I spent the day today teaching how to carve the ball and claw foot at Roy Underhill’s school – The Woodright School (www.thewoodrightschool.com). This is the first day of a 2 day class.
Roy has the PBS show “The Woodright’s Shop” that is now in its 32nd year. His shows mainly focus on the traditional hand-tool techniques of woodworking, and he’s just a great guy, and a great personality. I always love teaching here because you just never know what to expect. I was a guest on his TV show in 2009, and am excited to announce that I am going to be filming another one for this season in June. You can see his older TV episodes on his website – www.thewoodrightshop.com.
I’ve been teaching carving at his school in Pittsboro, NC for the past 2 years. If you ever have a chance to come to his school, it’s a wonderful opportunity to learn traditional techniques from a variety of master woodworkers including Roy himself, Christopher Schwarz, Peter Follansbee, Bill Anderson, Elia Bizarri & Peter Ross (he actually teaches wrought iron), among others.
Christopher Schwarz (www.lostartpress.com) was also in town today and spent the afternoon photographing some of my work and my teaching to do an article for Popular Woodworking. This is very exciting, because this will hopefully get the word out about my online video school. The article will come out in the fall/winter – so my site will be fully established by that time.
Roy and Christopher together is a real sight to be seen. Their personalities feed off each other, and you really never know where it will take them. I have some photos of them doing a team project of putting in a toilet at Roy’s home (which is this truly amazing old mill house). Watching them perform this task was quite entertaining. And I am happy to say – it was a success! So far…
I have been working so hard at finishing projects this past week that this weekend of teaching really feels like a break – at least it is a break from the norm. Monday I am heading back home and attaching myself to the workbench again to finish this oak job, and then to start work again on this job for the Savannah church.
And somewhere in all this I am going to be getting videos ready! When I go down paths of thought with instructional video ideas, the projects are endless. If anybody has any suggestions of what they would like to see instruction on, please let me know and I will put it on my schedule.