I haven't posted much in the gallery lately, and there's a good reason for it. My wife, Sally, and I have both worked in special needs education for a little over 21 years, but a fairly dramatic assault last June, by one of our more troubled youngsters, left me out of work for several months with a recommendation by my GP that I never return to work with that degree of risk. So I finally got released from my contract 4 weeks ago and my wife resigned and finished last week.
We are going to develop my woodturning paying-hobby into a small business to see us through the final three years of my working life. I will continue to supply a few galleries that each take several of my pieces, but I'll probably stop selling through shops. meanwhile, we're taking out a 3-year lease on a small, lock-up shop in Bala, which we shall call 'Pren' (Welsh for 'Wood'). The shop window and main display will be my work, but we'll also stock a small amount of oak furniture and some craft-work made by a few friends of ours.
So, for the last few weeks I've been batch-making bowls etc, working on the basic turning of a batch, then swapping the chucks over and doing the reversing, then swapping again and doing the polishing, in the hope that this approach will cut down my production time. Stuff is finally getting finished and packed away ready for the opening, on 30th March, which we hope will catch the first main cohort of tourists to hit the town in time for Easter.
Exciting times ahead, and I'll start posting pics of some of my work in a few days.
Les
