Workshop Wisdom - Found Wood

This month, Oliver Chalk of Found Wood shares his woodwork skills alongside his thoughts about his workshop, his inspirations, and lessons learned.

My workshop is my home, a place were I can be with my thoughts and explore my curiosity. Since I established my practice during the pandemic, it’s offered me incredible time and space to think about what it means to be me and how I want to communicate with the world — my workshop is purpose driven and a very private place. 

My days are slow and intentional - I make one body of work each year and there are fairly defined parts to its creation. Depending on which part of my making cycle I’m in dictates the processes I focus on at any give time. Selecting and sourcing material, initial form finding on the lathe, surface application through carving, an extensive drying period allowing the resting equilibrium of the material is found, and finally selecting which works are worth refining and which are not - to accompany these processes, I spend a large portion of time documenting my days with my camera. 

I quickly decided when I started working with wood that I wanted to work in silence. To me, the workshop is a place of contemplation and self reflection, any music or podcasts would dilute the experience of making work and distract me from giving full attention to what’s in front of me. In a world where our attention is so easily stolen the workshop offers me a place to disconnect from the outside world and live presently. 

It would have to be Strangers on a bench, Tom Rosenthal approaches a stranger on a park bench and asks if he can sit down next to them and record their conversation — wonderful unpolished and down to earth conversations with the general public. 

A very tough question as there are many, but the names that spring to mind would be Robert Rauschenberg, Chuck Close and Marina Abramović - I find their philosophical approach to making work very compelling. 

My work continues to evolve with each collection I create, a sort of autobiographical framework that I use as a starting point for the next. A main theme that runs through my work is surface — it’s an intrinsic characteristic to how we engage with the world, we instinctively reach out and touch to understand and identify, it’s a powerful reflex and most of the time we don’t even know we’re doing it. 

My practise is a continuous exploration of the tensions between material and maker, heavily entwined philosophies driven by process with final works becoming the residue of time spent within it. The act of making provides me with a way to show the world — me. 

By some margin it would be my hands. They’re one of a kind and the most treasured tools I own; completely abused and over used, reliable, and I always know where to find them. 

“Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive” is a phrase I regularly remind my self of. To me, these words embody living a good life. I came across them reading Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Robert R Pirsig — my favourite book. 

While making work, I actively push my skill set and material knowledge to their current limit, essentially seeking out failure. I don’t think that anything was ever learned from doing something right for the first time — I’ve never been interested in what I can do but only what I cannot. 

I’d rather break a piece and fully understand the mechanics of a process or required skill than to dismiss the opportunity to learn. I’ve found mistakes open new ways of thinking that are unlikely to have been conceived intentionally, these are the moments I find where work gets exciting. Over the years of making I’ve come to appreciate that it’s it doesn’t really matter what you make, the value and depth is found in your approach to making it.