About
Project • location • WhO
About
The Project
The aim of this project is to
- Make beautiful functional objects for the home from locally sourced wood using green woodwork techniques, such as the pole lathe.
- Provide opportunities for people to try new crafts through workshops and volunteering opportunities.
- Connect woodworkers in the Bristol area through initiatives such as Spoon club.
- Promote wood as the raw material of choice when planning a project or purchase. Each purchase comes with info on wood miles* and carbon storage**..
- Better understand the positive impacts of human intervention on a conservation landscape.
* Wood Miles – the number of miles the log travelled to get to my workshop. I am working towards making this as small as possible.
** Carbon Storage – wooden objects are a great way of keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. Roughly half the weight of a finished wooden product is carbon.
About
The Location
Tree to Treen is based at Grow Wilder, an incredible Avon Wildlife Trust (AWT) site in Frenchay, Bristol. We are located centrally within the site next to the Packing Shed in our larch timber-frame workshop dubbed ‘The Giraffe Sanctuary’.
Grow Wilder (formerly Feed Bristol) is an inspiring place to visit and work. They showcase how growing food can positively impact a conservation site as fruit, vegetables and herbs are cultivated alongside wild flowers across the site. These wild flowers are also harvested for seed each year and cultivated to be sold in the nursery to increase the bio-diversity in the local area. In the future we hope to integrate further on the site and demonstrate coppicing as well as selling products.
About
Who
The main architect of the project is Geoff Hannis (@geoffhannis on instagram). Geoff has always been fascinated with working wood, however it wasn’t until 2018 that he discovered the joy of working green wood through the Cherry Wood Project and the Somerset Bodgers at Tyntesfield House. Having learnt from some of the best craftspeople in the country, he is delighted to offer courses in both spindle turning and bowl turning at Grow Wilder. He has been named as the QEST Turners’ Company Emerging Maker to learn how to make stop-turned vessels, a technique unique to the pole lathe. Having made a wide variety of commissioned turned pieces he’s happy to have a go at whatever you may want turned so do get in touch if interested in something special or bespoke.
He also co-ordinates courses provided by other local craftspeople in the workshop and Bristol Spoon Club. More info about these other course providers can be found here.
