Desa Ukiran Kayu and Tunjang Bakawali

Malaysia is known for a tradition of woodwork & wood carving, and a trip to the Far East would not be complete without a visit to the home grown industries in my country of origin. In between the whirlwind of wedding festivities, we've managed to visit a furniture retailer, the workshop of a local designer maker, a carving school (Desa Ukiran Kayu) and the workshop of a well-known local craftsman (Tunjang Bakawali).

The grounds of the carving school were replete with examples of the craft practiced here - and they were even kind enough to let me try a hand at the fret saw! It was interesting to see the different tools used here, eg the carving chisels, and to take note of the ones which were the same. In our brief tour, we discussed the use of different local woods (meranti, merbau, balau, chengal etc) & their different properties - did you know that chengal is very seldom exported because it warps & shrinks easily if the humidity decreases? Well now you do!

Carvings along the outside of the Desa Ukiran Kayu building

The building itself is a great testiment to the craft being taught at Desa Ukiran Kayu

A selection of local carving chisels (or "pahat" in Malay)

The students hard at work at Desa Ukiran Kayu

The carving school has its very own George the cat, not unlike Chippendale

A look of intense concentration

I also loved our visit to Tunjang Bakawali. The craftsmen there were super friendly, and kindly took the time out from their busy schedules to take us around their workshop & show us their craft. Interestingly, whilst they used some modern equipment (eg routers, jig saws), they've also customized a lot of it because it's not up to the intricate standards required for their work.

Local craftsman at work

The workshop at Tunjang Bakawali

Imagine trying to rout that!

Hubby adding scale to a piece

On a more exciting note (for me anyway), the hubby and I (yes, Hubby!) have been bashing our heads together and thinking about setting up shop collaboratively once we're done with our wee jaunt. It's going to be an interesting time once we come up with a new concept - change is in the air, so watch this space (or a different iteration of it) for more news in the offing!
Ta,

Mae & John

Asian adventure.

Greetings from the Far East - its been a while since I last wrote, and I have been keeping myself busy. Now that I find myself back in the lands of my home, where the sun shines and food is plentiful and oh-so-very tasty, I'm taking the opportunity to take a look around with a different set of eyes (so to speak), the eyes of a craftsperson seeking inspiration. 

These lands are beautiful, not just because of the landscapes that make them, but also because of the people and the cultures that populate them. The mouth-watering food instantly springs to mind, but more importantly, from a designer-maker’s perspective, there is a very strong tradition of quality woodworking (particularly carving) that is unique and beautiful in its simplicity. Especially when one considers that these things are often created whilst using quite limited tools.

Take my most recent trip to Myanmar - I've come back with several new projects in mind, and a few accessories to complement them to boot. I've previously mentioned how much I love dark wood having grown up in Asia, and it really is a joy being surrounded by it again. Most of the craft pieces in Myanmar seem to be made of teak, with a bit of bamboo thrown in, and I was lucky enough to see some of these mighty giants of the forest dotted around the place (being a woodworker though, all I could see was planks of beautiful wood!). I could witter on, but I guess a picture (or two) is worth a thousand words…

The mighty teak tree with its distinctive large leaves.

Carvings in the traditional fashion, often featuring lotus flowers/leaves as a motif.

More traditional carvings.

Limestone carvings using very similar techniques.

Rattan weaves used for furniture and housing.

A clever little carved cover to hide unsightly switches and sockets.

Background: Bamboo carvings (calendar), Foreground: Wee trinkets inspiring me to build a display box to show them off!

Brass door knockers which will make superb handles for a chest or perhaps some bedside cabinets or even a side table.

Have break, have a kit kat.

Its been three weeks since the course ended and I've been spending my time as a fully fledged wood worker finishing up the commission I got at the Exhibition and the bedside cabinet project. Its been a weird transformation from student to designer maker. The Monday after term ended, it was right back into the workshop to commence work on a myriad of projects, except this time we're expected to know all the answers and fix all our problems ourselves. Scary.

Completed bedside cabinet

A peek inside

Making a second copy of Tron hasn't been easy. The good thing about making something twice is you get to avoid any mistakes from the first time around and make little improvements to the design and process, making the process a lot more efficient. Which, if you are going to do this for a living, makes up for the fact that its a lot less exciting. Sadly, things haven't gone that well on Tron 2 and its ended up taking just as long, with more problems than the first one! When making a project, you bring to bear all your skill, knowledge and experience to try and avoid as many pitfalls as you can, hopefully resulting in a beautiful finished piece. But sometimes, despite your best efforts, wood just doesn't quite behave the way it should (defying all logic and sense!). Frustrating, but perhaps this is what makes it all the more rewarding when it does come together.

Tron 2 looking exactly like...Tron 1

I also haven't forgotten about the little space invader project I was toying with pre-Exhibition. I'm pleased to say these cute hand-made wall cabinets are now all done, in collaboration with the awesome and talented John Nicolson (https://www.facebook.com/jnfurniture), and are available to purchase (enquire within).

We come in peace

Cute and useful

Close up

I've now come to the end (really) of my time here in Scotland. Its difficult to talk (and think) about going out and facing the big blue yonder, so I'm going to leave you with a parting video which shows briefly how I've spent the last 9 months. Its been incredible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC--uaCbzYg&list=UU0SutKo7TsU9zETaqxhECUQ
See you all on the other side.

Graduation.

Well it looks like we've come to an end of a busy and exciting chapter and are just about to embark on a new one. This week, we graduated, had our first exhibition and sold some pieces. It was tiring but exhilarating all in one. Especially when a total stranger (not a friend or family member!) decides to part with some cold hard cash because they like what you've made. Its a nice little validation of the time spent in the last year, especially if you're John and everything sells out.

My little space at the Exhibition

I didn't do too badly out of it myself, having managed to sell some pieces and score a commission which will keep me busy over the next couple of weeks to boot. Especially since I seemed to have spent most of my time at the Exhibition accosted by lots of nice old biddies who wanted to reminisce about their time growing up in Malaya!

So long buddies...

I'm not usually one for the soppy stuff but I've met some really lovely and interesting people over the last year, and will miss everyone when we've all packed up and left. I would certainly be remiss if I didn't shout out a big thank you to the tutors (especially Sandy) - who'd have thunk I'd get this far in a year? Not without lots of help certainly!

I think I'm going to take a wee break now whilst I work out the next phase. In the meantime, here's a spanking new website courtesy of the lovely Peter Roberts:
www.madebymae.com

Watch this space!

Tim Stead.

Last Friday we went on a visit to the late (and some say, great) Tim Stead's workshop and home. Now unless you are a woodworker, I would presume you are unlikely to have heard of him before now. I certainly had no idea who he was before this year, and he doesn't even have a wikipedia entry. Described as a wood artist and sculptor, he is famous for a signature style which involves lots of burr (mostly elm), waney edges and chunky arts & crafts style furniture. One of his more famous works is the Millenium Clock (in collaboration with Edouard Bersudsky, Annica Sandström and Jurgen Tübbecke), currently exhibited at the Royal Museum in Edinburgh. Whether you're a fan of his or not, he is certainly a man who had vision, and built his entire home in the same signature style.

The best description that I've heard to sum it all up is that he had a terrible attack of "wooditis" when he was working on it. Its not what I would subscribe to myself (it reminds me of Frankenstein meets Transylvania), but there were a couple of pieces here and there that I did like and it certainly made for an interesting visit.

Tim's living room (picture courtesy of http://www.timsteadfurniture.co.uk)

Waney-edged burr elm used as the top of a bed canopy

 Signature Tim Stead chairs

Now, seeing as to how I will be staying on in the workshop for another month, I've come to that stage in the creative process where I need to come up with a couple more designs, or at least know what I'm going to make next. I've been toying with the idea of making some space invader bedside cabinets/shelves - if anyone is interested in commissioning/sponsoring these or any other piece of furniture, please do get in touch!
Ta

Catch-up.

A signature inflection

A multitude of woods

This week is catch-up week, which means time to catch up on unfinished projects and/or start new ones  of course! There is some scrambling in the workshop as exhibition draws near and people try to finish a myriad of pieces in time for the exhibition. But the burst of good weather has also tempered the frenetic activity as we all try to make the most of the 5 days of sunshine we will have this summer.

Now in the course of the last 8 months of so, I've managed to squirrel away lots of little bits of wood under my desk - bits too pretty to throw away or rescued from the off-cuts bin. I've made a couple of wee chopping boards out of these, but there are really only so many of those that one household needs, and I've been struggling for some time to think of a good use to put them to. A while back, I toyed with making an entire piece out of off-cuts, but this got lost somewhere along the way. This week though, Sandy and Ewan very handily reminded me of the potential of these pretty pieces of wood, and since I had a spare table frame lying about, well the story just about writes itself. With the application of many clamps, some glue and lots of sanding - viola, a pretty little side table was born.

I've also decided to embark on a new project this week - building some bedside cabinets for my sister for her birthday. By the time I finish the course, I suspect her lovely house will be operating as a gallery/show room for my work!

One final update for this week - the secret project has been completed and unveiled to the intended recipient. Patrick, my first client proper, was well pleased with the end result, which makes me feel super chuffed! I am even more pleased that this piece that I have built with my own hands is going to a good home and one I get to visit from time to time too!

Tron enjoying the sunshine

Tron, the mighty robot

Alfred.

We had the lovely Tom Thackray and his son-in-law Steve in this week, teaching us the traditional craft of windsor chair making and I must say that I've thoroughly enjoyed the week. We've gone back to the traditional methods with nary a machine in sight (unless you count the lathe), using some basic but useful hand tools - from wooden spokeshaves to giant pencil sharpeners (or rotary planes to those in the know). Working in groups of three, our Alfred has turned out a sprightly little fellow (despite Jonathan's best attempts to the contrary :p), even if we do say so ourselves.

Tom and Steve run classes on windsor chair making in their workshop in Nottinghamshire, so if you ever fancy having a go at this yourselves, I would thoroughly recommend it!
http://www.tomthackray.co.uk/

Shaping the seat using a wooden travisher. Hamish photo-bombing (again)

In the making I've learnt how to fit a square peg in a round hole

Our wee Alfred, all grown up

For those of you who are curious as to how my restoration project turned out, here are some pictures of the finished piece (see last week's instalment for a picture of what the board originally looked like, with a large crack running through the middle). This has probably been the most fun project I've embarked on since the start of the course, and certainly the quickest and least distressing. In the making I've discovered that I enjoy and am pretty good at pigment/colour work, which is a bonus as everything else doesn't really seem to come naturally!

My dinky little table in all its glory

A close-up of the restored crack

Restored board - I had lots of fun painting in the little cracks and holes 

On a more somber note, someone at the workshop had an accident last week, which was quite scary and sad. I guess it serves as  a reminder to always have a healthy respect for the machines. All it takes is a momentary lapse of concentration or over-confidence, and its bad news all around.

New Projects.

Its been a nice rejuvenating long weekend with a jaunt to the Borders and a Eurovision party. Even better, I've come back with bits for new projects.

First up is this cute little board found in a shop in Peebles. It was quite a fortuitous find, and just in time for restoration week (although the tutor has sniffed at my unconventional take on restoration). Requiring some minor restoration (patching up a hole in the lower right corner and small holes left by random nails), I've decided that I'm going to make it into a small side table. Bish bash bosh - bang on some legs and a frame and hopefully it will make a dinky little table.

Cute board found in shop

Minor restoration in progress

I've also found some little ceramic tiles which I'd like to embed in some new furniture. Made by a local ceramic artist down in the Borders, I couldn't resist purchasing them. I'm still undecided as to what I'm going to use them for (maybe handles or just a random highlight), but I'm sure whatever it is will be fun!

All spotty!

On top of all this general busy-ness, our wee Jonathan has been busy setting things on fire in the workshop. Someone really should start reigning him in!

I have no explanation for this. I don't think anyone does.

Half term. Again.

So here are the shiny things all done and dusted - not quite as shiny as Ewan's, but still shiny. Gilding has proved much trickier than first anticipated - too little water and the gold leaf doesn't stick too well, but too much water and it leaves water stains on the piece. Goldilocks syndrome aside, the burnishing bit (ie the bit where you make it go even shinier) has been, for me, the trickiest part. Every time I try to rub it harder to achieve the desired effect, I end up ripping off bits of gold leaf by accident.

Hamish looking a little dorky

Finished distressed verre eglomise panel

Another month gone, and we're up to the half term break. Everyone seems to be getting a bit more serious now that yet another month has flown by (school's almost out, yikes!). People are starting to prepare for life after school (boo to having to go back to the real world), with business plans, websites and business cards all in the offing, wood being stockpiled, machines and tools bought, etc. Me? So far I've finished my portfolio and managed to put some of my pictures up on flicker  (http://www.flickr.com/photos/madebymae/). Guess you've got to start somewhere.

The secret project is making some progress, although at a slower pace than anticipated. I thought it would be much quicker building something with no blasted curves in it, but sadly not. Can't seem to get away from the routing though. Now that I'm pretty much in the middle of this project, I'm starting to think about the next one and wondering what I can make - any suggestions would be appreciated!

All that glitters is gold.

The start and the end of any woodworking project are to me, probably the most tedious and boring parts. Unsurprisingly, they are also probably the most important. The start, after the initial euphoria of designing, involves an awful lot of planing, sanding, gluing up panels, more sanding and cutting panels of wood to size. After a week (or two or three) of it, the process just seems interminable and slightly soul destroying. Yet, if not done properly, you'll have pieces of wood which aren't flat or square and which warp, with the grain going in every which direction.

There is a pretty fun (if a little stressful) bit in the middle which involves putting things together and seeing things take shape, then you go back to a life of dreariness which involves sanding and scraping, finishing, sanding, finishing, sanding, finishing, etc. If you do this right, you get a shiny, gleaming piece of furniture at the end of it - extremely tactile and strokable, just inviting you to run your hands all over it. Do this wrong, and you'll see pencil marks, splotches, orbital sander marks, router burns, raised grain and all manner of other unsightly things marring the finished product.

So what's brought on this bout of musings? Well, at the moment I'm working on a kind-of secret project which involves a heck of a lot of planing and sanding. I am hoping to finish it by the end of term and bequeath it on the rightful recipient, who is going to be quite surprised and I hope, pleased with the end result, although its had a bit of a round-a-bout way in the making. You'd think writing about it would defeat the super secret element, but I'm banking on the fact that no one really reads these things anyway.

In terms of course work, we've moved on to gilding this week. The initial application of rabbit skin glue (not as smelly as vaunted) and gesso is messy but fun - you kind of slap it on (as evenly as possible) in as messy a fashion as possible. Next though comes the not-so-fun bit, hours of sanding. Yes, more sanding, and possible more tedious than normal sanding as every time you try to get that final bit to make it perfectly smooth, you end up sanding through to the wood and having to slap on more of the gooey stuff and start all over again. After that you bang on some colourful clays, and hey presto, you're good to coat everything in gold leaf. I've found the laying of the leaf the most enjoyable bit. You tend not to breathe during the entire process, as a last minute exhale at the wrong moment will cause the entire leaf to fold, crinkle and float away, but other than that its a delicate fun little exercise.

A selection of tools required for the verre eglomise technique of gilding the back of glass panels to create a mirror

My lion after 100 layers of gesso (and much sanding), base yellow bole/clay and top coat bole/clay coats.

An action shot of gilding in progress

Carving.

Carving out a lion's head

Week 2 of carving and Charlie Oldham, the visiting tutor, has imparted some little gems of wisdom which I thought I would share:

1) The best woods to carve are jelutong and lime.

2) Never undercut until the last possible moment.

3) Eyes are a weird one to carve as they look like they are staring at you the entire time. Concentrate on the area around the eyes (the negative spaces), rather than the eye itself.

4) If you've cut away too much on a particular bit by accident, you may still be able to salvage the piece by flattening/lowering the other bits.

5) Perspex is quite helpful in trying to trace out a 3D image.

Finished carvings in various styles

I've finished with the routing experiment and sadly have to report that FEAR is back and doesn't appear to be going away any time soon. All I need to do is pick up a piece for routing before I start sweating profusely. On the plus side, I've finished my clothes horse and my carved mirror. The only question now is whether or not I gild the trees for my mirror?

Yes, that is spring you see in the background

These don't really look like cacti do they?

Hand-carved mirror frame

Up close - am also thinking about adding a sycamore mitre key as a feature (and for added strength)

It gets really busy in the workshop most days and there's always a nice background rattle and hum of work in progress (unless Ben's on the planer in which case it sounds more like a jumbo jet taking off in your back yard). The thing I like the most though is that there are usually several different conversations going off at any one time, and its quite easy to float in and out of any one of them, which is a nice way of breaking up the day. A hot topic of conversation this week has been a much neglected one in recent weeks, namely our Jonathan. We've had a busy week of trying him out in (on?) more furniture to a variety of results.

A piece of Jonathan proportions

Definitely not a Jonathan

You won't quite believe what you can do with a Jonathan until you see it for yourself