New piece

Always difficult to start working again after a long period of inactivity. Going back to my roots to begin another journey.

Time to focus

An opportunity has presented itself recently. It has provided me with the opportunity and motivation to produce some new work after a long break.

New ideas, materials and a couple of new pieces of equipment will  help to take me in a new direction and provides the impetus to start being creative again.

I have a short timescale to submit the work and a holiday in between. Helps to stimulate focus when there is a definite deadline. 

New supplies

Some possible shapes to work on - maybe

About 5 years ago I was helping  two UK turners to make the transition from traditional woodturning to  working with ideas and reference.

Unfortunately, the relationship soured for a variety of reasons and I was subjected to some vociferous online abuse over time. Apt expressions of their intellectual ability and insecurity, I guess.

During the mentoring process I agreed to do some collaborative work and the pieces below were submitted for me to work on, one piece from each turner. I never did anything with them, not wishing to share any more with the turners concerned.

I could rework them as completed hollow forms but I thought it might be an interesting and cathartic exercise to rework  and recycle parts of these two pieces as the beginning of a new body of work around the theme of artification. 

Working with ideas - moving on

It is now some time since I was able to play in my workshop. To get back into the swing of things I have decided to go backwards in order to move on. It is easier to start work again using something old than to pressure oneself with fresh ideas.

This is a piece I made as an experiment, a couple of years back, with what was then a new routing setup which has since been disassembled. Happy with the individual parts, I was not happy with the overall result so I am revisiting the project.

I stained the whole piece black to aid reassessing the form before making any decisions.

I find the extreme contrast between the two decorative elements to be visually displeasing. 

I have decided to split the piece into two separate parts and work on them individually. My first reaction to the top was that it might make a 'deco' style clock face so as a bit of fun I have decided to pursue that idea.

The bowl section will be worked up, probably, to a more sculptural end result.

Below I have included the original bowl form and the first stages in the revision of ideas. 

The composite pic below shows various router setups I have available for shaping, pattern making and texturing.

I am currently revising and replacing some of these with alternative methods to experiment with that are more suited to 3D forms.

Celebration time

Yesterday was a special day for Chris, my wife, and myself. Thirty sessions of radiotherapy, over a six week period to deal with a tumour in her head, came to an end. The outcome should prevent further growth and also stop the threat of her going blind. She has accumulated double vision, hearing loss and cognitive decline amongst other problems, caused by the tumour.

Love, support from family and friends combined with a sense of humour have been key factors in keeping her going with a positive outlook. We also have the joy of two new grandsons, one born and one to come shortly, to help carry us through the short and long term consequences of her condition.

A souvenir of the process was bring away the mask that was used to clamp her head in position for treatments. I am hoping to be able to incorporate imagery and the mask into some form of artwork.

Much of the knowledge gained from experimenting with technology in my work has helped to deal with some of the issues that a have arisen. The use of video and tracking systems help to keep her safe and allow me the opportunity to still have some limited time in the workshop.

I hope to be able to get back to some form of creative output soon.

Traces

One recent post mentioned some difficulties my wife is having. She has had two sets of MRI scans done and I asked for copies.

Over time my consistent source of ideas has been investigating 'Trace' as a theme. Below you will see a couple of  images I have reconstructed from MRI slices using a couple of software programmes.

Some of the images have sections/models that I will be using in future sculptural work.

How much is enough?

My son has just had a large sycamore felled. I can have as much as I like. Should keep me going for a while!