The artistry in woodturning emerges within one’s response to the wood, not the simple imposition of a form upon it. 

I started making furniture at the start of the millennium as a way of relaxing; a means of escape. These early attempts focussed my attention on what I wasn’t able to do; as a good friend and joiner once said “when it comes to dovetails I understand, my brain gets it. Unfortunately my hands don’t get all the messages!”

In January 2015, I bought my first wood lathe and for a couple of years my time in the workshop became focussed exclusively on learning how to turn wooden bowls and produce ever bigger hollow forms.  

At this time my professional role was as a post doctoral researcher. I carried out the first ethnographic fieldwork with policy makers on how academic knowledge is used in Whitehall, and later researched how academic knowledge can be more successfully co-produced with non-academics. However, I became increasingly interested in how I use new knowledge; how I was approaching learning to turn wood, and in essence I became my own research subject. I discovered the importance of ‘the moment’ where unexpected things emerge and began to focus less on ‘knowing’ and trying to impose preconceived methods and forms onto unsuspecting trees.

In January 2017 I started VDH WoodWorks and focused on working with wood full time. I began attending local fairs and markets including Open Up Sheffield and Hepworth Wakefield Summer Fair and Christmas Market.

I also began to work very closely with other makers and artists and started "Call and Response Sheffield" as a way of engaging others in collaboration. Importantly, the collaboration was not conceived as a series of sequential commissions where others perform to a given blueprint, rather where unfinished pieces are passed between ‘others’ to bring a piece of art in existence and completion as they see fit. Trust and respect for the work others have invested in a piece are maximised, pushing everyone involved to go beyond their previous best.

During lockdown I have reorganised and re-equipped my workshop to be able to make furniture again. My Instagram page charts this process of development and change.