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CLUSTER CRAFTS FAIR

FOCUS ON: WOOD

Focus on wood

Cluster Crafts here delves into Cluster exhibitors Ashley Martin and Klaus Kirchner navigating the medium of wood.
Ashley Martin and Klaus Kirchner are amongst the many talented designers showcasing their work as part of Cluster Crafts programme.

Founder of Ash Woodworking Company, Ashley Martin is a self-taught craftsman whose work focuses on abstract forms from nature. He combines traditional hand tools with modern power carving equipment to create pieces that blend and balance technology with craft.

Based in North Carolina, Martin has a strong sense of his own unique voice and enjoys experimenting with this responsive, natural material. He finds the process of working with his hands to be meditative, and this quietness can be felt in the end results of his work. Each object has a peaceful presence, and a tactile curiosity.

Klaus Kirchner is based in Germany. He uses woodturning methods to create rounded pieces that show off the natural grains – the very fingerprints – of the wood he uses.

Kirchner’s delight with wood began as a child, when he’d collect firewood with his parents and grandparents to keep the house warm in the winter. He didn’t think about wood as a design material until 2005, when a magazine article on woodturning caught his eye. He’d been working in the IT industry, and the shift to the tangible world of craft hooked him immediately.

Kirchner works predominantly with local and reclaimed woods, creating boxes, bowls, lamps and structures, sometimes with a playful edge and at other times with a natural, more poetic finish. He always endeavours to ensure that the wood itself has a voice in the final product. Much of the wood he chooses to use would have otherwise been waste material, ending up in a shredder or fireplace.

For this year’s edition of Cluster Crafts, Kirchner will be presenting three Flower Objects made from bird cherry wood, and three more from yew. These Flower Objects are crafted by hand on a woodturner and then steamed over boiling water to add a certain dramatic quality to the final piece. The final products are left roughly sanded or lightly oiled.

“Wood has a soft and warm touch usually and I really try to emphasise this by sanding and just giving it a light touch of oil or wax, or even I leave it naturally as is” says Kirchner. “I do not like highly polished wooden surfaces. In my view it’s not natural wood showing anymore.”

Martin will be exhibiting a largely new series called “Thin Handled Vessels in Maple”. This was the result of an experimentation earlier in the year. His relationship with the material is an ever evolving love affair that started when he was a student.

“I came upon woodcarving, and craftsmanship in general, mostly by accident,” says Martin. “I began carving wood in my dorm room in university while studying Aviation. I had done some basic whittling when I was younger and picked it back up to pass the time simply because it was cheap and accessible. I gradually grew to understand the wood and the process of shaping, and by the time I realised craft is what I really wanted to pursue I couldn’t imagine working in any other material.

“Wood is a living substance that continues to change over time and requires flexibility as well as a deep understanding of its nature; I believe this is felt by the viewer in the end result.”

Martin works almost exclusively with maple and walnut, both available hardwoods available to him locally. They are dense and carve beautifully, holding subtle details and shape well.

“Walnut is dark and rich, which compliments my more organic weighty forms, while maple is soft and light, which I find works well for my forms with clean, minimalist lines,” he says.

“Wood has an eclectic range of tactile qualities that can be drawn out depending on the desired effect. I believe, when finished properly, wood can take on a smooth, almost stone-like quality with a unique softness all to its own.”

Cluster’s plan is to create an on-going digital fair platform that further extends its support to the artists through - digital advertising, marketing, artist-focused articles, brand new online shop platform, physical book with AR codes, public interventions and museum exhibition in 2021.