|
Brough Woodturners Trip To South
Africa
 Brough based couple Liz and Michael O’
Donnell, have just returned from a six week trip to South Africa, where
they were showing their skills to the locals. They were invited by
the Association of Woodturners of South Africa (AWSA) to attend their
annual congress in Durban, to demonstrate their distinctive style of
woodturning and decorating to the locals and other visitors to the
congress. Michael, who left Vulcan 30 years ago, to concentrate on
his woodturning, turns all his bowls using mainly local sycamore, and Liz,
a primary school art teacher until recently taking early retirement, is
responsible for the eye-catching decorative artwork.
 The
couple have a workshop and studio at their home in Brough, where they
produce their work, mainly decorative table pieces, before travelling the
world exhibiting them and selling them. So far their work has taken
them to exhibitions in the USA, Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, Germany,
France, and various other European countries. They have written
three books, and produced two instructional videos, which they did all the
work for themselves, tackling the photography, video work and every other
aspect of the process apart from the printing. One of the videos has been
translated into French and German due to the demand for them in Europe.
They also have their own website,
www.woodturning.uk.com, which of course Michael has created himself,
through which they sell the videos and books as well as obtain commissions
to produce pieces for customers.
 The
trip to South Africa, which was funded by both the Scottish Arts Council,
and the Woodturners association, came about through one of their videos.
One of the members of the AWSA saw a video and asked them along to
demonstrate their techniques to the congress. They were then invited
to extend their stay to travel around the country putting on
demonstrations and master-classes to the local clubs. The congress itself
saw them demonstrate to over 120 people, who were very interested to
discover new ways of working. Michael prefers to turn green wood, which
has just been cut, whereas the locals were used to using seasoned wood,
which had been cut some time previous to working on it. This did
cause problems in the early stages as the locals let him cut down a tree
to use for one of his demos, but it proved difficult, as the wood types
were so different to those over here. The tree he used was what was
known as ‘ironwood’, a very hard, tough wood. He was told by one of the
people attending the demonstration that “South African wood is not for
wimps”. Some of the unusual woods were ‘stinkwood’, ‘sneeze wood’,
the ‘ironwood’ and he even tried turning mango. After the congress
their travels took them around various clubs from Pretoria in the north,
down through Johannesburg, Durban and on to Cape Town. During this
time their hosts treated them brilliantly. “We were made to feel
like visiting film stars” explains Michael, “they wined and dined us, and
showed us all the great sites in their country”. “They were very
enthusiastic about our work and very welcoming” says Liz, “They took us up
Table Mountain, and to the Cape of Good Hope, as well as taking us to a
Game Reserve and many other great places”.
 The
second part of their trip, which was funded by the Scottish Arts Council,
took them to Swaziland, where they were to research the local crafts, with
a view to developing new techniques into their own work. This involved
visiting local craft shops and local trades. During this part of the
trip Liz and Michael stayed in tents, not normal tents, but big
residential type tents, with fridges and other household appliances.
It was here that they had another eye-opener, when they discovered locks
on the fridge doors. “I thought it was odd that they had locks on the
fridge doors” explains Liz, “but then I noticed teeth marks around the
door. This was to stop the hyenas getting into the fridges” The local
hyenas had actually learnt how to open the fridge doors and empty them of
their contents. “They were really horrible looking creatures” says Liz, “
and we had to keep chasing them away from the barbecue!”.
 So it’s
back to normal life for now for the couple, with Michael continuing his
woodwork, while Liz is involved in the Mount Pleasant School outdoor
classroom project. Michael is then due to go over to a 3 day seminar at
the Brighan Young University in Utah, USA, in June, where he joins another
400 participants demonstrating many different styles and techniques. More
trips and exhibitions are set to follow later in the year, as the couple
continue to pass on their remarkable skills to people throughout the
world. As Michael says “some people talk about how much money they’ve made
at their work by toiling away all these years, but I don’t envy them one
bit, because I’ve had all these amazing experiences and we spend our lives
doing the things we enjoy”. With all these stories to tell and an
amazing lifestyle of travel through their work, who could argue? |