Profile: Nicola Wood

I guess I should have introduced myself first, but better late than never! I am involved in this project because I am a designer and researcher ... and married to a green woodworker, but more about that later.

My involvement with Kesurokai is primarily as media recorder. I shall be photographing and videoing and, technology permitting, blogging live from Japan during the main event in August. On my return I plan to make a short documentary film about the project.

Now a bit more about my background; I am primarily what is known as a multimedia designer which, roughly speaking, is designing things that appear on a computer, but I also work a great deal with video too. My main area of interest is craft skills; how they are learned, how they are taught and how multimedia can be used to record them and help them pass from one person to another.

Whilst much of my work has been based in the world of academia (I have gained an MA and PhD whilst doing it), it is also immensely practical. I have spent many hours hanging out in craftsmen's workshops observing with my video camera and notebook. I have spent many hours with learners, making and testing learning materials, sketching and annotating to understand what is needed to pass on complex skills.

The origin of all this is my partner, Robin Wood, who is well known both for his traditional turning / green woodworking and his campaigning for Heritage Crafts ... but more of that in another post! Working alongside Robin has both given me a unique insight into craft practices and given me the opportunity to develop my own skills in Scandinavian-style spoon carving with knives and axes.

Bringing all my interests together, we have developed a very successful programme to teach spoon carving as a short course and have been delighted by how many students carry on carving after learning with us. The learning materials I have developed during these courses are available on the internet for those attending courses and will hopefully be made into a book before the end of the year.

There is more about me on my web site, including links to things I have designed, my video on youTube ... and even academic papers!

Comments

[paul]

hello,
i really love your blog!
i'm Paul, a french timber framer, working by hand and i'm so please to get all this news about the work i love.your blog is very interesting, i didn't know about all this events, i hope i'll be there once.
this is a link to a video of me hewing to "repare" an old french farm, may be you like it:
(i don't speak very well english sorry)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbb0m0_paul-zahnd-charpentier-a-l-ancienne_creation

thank you very much for your work
paul

[Nicola Wood]

Thank you Paul, it is a lovely video and your work looks very fine too. Some time I will watch it with a French friend of mine so I can find out what you are saying.

[paul]

hi Nicola,
i'm so glad that you put my video on your blog ,it's very nice! don't try to understand what i say cause i was a bit nervous and i spoke a lot of shit!! better if you only got pictures ahaha!
anyway, thank you so much for your blog that is so interesting, i'll follow it for sure.
good bye
paul (the french timber framer)

[Juan Miguel]

Hi Nicola, I write to you from Tenerife, Canary Islands_Spain, congratulations for your blog, it is surprising the things that you have, to more interesting which, the video of ancient carpentry is excellent, I value it because I also am a carpenter, leave to you this link so that you see the reproduction of the pole lathe of DaVinci that I did a few years ago.
If one day you travel Tenerife, warn me, greetings (I'm sorry for my English, it is not very good)

http://www.artesanialmeria.es/page8.php

[merlin zeldenthuis]

Hello Nicola,
I write you from italy, i am impressed by this website, and i wonder if there will be any future kesurokai related event. I am more ore less an autodidact timber hewer, and with an colleague i am trying to launch an activity in handsquared beams for restauration purposes. But most of all i am interested in learning and sharing with other manual craftsmen.
merlin