Fresh From the Box

So this will be my first blog post using Dragon naturally speaking. I’m making a conscious effort not to use any typing if possible and to be honest it’s a little weird; but it works really well. So I’m not going to edit this at all. I have also got loads of new equipment like a drawing boards and I started using my scanner printer. So as a direct result I might be churning out more crap and waffling lots so here goes the post. Now my new laptop and software is here I should be able to post blog much easier as i made a statement earlier on in the year that I would be making a blog post every week. That hasn’t been the case and I also feel I should be talking more about myself and my work. So that will also be a change like as had previously I have some new equipment like a drawing board that was given to me with the parallel arms broken; and now that its fixed its really cool. I also got a lamp as a present which was also broken which is also fixed now. I have my laptop with all the cool gear and software so should be even easier to get some cool stuff done this year.

My new workspace


So a lot of my time this new semester has been taken up by a project called fresh air. Fresh air is a biannual sculpture exhibition that raises money for the fresh air trust. The opportunity that I have been offered is incredible, they want me and my class mates to fill a number of exhibition spaces that will have some where in the region of 16,000 people see them. I personally think this is an incredible opportunity and something that I have pressurised myself unnecessarily about. Saying that, I have got a place and the added pressure I guess has helped and hopefully I can create something really nice that will get me noticed.

Design border model


Fresh air takes place on the 23rd June in a small village called Quenington, in Cirencester. As students at Hereford College of Art we were asked to produce work that responded to the site. The piece that we create has to be based in our chosen profession and reflect ourselves and our concepts as designer makers; so I have chosen to create a piece that reflects the beauty of nature and innovation of the human mind. Hopefully my piece will show the unique balance that planet Earth is in. I’m hoping to create a piece that directly reflects the way I see the world around me, I have picked very direct visual influences that I will used to inform my ideas. These are based on seeing limbs of trees hanging into the waters that run to turn a once working water Wheel; I want my piece to directly reflect both of these visual experiences. So I hope that I will be able to produce a sculpture that looks both mechanical and organic and interacts with the water in the same way as the trees and the water wheel.

Scale model


So if you want to find out more about fresh air they have a website http://www.freshair2013.com/ and a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FRESH-AIR-Quenington-2013/220719344729151?fref=ts so go along and check out.

So this is a request to my readers. I do not know who you are, but I would like to. I get a lot of information on blogger about the people who view my posts, and a lot of these are quite random hits and as a result I’d like to know what you guys want to know about me and what I’m doing because that’s why you’re reading I think and I hope. So let me know what you like, what you don’t like and what you would like more of and questions if you have them because I’m sure there must be people out there with questions about all sides of forging and blacksmithing.

Some of my stuff






Dragon Naturally Speaking is amazing and has made writing this post really easy hence why I have waffled so much, if you like to know more about Dragon naturally speaking leave a message and I’ll try and get some information for you.

Thank you monkey “Cuppa Tea?” Love it. xx