Jamie Hubbard Creative Woodwork

So, this ones about me..

A new business, My first 'proper' workshop..



Sue Parry stopped by a couple of weeks ago and asked if she could commission a photo frame.

"The only thing is" she says "I need to take it to LA next Wednesday"

Out comes a blank sheet of paper and we're off...designing the frame that's going to be flying through the sky over the pond, before the finish has had plenty of time to cure...

Sue and I are going through all sorts of ideas.. then "I'll be back in a minute."

In she walks with her laptop, on Flickr going through some photos of the furniture and home of the person who will be receiving the frame... brilliant, this really tells me a lot about this guy, what he likes and dislikes...

So back to the drawing board, and it's then I say," why don't I just make it like the inside of my cabinet door, I think that would suit.."

And so it started, I kept doing ten minutes here and there, until I got to the final part when I stuck with it until it was finished.

So here's the Sycamore, Maple & Ebony Cabinet.

This cabinet won the Bronze Medal at Sandown Park WoodWorker Show in 1992

this is the inside of the door shape..

love the angles

Here's the lock mechanism and the corner 'key' is in Ebony,

this adds strength and support to the corner joints

Back to the drawing board, within minutes we've sorted the design, and now we're onto the sizing.

Out comes the cardboard, I cut up the card to the size of the photo, and start drawing around it until Sue's happy. "There we go, done".

Not quite, the Maple is only at 14% moisture. So I rough cut the Maple and took it home for a couple of days. Sitting on top of the wardrobe, then after each time I worked it, it was back home in the warmth easily down to 8-9 % before it was jointed.

This is the mock up on the wall..

Patterns and Maple cut...

The inside edges were cleaned up before assembly,

and the outside were done after the frame was dry...

Here's one joint from behind..after the 5 coats of Danish Oil were dry.

It really started moving along now, I fitted the Ebony keys, rebated the back to take the glass, fitted some mount board to the photograph and some board for the back. Note the use of the kidney plates to hold all of the parts into the rebate. I like to use a hole for the method of hanging, that way the frame will sit tight against a wall, and I stamped the back panel with my JH metal stamp.

But..before I fitted the back panel..

I placed one of my cards, dated and signed behind the back.

I gave Sue a nail and another card, folded in one of my tea stained recycled paper envelopes..

(it's something I do.. intentionally of course)

..Finished

Showing the side and corners..

Done...Sue was over the moon with it..

I hope it has a good life in Los Angeles..

All the best

Jamie

Comments welcome...

Just sorted out an issue that I wasn't aware of..

After the last posting, Phil let me know that he had left a comment at the bottom of the post. So I went into Blogger and was ready to click on his comment and publish. But, there wasn't one to publish.

A couple of emails later and it's done..

Just a click of a radio button and now you can all send in you thoughts on what's on here, or what you would like to see on here..

or conversations between yourselves, you to one of the atrist/ makers.

Try it out..

Thanks to Phil Potter,

All the best

Jamie

Phil Potter, Kairos Sculpture

Thursday Morning around 11am.

After working on my gap filling of the insulation around my workshop with Chris, one of the college students, it was time to take a wonder around the studios to see who’s around to do another posting on the blog.

My first thoughts were some of the workshops around the outside of the main building, down one of the main corridors, through the double doors to outside. Just up the slope, to the left you can clearly see Phil Potters studio, stone around outside, a temporary covered area for outside working.

Which must be great in the summer months..

 

Phils studio was one of the old out buildings on the site. Used for all sorts...

 

 

 

With lights on, and activity going on inside. Chris and I asked Phil what he was working on, and could we do a bit about him and his work for the blog. I had already pre-warned Phil that he was next on the list, but unsure when. I wanted Chris to firstly make notes, and then try to get a feel for the atmosphere in Phils studio.

The studio was clean and as tidy as you would expext a working studio to be, the roof is covered with plastic sheeting that allows so much light into the space, made even better with the white walls and painted cupboards, very neat.. with a modern feel.

Phil was working on some Portland limestone carvings, smoothing them out ready to be applied to some slate columns. It was a cool relaxed space, partly due to Phil having some Jazz on in the background. The John Law trio, he’d seen them in Birmingham Symphony Hall a couple of weeks ago, and enjoyed them so much he bought the disc, so it was a calm relaxing enviroment, great for your first go at stone carving.

Phil was also working on some plaster casts for slumping some glass over, to make some garden light features. There's always someone working on a piece where it involves another artist/ maker, I'm not certain who's going to be doing the slumping, but if I find out about it, it'll get on here..

 

 

These pieces will be cleaned up and moulds taken from them, to make plaster casts 

 

High on the wall was a picture made up of a violin, an old radio facsia and some frames, this was something that Phil did in the past, and I probably spotted it because it’s the type of thing that I do occasionally. And it does help create an inspiring atmosphere.

 



Up the corner was a carving of a face made in 2004, this piece is really quite big. Phil’s going to revisit it this year, to improve the way it stands and is finished, I’m looking forward to seeing that, it sounds like it will really make the piece stand out.

 



This is Molly, is Phil’s little dog, she's sat on the sofa, just inside the studio

Jumping down every now and then, to have a wonder around.

Time was pressing now, and I wanted to get back to my workshop to get some of the notes together before my time with Chris was over.

So, back to my bench, where we started to write this piece. Chris had done some great notes, he'd remembered such a lot of what Phil had told us. But for this piece I wanted people to get an idea of what the experience would be like, maybe next time with Phil we could delve into the making of a sculpture..

All in all, it went pretty good with Chris, a couple of days later I caught up with Phil, who had Eddie with him. Eddie had the day course with Phil as a birthday present, this is something that is going really well for them, you can purchase vouchers from Phil, to be used later, when it suits you.
 

 

Here's Eddie working on his piece

 

 

and it looks like it's going really well..



 

Sara was there too, Phil's partner, cleaning up the slate sculpted pieces I mentioned earlier, then applying oil to the slate. Looks great, it has to be seen..

and yes, Molly was there too..

 

Next time...

a bit about me

 

All the best

Jamie

Terri-Louise Colledge and Ian Bamforth

A slow drive into work today, don’t know what’s going on maybe it’s just one of those Tuesday things. Maybe it’s just about the timing. Peak periods and all that…

As you walk up the steps at the front of the Ruskin Glass Centre building, the first studio that you come to before entering the building is the Stourbridge Glass Blowing Studio. Two large windows allow you to see just what’s going on inside, sometimes it’s a real hive of activity with lots of quick moving around by a glass blower and assistants, other times it can be one of the guy’s charging the furnace. This time it was Ian Bamforth sitting at his laptop. I went to have a quick chat with Ian about some work he was doing, and looked at his latest work, a couple of Pink/Red folded rim bowls, one was a commission, the other a for sale.

This piece was to have engraved words around the outside. A dozen words of a child that hasn’t quite grasped how to say them, you know what I mean, their own version that we sometimes start adopting to have a conversation with the little one. One of the words was “Gan Gan” I was told that this his Gran.

Quite a neat way of keeping those first words immortalised. Ian told me that Terri-Louise Colledge was going to hand engrave the words into the bowl, so I found out that Terri was starting the engraving the following day.

So this morning, that’s what I’m up to, watching Terri-Louise set up her workstation. She had been doing some painting on glass, and number of pieces, some were commissions and others were pieces to test the market, I'll put some pics in later..

Click on the pictures to enlarge them..
 

 



Terri-L marking out the words

 

 

A run through the first word on a test piece, just to get the tools working right..

 

 

 

The first word...

 

 

This is the type of work that you can normally find Terri-Louise doing, Cameo glass, where she carves away the outer white skin of the glass to reveal the blue..notice the small piece to the right of the vase..very beautiful and highly prized...

 

 

 

This is how most people see Terri-Louise, through her shop window.

 

 

and this was what she was working on later that day, painting on glass. Later it will be fired to bond the paint to the glass..

 

 

That day, Ian was working in the cold workshop, helping out with some decanters.

Diamond cutting to fit the tops..

 

 

Here is some of Ian's work, in the Hot Glass blowing shop, he's usually found in here 4 - 5 days a week, glass blowing. Other times people rent out the studio to make their own work.

 

 

Here's the finished piece, Ian made the glass, Terri did the engraving..

 

one happy customer..

 

This was just a snippet of what goes on, in any one day at the Ruskin Glass Centre. Ian then gets back to his glass blowing and workshops. Terri-Louise carries on making cameo glass and painted glassware..

 

 

I'm off to get on with my work now.

 

Next time Phil Potter.

 

all the best

 

Jamie