musings

January 2014

Musings? Why Musings? Well it's exactly what this is....Through the course of my normal life I find myself musing aboutthings, random things, interesting things.

So what is interesting this month? Well the things that interestme are the outdoor life, people who make things, people who getout there and DO rather than sit at a keyboard and type ( Yes, Ican see the irony).

With that in mind there is the story of my New Years Day whenI deliberately buck the system and go out and about into theHighlands of Scotland and commune with the country I love.Also featured is a photo story of the time I was granted access tothe workshop of a Horn Carver, proper artisan endeavours inrural Perthshire.

Also in this month is "From The Making Shed" a feature onKevin Pugh, A former FireFighter who now spends his timetaking photographs and creating the most amazing rosesculptures.

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

Davie Hudson January 2014

“Live, travel,adventure,bless, and don'tbe sorry.”—― JackKerouac

The HorCarver

In the shadowof Ben Lawerssits The HornCarver, abusinessmaking handcarved hornsouvenirs .... Icount myselfvery lucky tohave beengranted accessto his workshop

rn

All Photographs taken by Davie Hudson

NewYearsDay

When the rest ofWesternCivilisation istesting out ascientific theory ofexactly how drunkthey can get I driveinto the Highlandsof Scotland tocommune with thecountry 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 ahalf-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'tawake enough to do that yet so i stumbled downstairs to get ready. I would say ihad a plan but really I have a rough idea where i'm headed and just follow thatthrough. The rough plan in this case was to head towards Loch Maree in WesterRoss, 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 re-adjust your attitude in ways you can't imagine, it's special and anyone who does thisregularly will tell you that. I would advise anyone who spends all their time in oneof 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 issomething about a hand made item that givesme a warm feeling... someone has taken timeand instilled the love of their craft into theitem you hold in your hand. One such Artisanis Kev Pugh, I knew Kev from a photographyforum I'm on but this came as a surprise whenI first saw it, this man is remarkably talentedin many different disciplines... that's why Iasked him to do this, so in his own words Ipresent, Kev Pugh.What is the making shed? Well quite simply it's the place where stuffgets done, where it all happens. It's a place that needed a name and as ikept saying that I was off to make something in my shed it seemed onlynatural to call it 'The Making Shed'. The name now feels right and I useit 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 togo to Art College……A sharp intake of breath was heard in the family homewhen I mentioned that, quickly followed by a Ahem, Only Poofs and Ponses go tothose places, you go get a proper job my lad! My old man was a working classgrafter, a panel beater, time served and a damn good one, he used to lecture nightschool at a local college after a days work at the garage.

He ended his working life building body panels atMorganMotors inMalvern,Worcestershire.Anyway, as I was neither a poof or a ponse I took his guidance and went into an engineeringapprenticeship at a local factory where I ended up working in the Drawing Office, handdraughting 300+ part working drawings of Capstan and Turret Lathes. After becomingdisillusioned 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 getmyself 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 aPhotography course more fulfilling as in her opinion, I would struggle with the basic conceptsof Fine Art as I had already my own direction and a developed idea of what I wanted todo….MmmmmThis came from the point that I had been fortunate to be invited to spend a day working witha well-known Narrowboat painter after a friend had sent him photos of some of my work. Heoffered me the chance to work with him but I was off to college, where I developed further myinterest 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 backsomememories and as he offeredme the chance to bend a bit of steel, it would have been anothermissed 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 meand 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 inmy garden so having thought about how I was going to set about this new creative venture Idecided that it would be good if I could make stuff out of recycled materials, I had a load ofRoses Tins knocking about so what could be better to use than a roses tin to create a rose, orthree.Having been shown how the pro made his I worked on amethod that was more mine and that’swhat I use now..

Why Painting? .... After making the first Roses I felt they needed something a little extra, soI started painting them with airbrush techniques that I had earlier learned whilst airbrushingon Canvas, this was something that I could do indoors, as it can be a tad cold in the MakingShed during the winter months.The idea of resurrecting the Traditional Narrowboat style painting came about more byaccident than design. An old shoulder and hand injury stopped me cutting metal so whilstallowing a certain amount of recovery time I began painting again and of course the conceptof roses seemed to sit well alongside the metal roses and the need tomake some stock for a localcraft fayre gave me the motivation to make the ‘Making Shed’ more of a folk art and craftworkshop than just a single item place.

The Making Shed really encompasses what I like doing…..traditional crafts in a folk arttradition. 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 onthese forgedroses isremarkable,they seem tocontain 'soul' adepth to themthat is hard toquantify.

I also get the feeling of it all being tactile. There is nothing wrong about any ofthis, Kev uses old items and recycles them ! It's green, eco-friendly, decorativeand very very nice looking as well. If that doesn't deserve support then I willnever know what does.

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

The idea ofmaking roses came from the blacksmith. After he had shownme howhemade his he suggestedthat it was something I could do so I set about developing my own style and naturally working from amodest ‘workshop’ AKA the shed materials that best suited me were light and readily available. I hada load of old biscuit tins just taking up space and doing nothing, you know the sort of thing, I’ll keepthat because it’ll come in useful one day, but it never did sort of thing. So choice of material was prettysimple, 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 nowthough scrap metal has become big business so there isn’t a great deal of it about; but Sweet and biscuittins, 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, 16gauge, a bit harder to cut by hand but it would allow some forming and texturing of the surface. A bit ofhammering and cold forming, again something that the shed allowed for having no forge and something that Icould maybe later take out and do on the road, and with the aid of a simple LPG blow torch to twist and formthe stem, I made my first Poppy which soon became a pair and now the intention is to develop other flowers toadd to the arrangement.

A pair of poppies forming a Tea Light holder is now used every year at Pershore Abbey at the annual service ofremembrance in November, for me that is an honour to know that something I have created is and will becomea special part of an annual event and of course it sits alongside the beautifully hand carved stone and wood thatwas 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 heatapplied, 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) aroundwhich the sepalis formed. A rose would have somewhere in the region of six or seven cut and formed disks thatmake up the petalsand one sepal, then working from the top each petal is formed by folding the metal until it resembles the desiredpetal, when all the petals are formed I cut, weld and add the leaves, apply some heat to the stem and shape, thestems are then maybe welded to form tea light holder, candle sticks, hooks or just simple arrangements. Theyare 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 thenfinished 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 ofthat, time and space doesn’t allow for that level of tradition, but I do use trade standard paints, not the standardDIYpaints, the one I use have been specifically designed for the type of painting, it has great flow, andquick dryingtime 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, everythingmanufactured is the same, consistency is expected and individuality is hard to find, unless yougo to a crafts personof course.

The tradition of folk art stems back hundreds of years, not just to narrowboats and barges, the Tudors createdstuff to decorate their homes, local peasant folk couldn’t afford the finery, the beautiful fine art that adorned theManor house so they began doing it for themselves, to make their place somewhere nice to be. Narrowboat menlived aboard the canal boats and barges, their families lived with them in tiny spaces and cabins, the wives beganpainting their belongings to brighten up the place, this then became individual to the family and later to the groupof boats used by the yard owner. Where do you find that nowadays, OK we see company livery everywhere, buthowmuch of it is individual? It’s all computer generated logos, its perfect, has no qualities of handcrafting, whereis the skill in pressing a button and letting technology do its work. Nowdon’t getmewrong, 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 personalabout traditional hand crafted folk art, with it’s naivety and simple lines and brush strokes, the imperfection ofindividuality and the knowledge that it is hand crafted.

'Rendezvous at 7"

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

All photographs and artwork courtesy of Kevin Pugh

"In my solitude, many miles fromchildishly happy and carefree staincapable of understanding unles

Knut Hamsun

m men and houses, I am in aate of mind, which you areess someone explains it to you."

Red StagPhotography

www.redstagphotography.co.uk