Garage sales and African Mahogany
A few weeks ago, my mate Ben called and said "hey, there's a garage sale on in Mareeba, selling off a whole lot of wood ... some cabinet maker going out of business". I'm not much of a fan of garage sales ... and it was first thing Monday morning, my so-called 'day of rest' ... but, this sounded OK, so I headed over straight away. Mareeba is the next town over from where I live ... only 60kms (40 miles).
It turned out that it was actually the 60-odd year old son of a hobby woodworker who was selling off all Dad's gear ... 'coz Dad is 101. Much of the wood ... and there was a LOT of it ... had been collected over about 60 or more years. I suspect that I was too late for a lot of really good easily accessible stock because the sale had been going since the previous evening, but I began building a pile of anything that looked interesting.
As my pile grew bigger, the seller became aware that I had half an idea of what I was looking at and also that I was becoming financially substantial. He started hooking out a few odds and ends ... and I secured a bunch of wide boards of Queensland Kauri and also some Australian Red Cedar. There was also a bit of Queensland Maple and some left-overs of Silky Oak. It seems the Silky Oak was a hot favourite early on. I don't like Silky Oak ... and this northern timberland area near where I live was littered with the stuff in the early days before the timber industry cut almost all of it down. But, I did find some very dark Red Oak which the early-birds had overlooked and which, for me, was worth way more than the common Silky Oak.
After about an hour of poking around I had a pretty good pile built beneath the Hill's Hoist (garden clothes line for non-Aussies) and I asked Mike (the seller) "is that it?", knowing full well that there was a stack of rough-sawn wide (8 to 10 inch) boards in the back shed. "Well, there's some African Mahogany and Teak down the back, but we can't get at it yet." "Oh yes we can ... I'll help move stuff!"
I wasn't at all interested in the Teak ... I've used heaps of it in boatbuilding and I simply don't have a use for it now ... but, the African Mahogany was of interest. It grows across the top end of Australia from Weipa to Darwin and beyond. This particular wood came from Weipa and was the result of a tree-fall some 15 or so years ago. It actually belonged to the seller's wife (along with the Teak) ... who, after being consulted that she actually did want to part with it, agreed to let me buy some of it ... at not that much under market cost, as it turned out. It shows nice colour though and I've already made and sold a number of utensils from it and also a small fine bowl.
Much of the wood that was on offer that day could only be used by someone like me ... the quantities were too small for furniture makers or cabinet makers, and most of it was rough-sawn and ugly, so hobbyists would be put off by it. I figured out what a lot of it was by shaving a bit off the end with a knife. To most people, it was just wood. Besides the African Mahogany, the rally good find was the wide Kauri and, although Kauri is quite readily available still today, this particular wood was really old and finishes up to a beautiful golden honey colour.
The events of the day made me wonder how many of these old-timer's houses there must be scattered around that are literally treasure troves of some commodity like wood ... or antiques ... or precious stones. Oh, there was also a pottery wheel and a full size fire-brick pottery kiln ... and a cold room ... and heavy work benches ... and tools. Ben went back about 4 days in succession buying stuff .. and it took him almost a week to cart it all back to his place across town. I don't have enough available time to really do stuff like that.
As I was driving home, I couldn't help but think of the old guy who had collected all this stuff all his life. As a collector/recycler myself, I place a lot of value on certain bits and pieces and I already know that there are one or two bits of wood in the whole pile that I bought which I will probably never cut up because they are so spectacular ... so, in a way, that unknown old guy's legacy lives on for at least a few more years.
Comments (0) November 06, 2007
Franziska's bowls finished.
I recently finished these two small functional bowls in North Queensland Mango wood. They are intended to be used on a day-to-day basis as food bowls, so the finish is strictly functional.
More images can be seen HERE on the website.
Comments (0) November 06, 2007
Miniature Bowl for Marian
It was Marian's (my friend's wife) birthday on Sunday just passed. I decided to create a miniature for her as a gift.
It was quite a challenge due to the small size ... about 4 inches round. It required me to make some special tooling to achieve both the initial shaping of the inside and also the final finishing.
The final result was quite striking and it's evident that a full size version would be well worthwhile.
Comments (0) July 31, 2007
Serving Dishes in Tasmanian Oak
HERE are three small functional dishes that I made last week for local sale. They are in Tasmanian Oak, also known as Victorian Ash. Whilst they really come under my Forest Treasures retail branch (pardon the pun), they have a nice shape, so I thought I'd show them here. They will probably never make it onto the Forest Treasures website, because they will sell during the next couple weeks.
Comments (0) July 31, 2007
Paying the Rent
Because I have chosen to mostly market my own work ... as opposed to placing pieces in lots of galleries and waiting apprehensively for cheques in the mail ... I've had to maintain a continued balance between production of cash-flow items and art pieces.
The art pieces are reasonably high-valued, compared with my cash-flow work and, when sold, certainly add a much needed boost to my income. However, the timing of sales for such pieces is random. My display work can be viewed on this website (www.robertgilmourartforms.com) by navigating the links at the bottom of this page.
My cash-flow work consists of premium utensils and homewares, including spoons and stirrers, salad servers, utensil holders, cocktail and kitchen muddlers, as well as serving bowls, dishes and boards. I sell this work from a trading space in the Port Douglas Art and Craft Market once a week (Sundays) and also on my website Forest Treasures (www.foresttreasures.com).
The balance between 'paying the rent' and bills and making a mark as an artist is a tenuous one. Production of my cash-flow work is very time consuming and, if I have a particularly successful day of selling on a Sunday, I'm pretty much committed for the following week (and sometimes more) to just replacing stock. This dilemma obviously applies to all artist/craft/makers who need to fund themselves while they endeavour to further their art.
Whilst I've tried in the recent couple years to reduce my cash-flow work production to a minimum sustainable level, I still find that about 80% of my actual productive time is taken up with creating functional items for cash sale.
Of course, I'm not knocking the fact that I can actually generate an income from my work, as there are many artists out there who are unable. However, I am trying to devote more contiguous time to creation of display works.
One of the less obvious effects of maintaining production work is that the time that I can devote to art work is broken into 'segments'. Sometimes these 'segments' on particular pieces may be weeks apart. Therefore, it's sometimes difficult to maintain a 'flow' on certain pieces because I'm unable to carry the work through to an advanced state in a single session or a continuous period of time.
This does irritate me somewhat ... and so, I'm always trying different time-management where I can restrict the production of functional items to just a couple days in the week and devote the remaining time to artwork. Like all best-laid plans, of course, it doesn't always work out.
Comments (0) July 23, 2007
Another bowl in Mango Wood
HERE are some images of another bowl which is taking form. This is intended to be a fine bowl ... a display piece. It will be right on the edge of stability for what is actually able to stand up without an added base.
Obviously, the form will get a lot finer and will change shape a little as it approaches finishing stages later in the year.
So far, I have a total of 7 pieces in various states of shaping from the load of mango wood mentioned below. The wood is so wet with sap and water that it is very difficult to work. Because it clogs the tools and coarse sandpaper used during these early stages of shaping, I can only do small amounts each day ... needing to let the forms sit overnight and shed some water before starting on them again.
Comments (0) July 13, 2007
Franziska's bowls
These are the rough stages of two bowls I am creating from Mango wood for my friend Franziska in Switzerland.
The request here was for a small bowl from which muesli and cereal could be eaten, and a slightly larger 'personal' salad/food bowl.
The pictures are of a stage very early in the creation process. They are rough sanded just to look presentable for the photograph. During the next couple weeks, the forms will be fined down and the shape will be refined so that the subtle overhand will be emphasized a little more.
Comments (0) July 13, 2007
Mango Wood
A couple weeks ago I picked up a trailer-load of mango tree wood from a nearby property recently sold. It was destined for the tip so, not taking kindly to waste of perfectly good wood, I offered to hook up the guy's trailer to my vehicle and take it home ... unload it and return the trailer. He gladly accepted the offer.
Mango trees are not endemic to Australia. They were introduced about 200 or so years ago by Afghan and Indian camel drivers brought from their homelands to assist in the exploration and colonisation of Australia. Because much of the inland consists of desert, camels were an obvious choice of many explorers due to their ability to survive many days without drinking and also their great load carrying capacity ... as compared with horses. Later, the camel teams also proved invaluable as pack animals in cartage of resources and supplies to remote outback communities before wagon teams and roads reached them.
Along with the camel teams ... came mangos. I expect that seeds for planting were brought by the cameliers ... but also, the sea passage from India took several weeks and, mangos would have been one of the staple foods brought along to feed the animals enroute. It is logically suspected that seeds sat in the intestinal tracts of the camels and were excreted once on land.
Furthermore, mangos became a bit of a delicacy. They were exotic to the early settlers who hailed mostly from the British Isles and western Europe. Whilst many had probably seen or tasted them in homeland markets, they didn't have access to mangos actually growing on trees ... in their hundreds. So, the mango tree spread rapidly as a highly prized fruit tree for planting in the early settlements that sprouted along Australia's east coast.
Such was the popularity of the mango tree that, in all the older communities around the country, there would barely be a back-yard without at least one mango tree. Also, along most of the early settler roads and migration tracks, long disappeared settlements, out-posts and horse stage changes can be located by their concentrations of huge old mango trees ... living well past their expected lifetimes and gnarled and defiant against encroaching scrubs ... and the onslaught of human habitation.
Mango trees will grow almost anywhere there is water. While they won't grow on bare rock, if they fall in a crevice and there's water, a mango tree will grow ... and eventually split the rock anyway. They grow quickly and become large stout trees with fat trunks and spreading crowns. Mango trees are absolute masters at swallowing up anything that contacts them ... fence posts, nails, bolts, fencing wire. Many old mango trees are cut down and, much to the dismay of the chainsaw operator, have a steel fence post or a roll of fence wire buried deep inside.
The back-yard mango tree is every kids playground ... bested only by, perhaps, lychee trees. The bifurcation of crown trunks and branches create endless possibilities for tree climbing and the low angle of the spread provides perfect bases for the ubiquitous tree house ... which every kid wants. This same tangled mess of branches also means lots of crutches and forks ... which, in turn, means lots of potential figure wood for someone like me.
So, I picked up this mango tree.
I had several small projects already in mind. My friend Franziska in Switzerland has commissioned two small functional bowls ... which she intends to eat from on an every day basis. There is a growing trend back toward tactile hand-made eating utensils and receptacles as people look for an alternative to the mass-produced plastic of which our world is inundated at present. I also intend to cut some small boards for utensils ... which will eventually show up on Forest Treasures.
To date, I've shaped Franziska's two bowls, and also a couple more small rounded ones. One has a large blaze of crutch figuring across it's center. I've also shaped a small sculptural bowl which is more similar to my current style.
Because the tree wasn't all that old, the wood is a light creamy colour ... quite nice really. I suspect it will darken a little as it ages. It's very wet and reasonably difficult to work as a result but, I wanted to get a couple pieces out before I started losing some of the large pieces due to cracking in our dry winter air.
Not far from here, a neighbour has several really old trees that he wants to cut down, so they may yield some interesting material. More on that as and when it happens. Also, I'll post some photographs before long of some of the initial rough pieces mentioned above.
Comments (0) July 10, 2007