Turning

Wood turning, that is.

We are in the middle of our local 'Art Week' (more like two weeks!). This afternoon, we visited several exhibitions in peoples' homes.

Outside a workshop with displays of wood carving done by the young man in our photograph we found the craftsman himself. He is Jamie Carr, with his rustic treadle lathe. The woman wielding a very sharp tool is a customer (potential at this stage!) being shown how to turn a bowl from a lump of beech wood. Her 'help' was so successful that she did, indeed, purchase the product after it had been finished by Jamie. The lathe is driven by the string wrapped around the spindle, pulled down by a foot-tread, and returned by the overhead elastic seen here. You can see more of the finished products at links from Jamie's web page.

Another delight of this Saturday afternoon were the several 'cat plates' on show in yet another house, this time one displaying pottery by one artist and paintings by another. Here is another of the 'cat plates', with slightly different colouring.

Earlier in the week, Mme and I had been on Thursday to admire some wonderful glass, and sculptures in a lovely garden, made by an artist who lives just a few doors down the road from us. Then we walked another few hundred metres and visited a quite different group of artists who made pottery, jewellery, and one who produced very fine pictures of fruits and so on, done just with coloured pencils. On Friday, I took ViolaMaths to see both houses, and we spent a very enjoyable 40 minutes or so discussing his work with Vital Peeters, the 'artist in glass and stone'.

The quality of the work on display everywhere is very high, although very varied in type and style. There is a great deal of good craftsmanship and artistry around. But it has to be admitted that these Art Weeks also provide an opportunity to go and have a sniff round some of the very nice houses in which the artists make their homes.