Australian Wood Review – June 2019

58 Australian Wood Review

PROFILE

value of what we’ve got. I have

a very strong philosophy behind

my work. I love to indicate those

tensions between fragility and

strength in my objects and in life

itself. And it speaks to people.

On the more technical side of your work,

how do you draft a piece? On paper, on

a computer, or directly on the wood?

I call it chasing the line. Just get one

line running and try to lock the feeling

that you’re trying to get across within

it. A little bit of music can really drive

where a carving is going for me, or a

group of words from a poem. With

those sort of things in the background

I’ll start drawing up an idea, most of

the time on large paper, and I’ll change

the size of my pencils as to how I’m

feeling and where I want the lines to

go, so it becomes a whole game.

I always start with a bit of drawing.

Sometimes if I’m doing a netsuke

I will draw it from several angles.

I will then make a model out of

plasticine which I keep in the

freezer. I’ll bring that out and make

cuts into it using chisels because

then I know I can replicate the cuts

in the boxwood.

And then there are other times like

the piece I’m working on right now

which is a representation of that

tension between strength and fragility

• I just drew two lines on a piece of
  wood, picked up a chisel and off
  I went, just trusted what I was doing.
  But I never design on a computer,
  it never happens.

Everyone seems to do it differently –

what’s your sharpening method?

I use a completely different

strategy when sharpening on a

flat stone. I lock the tool into a soft

jaw moving vice so I can see my angle

no matter where it is. I use a lot of

Spyderco slip stones that are about

120mm long, or 1200 wet and dry

paper on a flat stick.