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Members' Showcase Day 2023
Saturday 23 September 2023 at the Cross Barn, Odiham
Members' Work
One of the main aims of our Fellowship is to support and encourage each other in our woodworking. On Saturday, 23 September 2023, we held our Showcase Day, which provides a relaxed and informal opportunity to get together, to bring along completed pieces or work in progress, or just chat about ideas.
Members brought examples of your work, and we were delighted to welcome many visitors.
You can find out about our 2022 Showcase Day here.
Derek Jones
Our keynote speaker was Derek Jones, who many of you will know. Derek began working with antique furniture at the age of fourteen as a Saturday boy in a restoration workshop in Brighton. What followed was a couple of decades of design and commercial manufacture within the industry for retail customers and end users. Nearly forty years later, and the skills acquired back in that little workshop have become an important part of his working methodology today; good construction and a careful choice of materials with a nod to the past.
As editor of the UK’s premier woodworking magazine, Furniture & Cabinetmaking (2008- 2018) he managed to combine his flare for making with a passion for sharing a range of skills that if not practiced might one day no longer be part of our lives. He believes time spent making things by hand today is perhaps the single most important investment we can make for our future. He says: "make things well and build them to last using materials and techniques that compliment our natural resources".
We are delighted that Derek has agreed to come and support our day. You can find out more about him at Lowfat Roubo.
Susan Millis
Susan demonstrated and exhibited her skilled pyrography at our Showcase.
Pyrography on wood is often thought of as just charring wood, but over the last few hundred years the art form has evolved to produce many subtle shades of colour.
Susan has exhibited with the Society of Botanical Artists. She is a conservator of art and when tackling conserving pyrographic images discovered that little was known about the chemical processes involved. This led her to a research program whereby the temperature needed in order to obtain certain shades can be known.
Susan is a long-standing member of the Society of Women Artists, exhibiting in London between 1985 and
2005. More recently, she has exhibited with the Society of Botanical Artists in 2016 and 2019. In 2019, she was awarded a Certificate of Exhibiting Excellence for her three-dimensional work. Please see her
biography here.
Gervais Sawyer
Gervais demonstrated his fascinating Timber Identification Laboratory at our Showcase. Follow this link to find out more about Gervais.
Experts and Demonstrations
- Neil Robins, Cane & Rush Work
- John Flower, Woodturning
- Derry Walker, Antique Furniture Restoration