sutton046

What a great project! The Swan Valley Anglican Community School approached me to build a Sound Garden at the school with the students from the Student Council. A small piece of garden with two trees in it was set aside for the task. We would be using mostly recycled materials for the task. Our workforce comprised about 16 students, two wonderful parent volunteers, a couple of fantastic staff, the very handy Thom Scott and myself. It would be very full day. Before we commenced on the day, I asked each of the students to say what they hoped the Sound Garden space would provide. The kids came up with some very thoughtful comments, with a few common themes: Somewhere to have fun,  Somewhere to express your feelings,  A place to go when you feel down, A place to go when you feel good, A place to enjoy playing music with your friends, and A place to help you feel better. Clearly kids, too, have an appreciation of the connection between music and emotions! Well, the aim of the Sound ...

While in the USA in November 2010, I was pleased to visit an organisation called "Urban Boatbuilders" in a suburban shopfront in Minneapolis. This was another fantastic project I had checked out at that time, in my quest to explore youthworking programs which use woodwork as the primary tool to work with the young people. The Mission of Urban Boatbuilders is:   Positive Youth Development through the Building and Use of Boats. Wooden boats are a big thing in the USA, unlike Australia. I guess they have tens of thousands of inland lakes and waterways, so that must help, plus a much longer tradition of wooden boatbuilding. One of the views inside the workshop.  Three years later, wile staying with our friends in Minneapolis again, I contacted Urban Boatbuilders for another visit. Great to see that they are still there! Not all organisations survived the GFC and subsequent belt-tightening. I braved the traffic on a deadly treadly, riding on the "wrong" side of the road...

My delightful Green Woodworking Odyssey in the USA continued, learning from Drew Langsner, in the Blue Ridge Mountains - about an hour from Asheville, NC. While I had come to the USA to attend the Woodworking in America conference/gathering (WIA), I had also made it my mission to use my time in the USA to learn green woodworking skills. Once I had booked into the WIA many months earlier, I then set about trying to find some courses/workshops to do. While the internet is a wonderful way of accessing information, it was not easy to find what was on offer and be able to hook it all together logistically within the time frame available - especially with a very limited knowledge of the USA and its geography. As a result of my searching and emails back and forth, I had booked into a week with Roy Underhill at the Woodwright's School and a week at Country Workshops with Drew Langsner - both in North Carolina. I was not to be disappointed!! Louise and Drew Langsner. At the WIA, I plugged i...

After wishing I could be there for the last few years, I have finally done it! I went to the "Woodworking in America 2013" Conference/Event (WIA) in Cincinnati, Ohio in October. What a joy it was to be there too! I was one of many hundreds of woodworkers present, but other than an Adelaide boy who lives and works in the USA now, I was the only Australian as far as I know. Imagine it... Two and a half days of non-stop woodworking talk, demonstrations,  tools and activity. Bliss. Even more blissfully, there were hardly any bods selling power tools and machines in the "Market Place". The focus was pretty much on hand tools there. Fantastic second hand and antique tools for sale, new tools from the many boutique saw makers, plane makers, and other tool makers that the USA woodworking community can support. Timber, gadgets, books, and paraphernalia for all things wood. There was even the Hand Tool Olympics going on in there all day too. Day 1 , I started the morning goin...