Just got back from Seminar - awesome event, Paul and the team of helpers in Orange (think minions but with added tango!) did a fantastic job.
I saw demonstrate:
From Canada - Mike Hosaluk
From France - Benoit Averly & Jean-Francois Escoulen
From Ireland - Max Brosi
From the USA - Harvey Meyer
From Norway - Asmund Vignes
from the United Kingdom - Rod Page, Les Thorne
Time / schedule meant I missed folks of the quality of Glenn Lucas and Gary Rance but the range of demos on offer were greater than could be fitted in. This was a indication of the range and depth of what was on offer rather than a critism of the timetable - it could have been a week long but .......
I also lightened my wallet with Simon Hope, ToolPost, Ashley Isles, GPS Resin blanks, Woodart products as well as a really nice Doug Thompson gouge I got from Mike Hosaluk and some tools from Harvey to boot!
The instant gallery of attendees work was amazing, some really talented and inspirational turners out there!
See here
Also managed to nab a really nice Phil Irons hollow form in the auction over Sat dinner.
One thing I was not expecting was some homework, however, Max Brosi was demonstrating how to turn (and yes, they are turned!) his
Whale Bone forms. Whilst he had time in the demo to go through each part of the process, completion takes him another 4 hrs. So, given he was flying home, he didn’t want to take it with him so asked someone in the audience to offer to finish the piece. Your’s truely offered and I now have some serious turning and carving to finish to even get to resemble his work. Added pressure as he asked my to post the outcome to his FB page!
So, great weekend and event. The above is a bit of a snap shot of the tangible things I did and saw, the bit I can’t really explain is the value of spending 3 days thinking about your turning and how and why you make what you make and where it may go next. This, to coin the MasterCard ad, is priceless, especially for us with young kids and full time ‘normal’ jobs and a huge privalige to be able to do.
Happy to say more about any of the above but I really hope to be going again to the next one in Oct 2020 and would recommend it to anyone thinking about it.
Simon
