Done!

Finally, as of 3pm today, the potatoes are done!!!! I arrived home to find a quick carving job for me to do for my kids......

I'm spending a long overdue day with my wife and children tomorrow and then finally Tuesday I'll be back to turning!!!

'TATERS (or potatoes if you're not from round here...)

No time for turning this last week or two!!! Its the annual potato harvest and I help the farmer who lives just up the road from me every year. My job is mostly sorting out the 'seed' potatoes to be planted next spring and involves me picking out all the 'manky' ones and throwing them in a big box..... Its tough manual labour but it is kind of nice as its the only work I do where I am not in charge and therefore have no responsibility if anything (or indeed everything) goes wrong!! This last week has been early starts and late finishes but things should be a little less intense in the coming week, hopefully allowing me to get a few little turning jobs I have out of the way.

Anyway in the absence of anything creative to share, here is a picture of me being silly towards the end of the day and laying among some 'taters in the hopper that the trailers tip into.

The Eternal Prisoner

'The Eternal Prisoner' is a sculptural piece I have been working on lately, it was going to be the fourth piece in the 'Dark' series but evolved from its original idea through sketches and subsequent thoughts on what it is trying to say and has therefore moved away from the original plan.

The 'prisoner' is represented by a decorated sphere inside a 'spherical skeletal' cage, there is no way out of the cage, that is the ball does not fit through any of the holes, no escape! The prisoner ball is representative of new ideas, new ways

of thinking,of living, freedoms, desires, new technologies and explorations(both physical{space} and psychological). There are several simplistic, subtle shapes and designs in the decoration of the ball, from eyes(which the prisoner looks out of the cage from) to wings(freedom) All these being stifled by the constrains of the world(the cage) these being outdated tradition, religion, tribal mentalities, greed and the self imposed financial world(it doesn't really exist, we invented it!) that tells mankind 'We can't afford to go further'. Through all this the prisoner looks out, wishing they could be free.

The carved ring is there as a symbol of eternity, the silver colour added to it and the other parts are to emphasise this, silver being a precious metal that does not rust away.

Bowl and Spoon 2

This is the second bowl and spoon set I have made and I think I will be doing a few more. For me the matching spoons add something to a bowl,( no, not just literally) making it a much more ornamental/artistic piece, rather than a simple receptacle for fruit or keys!

The decorative band on these has 5 bars with a pyrographed brickwork design on the middle 3. The band has actually been dyed blue but the yellow of the timber (Acacia) makes it appear green.

The bowl is 12" wide with a gentle inward sloping rim and the spoon 11" in length and is turned from a single piece of wood on two axis. The design on the spoon is identical to that of the bowl but is slightly bigger as making it the same width would not have looked right.

I have a few ideas for future sets involving mounting the spoons but that is something to be thought about more before making them.

Fiddling with patterns.

As the title suggests this piece was about making patterns or more specifically, patterns using circles around a hollow form. Some interesting ones can easily be made simply by overlapping circles in various ways and then filling in parts of the overlapping pattern, be that with colour, texture, piercing etc. This particular pattern occurs 3 times around the form, if it is turned 60 degrees the pattern is different as shown in the second pic. The overall effect is what seems to be 2 different patterns both occurring 3 times around the form but each being made from the other. I hope this gives a nice visual appeal as the decoration can be seen in 2 different ways.

The dark areas are filled with random dots burned in with a pyrography unit, the edges of the burned in areas are made purposefully imperfect to compliment the well worn looking patina to the finish to give that well worn and old look that I seem to be producing lately.

The whole form was dyed royal blue after the pyrography and a silver gilt cream rubbed over sparingly to give the metallic patina. The finial is aluminium and timber used Acacia.

Teapot no.2 'Magic Teapot'

Well when I made the last teapot I said I wasn't going to get into making them and here I go making another one!

This one is a slight revision of the firsts design, I wasn't happy with the spout on the first or the position of the handle. On this one the spout and handle leave the body of the teapot at the same place as each other(only on different sides!), which I feel gives the piece more balance. I have gone for a 'fatter bellied' pot as well, the sort of shape that I hope wouldn't be out of place

on an old ladies tea table!

I'm much happier with the shape of this one and the angle of the 'contemporary' handle sits at, this handle even feels good and stable when you hold it as if to pour.

The decoration is based on the common this time of year Psilocybe Semilanceata mushroom, there is one sprouting up from the lid(hence the slight upward reach of the lid) and more in a ring design around the top.

Six months on....

Well here we are, six months on from starting this blog. I began my writings here on March 12th 2011, four days after the birth of my lovely little daughter Daisy and my first post was a picture of her and myself grabbing 40 winks on the sofa! So it seems right to post another picture of her now marking a milestone in my blogging and her life. She is pictured here this time with her big brother, my son Dylan (2). As I took the picture he spotted a spider crawling up the wall he's pointing and exclaiming "There's a big spider Daddy! Put it outside."

I can't express what these two mean to me, I just can't put into words the feelings I get when little Daisy smiles at me or Dylan comes and gives me a kiss on the cheek out of the blue and says "I love you Daddy." All I can say is life with my own little family is so much more than it ever was before in my youth, when I thought I was having the best time going.......

Anyway here we are, I've enjoyed this first six months of my blog and am pleased that it has, as of ten o'clock this morning received 2175 pageviews, and attracted 15 followers(something I wasn't expecting!). I hope it remains interesting for you all to read in the coming months and as enjoyable for me to write.

Thanks all,

Johnny