Musings

musings

January 2014

Musings? Why Musings? Well it's exactly what this is....

Through the course of my normal life I find myself musing about things, random things, interesting things.

So what is interesting this month? Well the things that interest me are the outdoor life, people who make things, people who get out there and DO rather than sit at a keyboard and type ( Yes, I can see the irony).

With that in mind there is the story of my New Years Day when I deliberately buck the system and go out and about into the Highlands of Scotland and commune with the country I love.

Also featured is a photo story of the time I was granted access to the workshop of a Horn Carver, proper artisan endeavours in rural Perthshire.

Also in this month is "From The Making Shed" a feature on Kevin Pugh, A former FireFighter who now spends his time taking photographs and creating the most amazing rose sculptures.

Intermingled with all that will be random photographs I have taken along the way and hopefully when looked at as a whole other people will also find it interesting.

Davie Hudson January 2014

“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry.”

—― Jack Kerouac

The Hor Carver In the shadow of Ben Lawers sits The Horn Carver, a business making hand carved horn souvenirs .... I count myself very lucky to have been granted access to his workshop

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All Photographs taken by Davie Hudson

New Years Day

When the rest of Western Civilisation is testing out a scientific theory of exactly how drunk they can get I drive into the Highlands of Scotland to commune with the country I love.

It's the ultimate palette cleanser being out here on New Years Day....it's cold, freezing cold...BUT.... it's fresh, new. It's a brand new year so why spend it like a half-shut knife when you can be here and feel ALIVE!!

As per my now tradition I awoke at 3am, I would say wiping my eyes but i wasn't awake enough to do that yet so i stumbled downstairs to get ready. I would say i had a plan but really I have a rough idea where i'm headed and just follow that through. The rough plan in this case was to head towards Loch Maree in Wester Ross, a trifle of 200miles and 4 and a half hours drive.

I count myself extremely lucky to live in a country that looks like this and do my

best to get out into it and into myself as often as I can. This folks can really readjust your attitude in ways you can't imagine, it's special and anyone who does this regularly will tell you that. I would advise anyone who spends all their time in one of those things we call cities to get out of it sometime and get your feet muddy.

Your country deserves it and most of all, you deserve it.

Davie Hudson

From first to last

light it is ethereal

All Photographs by Davie Hudson

I don't know who to credit for this piece of bearded genius !!

From the Making Shed .....

I've always loved 'artisan' crafts, there is something about a hand made item that gives me a warm feeling... someone has taken time and instilled the love of their craft into the item you hold in your hand. One such Artisan is Kev Pugh, I knew Kev from a photography forum I'm on but this came as a surprise when I first saw it, this man is remarkably talented in many different disciplines... that's why I asked him to do this, so in his own words I present, Kev Pugh.

What is the making shed? Well quite simply it's the place where stuff gets done, where it all happens. It's a place that needed a name and as i kept saying that I was off to make something in my shed it seemed only natural to call it 'The Making Shed'. The name now feels right and I use it as the name for the bit of folk arts and crafts that i do.

Where did it all start?..... Way back when I was about to leave school I wanted to go to Art College‌‌A sharp intake of breath was heard in the family home when I mentioned that, quickly followed by a Ahem, Only Poofs and Ponses go to those places, you go get a proper job my lad! My old man was a working class grafter, a panel beater, time served and a damn good one, he used to lecture night school at a local college after a days work at the garage.

He ended his working life building body panels at Morgan Motors in Malvern, Worcestershire.

Anyway, as I was neither a poof or a ponse I took his guidance and went into an engineering apprenticeship at a local factory where I ended up working in the Drawing Office, hand draughting 300+ part working drawings of Capstan and Turret Lathes. After becoming disillusioned with engineering I left and joined the Fire Brigade.

Leaving the Fire Brigade after injury and illness I needed a time filler,, Aha my chance to get myself off to Art College, still neither P or P but got my chance so I applied to the Local Uni, had my interview with the Art Faculty head only to be told that she thought I would find a Photography course more fulfilling as in her opinion, I would struggle with the basic concepts of Fine Art as I had already my own direction and a developed idea of what I wanted to do….Mmmmm This came from the point that I had been fortunate to be invited to spend a day working with a well-known Narrowboat painter after a friend had sent him photos of some of my work. He offered me the chance to work with him but I was off to college, where I developed further my interest in photography.

How did you get from photography to making and painting? ... A mate of mine, a blacksmith, asked me if I could do some photos at his forge and also tutor his daughter for a school project, which I did and whilst I was at his forge, the smell of metal, the feel of the heat brought back some memories and as he offered me the chance to bend a bit of steel, it would have been another missed opportunity, so I bent a bit of steel, that led to him asking me to help him in the forge, a bit of cutting, welding, bending and on site. That’s where the roses started, he showed me and inspired me to get my creative hands working again and so the fabricating of Roses began.

Of course the Making Shed isn’t geared up for anything big scale, it’s a modest timber shed in my garden so having thought about how I was going to set about this new creative venture I decided that it would be good if I could make stuff out of recycled materials, I had a load of Roses Tins knocking about so what could be better to use than a roses tin to create a rose, or three.

Having been shown how the pro made his I worked on a method that was more mine and that’s what I use now..

Why Painting? .... After making the first Roses I felt they needed something a little extra, so I started painting them with airbrush techniques that I had earlier learned whilst airbrushing on Canvas, this was something that I could do indoors, as it can be a tad cold in the Making Shed during the winter months.

The idea of resurrecting the Traditional Narrowboat style painting came about more by accident than design. An old shoulder and hand injury stopped me cutting metal so whilst allowing a certain amount of recovery time I began painting again and of course the concept of roses seemed to sit well alongside the metal roses and the need to make some stock for a local craft fayre gave me the motivation to make the ‘Making Shed’ more of a folk art and craft workshop than just a single item place.

The Making Shed really encompasses what I like doing…..traditional crafts in a folk art tradition. A skill which following its origins of self-taught skills in small scale work sheds, which has a naïve simple look and feel yet which not everyone can do.

I still haven’t been to ART COLLEGE!

The detail on these forged roses is remarkable, they seem to contain 'soul' a depth to them that is hard to quantify.

I also get the feeling of it all being tactile. There is nothing wrong about any of this, Kev uses old items and recycles them ! It's green, eco-friendly, decorative and very very nice looking as well. If that doesn't deserve support then I will never know what does.

Being as I've been an engineer for 25 years I was very curious about materials and whether the traditional aspect was important to Kev. Here is what he said.....

The idea of making roses came from the blacksmith. After he had shown me how he made his he suggested that it was something I could do so I set about developing my own style and naturally working from a modest ‘workshop’ AKA the shed materials that best suited me were light and readily available. I had a load of old biscuit tins just taking up space and doing nothing, you know the sort of thing, I’ll keep that because it’ll come in useful one day, but it never did sort of thing. So choice of material was pretty simple, and I had enough tin to get started without buying new metal.

So came the idea of using where possible readily available recyclable materials, unfortunately now though scrap metal has become big business so there isn’t a great deal of it about; but Sweet and biscuit tins, everyone has them and after Christmas they don’t know what to do with them, but I do!

Wanting to further develop the flower theme I worked on creating poppies, but using a heavier gauge metal, 16 gauge, a bit harder to cut by hand but it would allow some forming and texturing of the surface. A bit of hammering and cold forming, again something that the shed allowed for having no forge and something that I could maybe later take out and do on the road, and with the aid of a simple LPG blow torch to twist and form the stem, I made my first Poppy which soon became a pair and now the intention is to develop other flowers to add to the arrangement.

A pair of poppies forming a Tea Light holder is now used every year at Pershore Abbey at the annual service of remembrance in November, for me that is an honour to know that something I have created is and will become a special part of an annual event and of course it sits alongside the beautifully hand carved stone and wood that was created by craftsmen hundreds of year ago. Who wouldn’t take pleasure and pride in that?

Much of the process for the lighter gauge flowers is cold formed but depending on finish they may get some heat applied, the heavier gauge roses need heat, again from a simple blow torch and each petal is formed individually.

The stems are welded though I have heat formed the bottom part of the flower (the Ovary) around which the sepal is formed. A rose would have somewhere in the region of six or seven cut and formed disks that make up the petals and one sepal, then working from the top each petal is formed by folding the metal until it resembles the desired petal, when all the petals are formed I cut, weld and add the leaves, apply some heat to the stem and shape, the stems are then maybe welded to form tea light holder, candle sticks, hooks or just simple arrangements. They are finished either by stove blacking, heat blacking and waxing or a full paint job.

I airbrush when painting, this allows many thin translucent coats that add depth to the flowers, the job is then finished with a clear coat.

I would like to think that much of what I do is in a traditional form. I hand cut, no plasma or machine cutting, I hand shape, no presses or formers, I hand paint, ok so not with a brush, but each metal flower is individual.

As for the Decorative Art work, that is traditional with the exception of the paints, I don’t mix my own, cost of that, time and space doesn’t allow for that level of tradition, but I do use trade standard paints, not the standard DIY paints, the one I use have been specifically designed for the type of painting, it has great flow, and quick drying time which is vitally important.

By mixing I’m not referring to colour mixing, that of course I do I am referring to pigments and bases.

Tradition is somewhat important to me, we live in a time where everything is mass produced, everything manufactured is the same, consistency is expected and individuality is hard to find, unless you go to a crafts person of course.

The tradition of folk art stems back hundreds of years, not just to narrowboats and barges, the Tudors created stuff to decorate their homes, local peasant folk couldn’t afford the finery, the beautiful fine art that adorned the Manor house so they began doing it for themselves, to make their place somewhere nice to be. Narrowboat men lived aboard the canal boats and barges, their families lived with them in tiny spaces and cabins, the wives began painting their belongings to brighten up the place, this then became individual to the family and later to the group of boats used by the yard owner. Where do you find that nowadays, OK we see company livery everywhere, but how much of it is individual? It’s all computer generated logos, its perfect, has no qualities of handcrafting, where is the skill in pressing a button and letting technology do its work. Now don’t get me wrong, I embrace technology, I love using it, but I would never dream of sticking a computer generated printed sticker on a piece of furniture, clock, or plaque and say it was handcrafted.

We seem to be losing many of the old ways but there is something special, something very tactile and personal about traditional hand crafted folk art, with it’s naivety and simple lines and brush strokes, the imperfection of individuality and the knowledge that it is hand crafted.

'Rendezvous at 7"

To see more of Kev's work or to contact him please go to www.kevinpughphotography.co.uk

All photographs and artwork courtesy of Kevin Pugh

"In my solitude, many miles from childishly happy and carefree sta incapable of understanding unle Knut Hamsun

m men and houses, I am in a ate of mind, which you are ess someone explains it to you."

Red Stag

Photography

www.redstagphotography.co.uk