Something new for me!
When the Coronavirus lock-down bit hard into the lives of artists and crafts-people, I had just finished developing the tuition side of my business, along with distributing all my work around a variety of galleries and arts centres. For the initial 3-week period of lock-down, we decided to put Pren on hold and get plenty of work done around the house and garden, but as the lock-down was extended and we all began to realise that we were in this for the long term, it became rather important that I start looking for new avenues through which I could sell my work.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have been helped by a friend of a friend, who is setting up an e-commerce service on this web-site, but then we suddenly realised that even if we were to start selling, I wouldn’t be able to access any of my work to get it posted to any new customers. Things are slowly getting sorted and hopefully we’ll be going live very soon.
In stage 1 of the upgrade we’ll be re-vamping the “For sale” gallery along with a few little changes to the web-site, then in stage 2, we’ll embrace e-commerce fully, and this should all happen in the next couple of weeks. 
Meanwhile, the workshop has been unusually quiet, or at least it was, until q few days ago when I tackled a commission. A customer had asked me to produce a trophy and I am glad to say that he knows my style of work, so he knew not to expect a traditional design. I am not able (yet) to say who the customer is, where the trophy will be housed, or for what event the trophy will be presented, so I will update this log when I can. For now, all that I can say is that the elements of the trophy embody shapes with significance attached to them….I must stop there, or I’ll betray a confidence!
So here it is….a 34cm diameter spalted sycamore disc with minimal decorative features, including a scorched and gilt-creamed ring, a cabochon of oak burr and that strong rectangle of scorched ash running up through the centre of it. This was technically a very difficult piece to make and demanded precision of cutting and re-connecting of the various pieces of the trophy. All that needs to be done to complete it is to apply an engraved brass plaque onto the lower region of the black-ash triangle, so you’ll have to wait to see that.
