steam-bending

UK Crafts Council Maker of the Month, September 2019

Angus was interviewed by Frannie Glass and in her article she describes his journey to become a leading designer maker.

Here are some extracts:

Angus’s practice consists of three fundamental pillars: design, craftsmanship and wood.

From industrial pharmaceutical design to a cabinet making course to working directly from a sustainable, co-owned Scottish woodland, these pillars developed alongside his career while nurturing his value system along the way.

….. Angus had taken a sabbatical and gone to Kenya to help build schools in the outback: “I’d got a slight realisation about how little you need to live on…. When I came back, I always had in the back of my mind – we’re generating this huge volume of plastic and where is it going? I started to think, this isn’t really what I want to do… I want to develop my own work that will be, in a lot of ways, more sustainable. And that’s when I started looking at wood”.

…. “A lot of the trees … are around 100-120 years old, while the root systems underneath are probably about 200-300 years old”.  … “gnarled and old, coming out at different angles, pippy and knotty”

Now Angus embraces the eccentricities of wood that he may well have rejected in the early years of his practice: “I want to make it work,” he says, and he most certainly does.

Read the full article Angus Ross on Skill, Sustainability and Steam-bending on the Crafts Council website here.

 

 

 

 

Our studio-workshop is open during Perthshire Open Studios. Everyone is very welcome so do please drop in if you can.

We are open 9 – 5 every day.

We were founded members of Perthshire Open Studios and this is the ninth year of the event. There are many wonderful artists and makers in our local area.  The image shows our oak woodland within the wider setting of Upper Tay valley with its conifer plantations.  We have various pieces of furniture for sale made in this lovely dark brown oak.

Visit the Perthshire Open Studios website for lists of artists, routes and maps.

Hope to see you soon.

Country Living magazine, May 2019

Last year we had a wonderful photographer, Nato Welton, visit our bluebell wood during bluebell time. In Scotland this is usually late May/early June so it is a long time since his visit, and bluebell time still feels a long way off. However if you would like bluebells, workshops and country living please read the article by Kate Langrish in the magazine – on sale now.

Many thanks to photographer Nato Welton and Country Living for allowing us to share the images.

Please note that we are not “open at weekends” as stated in the article, but only by appointment.

We will be having a Workshop and Woodland Open Day on the 25th May. The workshop will be open to all, but the numbers for the woodland tour will be limited. I will set up an Eventbrite booking system soon, but do please email if you would like to reserve a place.

Old Castle Wood is a few miles downstream from the workshop and co-operatively owned by five families. We get together for work days and holidays, and lightly manage the wood to improve timber, bio-diversity and access for others. The wood is open to those who walk, cycle or paddle in.

To read the article please click the link below.