“A man who works with his hands is a labourer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”
About the urban turner
Having no 'official' training in the arts, woodwork, carpentry, or even having any great skill with a felt tip or a pencil beyond 'being able to stay in the lines', I can confess that I have been a 30 year closet Maker. By that I don't mean I make closets, I mean I have, for one reason or another, shunned and repressed my impulse to build, to make, to design and to create, for almost 40 years.
After burning at me from the inside for such a period of time, it eventually emerged in the form of woodturning. Taking a nascent block of wood or branch, bracing it to a machine that spins it at 1000rpm, and letting the chisels find their path through the grain, the knots and the nicks, to deliver a new life to a dying element through form or function (sometimes even both) is an exercise I find both therapeutic and energising, and one I indulge as often as possible.
