ABOUT REBECCA CLARE DESIGNSThank you so much for visiting my shop and taking an in interest in my work. If you have any questions, want to talk about a commission, a collaboration or anything else, please get in touch.
WOOD I first fell in love with wood turning on a one-day course at the Camden Town Shed in London. A few months later I found an old lathe hidden away at the back of my Step-Dad’s workshop and when my family saw how excited I was at the prospect of woodturning again a set of chisels followed as a christmas present. Over the next two years I would travel home from London whenever I had the chance, and spend days in the workshop. Through blunt chisels, sore fingers and a lot of youtube ‘how-to’ videos, empty shelves around the house started to fill with finished pieces. When the UK went into lockdown in March I moved home from London to focus on my woodturning and ceramics full time and was delighted with the support I received from family and friends, who urged me to start selling what I was making. I have since created this website, completed a few commissions and started selling online. All of the wood I use is sustainably and locally sourced, mostly from the hedgerows on my Dad’s farm, or donated by family or friends who are felling a tree. It usually comes from dead or dying trees that are destined for the wood-burner. The pieces I make are dictated by the size of the wood; wider logs become bowls and plates while more narrow logs become items such as candle stick holders. I let the grains and knots of the wood determine the shape of the piece and tend to end up with something entirely different to what I had planned. Sustainability, and creating entirely handmade and unique pieces from locally sourced and natural materials is very important to me. Handmade, for me, means slow and deliberate. I am hoping my work will encourage others to start living (and buying) in a more slow and deliberate way; spending money more consciously on items that really matter to them. Every wooden piece available here is one-of-a-kind, lovingly handmade by me, in my little workshop, on that same old lathe, in Warwickshire, UK. CERAMICS Pottery is a craft that has always fascinated me so in 2018, when I was working at The Art Academy in London I enrolled on one of their hand building courses, and from there I was hooked. I went on to teach myself how to throw and eventually found myself a small studio in London. I found something so similar in throwing clay on the wheel and turning wood on the lathe. You have to be so deliberate in your movement. Just one small movement with your hand can produce an enormous change in the piece. When I moved out of London I had to give up my studio space along with the wheels that were available there, so I spent a few months teaching teaching myself how to slip cast until I found a wheel of my own in August 2020. The shapes I create in wood have inspired my slip cast ceramics. I begin by turning a shape in plaster on the lathe, just as I would with my wooden pieces. I then create a plaster mould of this shape and from there it becomes a hollow clay piece. When working on the wheel I like to experiment, seeing what weird shapes I am capable of making. For this reason my thrown collection can be quite eclectic. All the items available here have been thrown on the wheel or cast in my little workshop in Warwickshire. PACKAGING I package all my items in ‘second hand’ packaging that family and friends donate to me. Where possible I use only recyclable materials, and encourage my buyers to reuse or recycle the packaging when their parcel arrives. If you are buying a piece as a gift please let me know and I will ensure the item isn’t packaged in an old shoe box! |