Graeme Priddle

Hi again,

Hah, two posts in as many weeks, getting the hang of this stuff now. Forgot to mention in my last post that I recently took delivery of the most amazing Woodburner I have ever seen.

For many years I have been showing students on hands-on classes in the US how to make woodburners out of battery chargers and dimmer switches. These work fine, are a lot cheaper and have a lot more power than commercially available woodburners but while I was on my tour of NZ woodturning clubs in November last year I met Brian Peers, a Rotorua woodworker who makes beautiful furniture with amazing detail but also has a day job as an electronics technician, something I also did in a previous life.

While visiting Robbie Graham in Taupo on my way to Rotorua I saw a woodburner Brian had made for Robbie using a rewound microwave oven transformer.

My interest was piqued I made a point of visiting Brian when I got to Rotorua and after a very nice visit I decided I could do with another woodburner, you can never have enough eh, saves changing tips, haha!

You can imagine my surprise when this beauty turned up a month or so later………

Knowing my previous career as a radio technician Brian went steampunk on the design. As a tech I spent some years working on analogue and digital microwave communications, installing transcievers and climbing towers on the top of mountains helping riggers run waveguide from the radio set to the dish ariel on the top of the tower, those round white things.

Running waveguide , which is eliptical corrugated copper tube as you can see the woodburner handle is made of, was the most difficult and critical part of the installation and it had to be handled with extreme care and special benders as one little dent or bad bend that changed the inner profile of the tube meant that you had to cut off the damaged bit and start again, not good if you dented it at the bottom of a 150ft run and a tad expensive to replace!!!

But my favourite feature is the brass wingnut on top of the box which starts to spin as you wind up the power, haha! Work becomes sheer pleasure when you have tools that are a work of art to work with, THANKS Brian :)

And while I was at it I ordered another burner for my friend/student/accountant Neil Ruddell.

I have been teaching Neil for a couple of years now and soon I think he be be starting to teach me!! Neil has done well over the last year with a highly commended award for his first ever entry in the Kawerau National Woodskills Festival and also picked up a fair share of the awards at the Northland Woodworkers Guild end of year show and competition. Congratulations Neil:)

So if you are in the market for a custom made high power woodburner I’d definitely recommend you get in touch with;

Brian Peers   soundserv@xnet.co.nz

Ph 64 7 347 9007

Happy burning:):)

Hi everyone,

Again, a long time between postings, sorry but not much good at this website stuff, would rather be in the workshop or fishing.

Been a busy time since I last wrote from the Wood Festival in Breville, France so haven’t even had much time for fishing although I did get out last week and we were pulling in fish as fast as our lines hit the water, not often it’s that good, I guess that’s why they call it fishing and not catching eh!!!

The Breville Wood Festival was fantastic, 3 days of a multitude of woodcrafts and arts, fabulous local organic foods and beverages and  music. The woodturning competition was a lot of fun, a big thanks to all the turners who took part with much cameraderie and laughter, even though I suspect they were probably laughing at my pathetic attempts to speak French!!

Luckily Michel Auriou from Auriou Rasps was there to help me translate, thanks Michel. A big thanks again to to Martin  Gschwandtner from Magma Tools in Austria and Raymond Bordet in France for supplying the magnificent Titan lathe and all the tools I needed but couldn’t fit in the overhead on the plane. And the biggest thanks to all the fabulous folks in the Breville community and their sponsors for all the hard work and support in putting an event like this together and hosting us all so wonderfully.

And much to my surprise the judges awarded my piece,‘Extravagant Balance’, 1^st place in the competition. All the finished pieces were equally worthy and I sure would have found it hard to judge.

And it is all happenging again this year but with a very different format. As it will be the 10^th anniversary of the festival the organisers are inviting back all the competitors from the last 10 events but there will not be any competition, it will be a collaborative gathering where we will all spend 3 days playing together and ‘just making stuff’

Also this year the Breville Festival is partnering with AFTAB the French Association for Artistic Woodturning which will be organising their annual Congress in association with the Festival. AFTAB will be running 3 day hands on classes in Breville leading up to the festival and then running their Congress alongside the festival with demonstrations from leading International and French woodturners who will also be playing at the collaborative gathering between demonstrations, there will be all the other usual festival activities going on as well and promises to be a lot of fun so if you can make it to Breville, near Cognac, late August I’d definitely recommend a visit, for exact dates and details go to

www.breville.org and www.aftab-asso.com

After France I enjoyed a nice visit to Israel, many thanks to Daniel Serota for organising my demo there and providing use of his workshop/school and to all those who came along. Big thanks also to Pablo Nemzoff and family for the wonderful hospitality and to Eli & Liba & Shakar for a fabulous day in the Upper Gallilea, I hope it’s not so long till I see you all again

I returned home ready to some serious time in the workshop which was just as well as we’ve had the worst summer in NZ I can ever remember, way too cool and wet, that Spanish geezer El Nino is to blame apparentlyL But at least I wasn’t too upset being in the workshop and not at the beach!

Not much action on the property selling / workshop moving front till this week when an offer on the property came in and fingers crossed it will all progress smoothly and I am really looking forward to setting up a new workshop in Whangarei.

Got another busy travel year ahead, I’m sitting on a plane right now heading to Rarotonga for my daughters wedding:) Just about to land so gotta turn off for now.

Back again.

Work travel starts late March when I head across the ditch for Turnfest, another 10yr anniversary with demonstrators from all previous events coming back, check out www.turnfest.com.au After turnfest I’ll be visiting furniture designer Ross Annels in Cooroy, Nth of Brisbane and giving a presentation about the CollaboratioNZ conferences that we have been holding in Northland with the hope it will convince the local council to get behind Ross in organising a similar event in Cooroy, It is amazing how the ripples have gone out after the first Emma Lake Collaboration in Nth Saskatchewan in 1996. Sadly I missed the Bowral Collab in NSW, Australia while I was in Israel but have heard from Mark Sfirri that it was a fabulous event.

In October I’ll be going to the Western Australian Collab, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to WA and I’m really looking forward to catching up with lots of friends there, sadly one of my favourite WA woodturners Gordon Ward passed away last year and I know we will all miss Gordon and his pun-ishing wit but I am sure he will be there with us in spirit

After Cooroy I’ll be heading back to Brisbane to do a weekemnd class in furnitue designer Richard Vaughan’s ‘shedudio’ focusing on design, carving and surface treatments.

Then it’s back home for a week or three to repack the bags before I head to Nth Amarica in early May, doing a bunch of demo in the Bay Area of San Francisco then heading to Provo, Utah for Craft Supplies ‘Super Wednesday’ and the Utah Symposium, I haven’t been to this event since the move from BYU so looking forward it. I’ll also be attending the AAW Symposium in San Jose where I’ll be having some input to a panel discussion on effective teaching and demonstrating and helping out on the Magma trtade stand. Then I’ll be doing some demos/classes in Washington State, Oregan and Vancouver Is and ending my trip in Nth Saskatchewan at Emma Lake.

Then home for 3 weeks to recharge and repack before heading to France for the Breville Wood Festival/AFTAB Congress, Austria for the the Magma ‘Open Doors’ and then the West Australia Collaboration.

I am still managing to get a few pieces made and here’s a few pics of some latest work…….

‘Point Break’ – collection of Steve Smith and Ruth – Melbourne, Australia.

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Hi everyone,

Sorry it’s been such a long time since I posted something, the last year has been so busy and gone so fast!!

First of all I want to thank everyone who has hosted and looked after me so well on all my travels, with 9 months on the road last year and 6 months this year there are so many to thank. But a special thanks to Maia and Jeff and Donna Turi again for helping me with my scheduling over the last year. Maia has now established her own studio making beautiful jewellery and is so busy with this she does not have the time to do my scheduling any more but will continue to look after the great website she created for me so please direct any work or scheduling enquiries to me at graemepriddle@xtra.co.nz from now on.

This years travels were mainly on the East coast, demoing for clubs from Delaware up to New Jersey, and taking part in the Echo Lake Collaboration hosted by the Bucks County Woodurners at the Bucks County Community College, always a great event! I also taught a week class a Peter’s Valley Craft School, a fabulous place to teach and great to see the school doing so well after a difficult few years. I also had my first foray into Eastern Canada with a whirlwind tour of clubs in Ontario and Monteal.

After that I took a little time out in Indianapolis with Clay Foster and Jennifer Shirley including a weekend trip to Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts for Clay, who is curently serving on the board, to attend a board meeting where Bill Mays was appointed new director of the school and we attended a fundraising auction and dinner which was well supported and also great to see things picking up for Arrowmont as well Then it was up to St Paul for the AAW Symposium which was fantastic.

I went back home after St Paul for a month of winter and to remind my family what I look like!

Then early August I was back in Portland, Oregon for the Northwest Woodturners ‘Frogwood’ collaborative gathering at Dale Larson’s place which was so much fun, I got to play with a little lost wax bronze casting courtesy of Ron Gerton but mainly worked with Dave Williams on a large chainsaw/arbortech carved bowl suspended on a tripod which all who attended put images of their ‘real’ and ‘fantasy’ jobs in mud. The bowl was then burnt with the mud acting as a fire resist, I learnt this technique from Clay Foster many years ago.

Now I’ve just arrived back in Breville, France, where I did the sculpture residency with Michael Cullen in May last year. So good to see everyone here again, after living here for a month and being so well looked after by everyone it felt like coming homeJ and great to see our sculpture installed on the village green.

Exposure to the elements over the last year and a bit has certainly changed it, the milk paint has faded and deteriorated with UV more than I expected but it has given the installation an aged, patinated look that I kinda like and is in keeping with the aged look of the village buildings.

This time I’m here for “Art et Passion du Bois’ a 3 day wood festival that is held here in Breville every August hosted by the Association Art et Bois a Breville. Part of the festival is woodturning competition. The theme for this years competition was ‘Extravagant Balance’ and I had to submit a design proposal for the juried entry.

Now I have the next 3 days to make it. Michael and I were part of last years jury panel and Jean-Francois Escoulen led the judging panel. First prize was won by Binh Pho who will be leading this years judging panel.

The festival will include lots of other wood art, marquetry, sculpture and more, it’s a tent city her right now and looking forward to seeing what goes on over the weekend. There will also be lots of yummy food and beverages, Breville has a lot of organic producers who will be promoting their produce, especially looking forward to sampling some nice organic Cognac and Pineau made by local distillers Jean-Marie and Pascal, after the lathe is turned off of course!!!

And speaking of lathes I want to thank Martin from Magma and his French agent Raymond Bordet for sponsoring me again by providing a magnificent Titan 315 and all the tools I need to play with during the festival

After Fance I’m looking forward to a bit of vacation time with a 10 day canoe trip on the Green River in Southern Utah then I’m heading back to Austria for the Magma ‘Open Doors’ which is always a great event. If you are ever in Europe the last weekend of Sept I would recommend a visit to this event, check out my links page for info about Magma and their ‘Open Doors’ event.

After Austria I’ll be stopping in Israel on my way home for a little work and catch up with friends.

Then will have a busy summer at home getting my current property tidied up and sold and moving my workshop into Whangarei. I’m really looking forward to the change which will give me so much more time to ‘just make stuff’

Cheers

Graeme

Check out a blog written about Graeme’s recent visit to Baltimore, MD

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Hi everyone,

Well, we all survived another CollaboratioNZ, despite the weather, and hope you all had as much fun as I did. Great to catch up with so many friends and meet so many new ones☺ A special thanks to our volunteer committee who give so much time and energy and also to all those who came from around the world and NZ and gave their all to help us and share so much, this is truly an event that is impossible to describe, it has to be experienced. Also a big thanks to all our sponsors and our community for all their support.

Kristen www.kristinmitsushiga.com has set up a photo sharing site, http://www.flickr.com/groups/collaborationz/ Check it out.

I’ve just arrived in Delaware at the start of a 2 month demo/teaching tour, mainly on the US East Coast, details are on the calendar, and especially looking forward to attending the AAW symposium in St Paul. A huge thanks again to Maia and all those who helped put this trip together. Also many thanks to all who supported the recent AAW/POP ebay auction, I always enjoy collaborating with Binh and the response to our piece has been heartwarming.

The most exciting development in my life recently has been the decision to sell the land where I have lived for the last 20 years, a change in personal cicumstances, increasing opportunities for travel and teaching and many other things have made it impossible to keep up with all that is needed to maintain such a large remote property so it will be going on the market when I get home from my travels. Short term plan is to lease a commercial space in Whangarei where I can live and work for a year or two and concentrate fully on ‘making stuff’ and teaching and take a bit of time looking for a more manageable piece of dirt to build my dream house/workshop on, or I might just get used to being a ‘townie’☺

Cheers Graeme

Image of the collaborative piece for the AAW Auction: Blue Angels