by the shapes and forms as they are revealed to me during the carving or turning process.  Sometimes a bowl turns into a hollow form as interesting features appear within. I have several pieces half finished, allowing the material to season and dry in stages or sometimes because the form hasn’t gone in any way close to the way I expected and I need to give the piece more time to form itself in my mind.

This wood working hobby is rapidly becoming a passionately artistic love affair that gives me the opportunity to absorb into a different realm of obscure contours, colours smells and textures and loose myself for a while in sheer delights.



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    Work
      Love made visible

    When meditation and mindfulness find love and beauty in many forms, it is necessary to express and celebrate the wonders of it all!
    Tim Price
    Contemplating the wonder of wood.

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