What I do is very hard to describe.

My work tends to fall into two separate categories:

There’s one lot which is geometric, but the other one is where you’ve got a three dimensional complex form and you form that with every cut.

Video by Cross Border Productions

What the workshop / classroom provides for the students

Giving myself good tools and a good workspace is giving myself every reasonable chance of success with my work.

Tools that you will need. If I use second rate tools and poor materials I am setting myself up to fail. It is true, of course, that fancy tools will not make me a good woodworker, but good tools will certainly make it much easier for me to become one, as will a good workspace. Doing fine work is hard enough without having unnecessary difficulties added to it. 

Skills that you can acquire. By having good hand skills I save myself the need for a lot of gadgets, and I can invest the savings in better quality tools. If I can’t, or won’t, buy this quality, my only option is to learn how to acquire and tune second hand tools so that they will work as well as I need them to.

Environment that supports you. Having a comfortable, attractive workspace can be vitally important because, if doing the work is optional, we have to want to go and do it. If the workspace does not encourage this, if it is not a place that we love to be in, that we find ourselves (and our mates) going to simply because we like being there, then getting ourselves to the bench and beginning work becomes a battle that is too easily and too often lost. When we don’t have to force ourselves to not go there, we will get some work done.

A student’s perspective:

“So you’ve read about the workshop/classroom, but to experience the magic of woodwork you just have to step inside the space.

There are things I can’t adequately put into words, yet they become immediately obvious from your very first lesson, and that you’ll take away with you even after the last lesson.

Like the feeling that you get when a sharp tool works its way effortless through beautifully figured wood. Or a warm cup of tea or coffee while sitting back and looking at your work in progress.

Maybe it’s the light filtering through the space from all directions, or the smell of the various timber neatly stacked in piles in every nook.

Or perhaps the conversations you share with fellow students, some of whom have worked with wood all their life, and others falling in love with it for the first time.

The workshop/classroom is a place for everyone. There’s enough space and a quiet corner if you need to focus on that important gift for a loved one, but also cozy enough that you can glance over your shoulder if you are curious what other people are working on, and maybe even share a tip or two.

I haven’t even got to the best part yet – your most experienced, generous and kind tour guide on your woodworking journey. A magician with a tool in hand and a fountain of knowledge deeper and broader than all the books in the workshop library. A sage with an answer to any question you might have, and even ones that you didn’t think to ask.

I have seen students come in and start carving animals in their first lesson, and ones like me that find various ways to procrastinate and bumble through my work until Robert finds a way to somehow make it look decent. No one is treated or judged as you would be outside the doors – in here we are all people that turn our passion for the craft into creations as unique as each of us.

Doctors, teachers, train drivers, students, artists or apprentice carpenters. These are some of the people that you will rub shoulders with in the classes, each with their own reasons for being there, and somehow Robert always manages to put the right piece of wood and tool in their hands.

These are just some of the reasons that make me look forward to the next class.”

Photo by Cross Border Productions