BTWC
Showing posts with label Jacob. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jacob. Show all posts

Thursday, 2 December 2010

10th meeting - Bauhaus


In later stages of its development, the Bauhaus school of design inculcated its students by having them recite the chant "das Quadrat ist rot, das Dreieck gelb, der Kreis blau" ("the square is red, the triangle yellow, the circle blue") every hour, on the hour. All forms not composed of geometric primitives were forbidden, thus everyone wore circular (or equilateral-triangular) spectacles.

Sorry! I lied; it's not true. However, this kind of misunderstanding is commonly trotted out at the mention of the Bauhaus. We at BTWC know better however, and wish to explore and recover the early years of the Bauhaus project: speculation, the role of craft in industrial society, even expressionism. These strands come together in the carvings at the Haus Sommerfeld near Berlin, a building by founder Walter Gropius in 1921. This is the stimulus for our next meeting.

Photocopy hand-out for 10th meeting. Whittlings roaming in Haus Sommerfeld

Utopia

The meeting, our tenth, also marks a year of existence for the club (in fact it's been a bit longer, we just didn't keep track). Since it is a birthday, we will have cake. And we will always have pickles.


Mark is about to cut the cake with his newly made pear-wood utensil

Whittlings by Jacob

Comb by Pete

The Oxfam spoon by Mark

Jacob on the bandsaw. Cheating, but oh so simple.

YSL by Gery

Ben T started on his Bauhaus graveyard


Saturday, 24 July 2010

Fish &c. -- the 8th meeting of the BTWC



Photocopy hand-out for the 8th meeting


Definition from etymonline.com:
scrimshaw

1864, back-formation from scrimshander ("Moby Dick," 1851), scrimshonting (1825), Amer.Eng. nautical word, of unknown origin. Scrimshaw is an Eng. surname, attested from 1154, from O.Fr. escremisseor "fencing-master."
Arrrrrrrrrhhhh. Skrimshanders avast. Whittling mediates all sorts of social and artistic functions; the word applies as much to an action performed on some material as it does to one performed on an abstract notion, such as TIME. During months at sea, sailors, and particularly whalers, passed time carving in the tooth and bone of their catches, creating an art form known as scrimshaw. In the 1980s, our voracious demand for soft ice cream made with delicious whale-blubber brought whales to the brink of extinction, so we now have to carve in wood.
Recommended Reading: Chapter 57 of Herman Melville's Moby - Dick, or, the Whale
Recommended Viewing: Bart the Fink esp. Captain Macallister's scene with Handsome Pete.




Whittlers assemble

Ben T started on his Montauk monster. A mysterious creature from the sea.

Sheeran made a bundle of rope

Ray with Ray-bans


Cut of the week: Jacob laughs hysterically, thinking he has cut off his fingertip. It turned out to be ok, but the blade went through the fingernail.


Spherical oyster-like object by Millie

Scrimshaw by Jack. Basically just pencil on cuttle-fish bone.

This comb by Ben T is yet to be finished

Cuttlefish figure by Jana

Think Jamie whittled this one.

This unfinished head was whittled by Jamie out of aromatic cedar.

The chills of death by Adam

Saturday, 20 March 2010

What members found in the wood

John´s previously featured pineapple. Improved and painted.

Tooth by Ksenia

Neet´s head

A classic whittled chain by Jacob. All from one piece.

Jack´s Homer next to the smallest size of Opinel.

Brian brought his own wood to whittle. It was a comb that
he wanted to turn into a demon but that ended up being a pre-historic fish.

Unknown whittler

A man by Adam

Tree by Billy

Billy´s touch on Amy´s head

Friday, 4 December 2009

Work in Progress

Some finished & unfinished work by the honorable members of the BTWC....

Bird with feathers by Amy

Skull, Bart & psychedelic-Bart by Jack

Sharpened sticks with decorative bark by various members.

Beetroot stained seal by Ben T.

Unfinished figures by Gwennan, Jacob and Amy.

Spoons by Hugh & Mark.

Unfinished Cheburachka by Maeve and Paloma by Ben T.

Little man and big man by Jack.

A medieval monster by Gery.

Owl-man by Jana.

Naked woman legs with stockings by Ben B.

Butter-knife by Ksenia.