Hello All,
Stepped away from the usual stuff and accepted the challenge of the theme for the Masters' Open Competition at Carpenters' Hall.
.…some corner of a foreign field…. after Rupert Brooke
The brief was to start with one’s regular work and to adapt it to an Armistice theme. I did not feel that the human imagery from WW1 worked for me and felt unhappy about using images of the “hardware” of war which might have lent themselves better to a woodturning theme. I did feel drawn to images of the cratered and blackened landscape left behind and chose to include the poppies with their association as a metaphor for fallen souls.
So, I took one of my regular natural edged bowls, cut it about to suggest blasted trees and ironmongery and then, appropriately, scorched it with a flame. The poppies were made from a small log of African Blackwood which happened to have a tiny amount of black heartwood. The “petal part” was stained red. I twisted up some welding wire to make the barbed wire, coiled some and applied other pieces in a more random manner.
The bowl is scorched Sussex Beech and the poppies are African Blackwood stained red.
The piece is approximately 330mm in diameter and 200mm high.
Comments welcomed though its job done and on show as I write.
ATB John
