I have been working with wood professionally for over 40 years and, apart from two years training as a joiner in the early ‘70s, I am completely self taught. This is possibly why I have always followed my own artistic path throughout my career and continually felt to be an outsider in both the fine art and the crafts worlds. Between 1975 and 1985 I worked as a furniture maker, restorer and turner whilst also experimenting in a small way with sculpture. From 1985 to 2005 I focused exclusively on turning wood but, unfortunately, after 2005, my career and production of work slowly came to a halt due to my late wife’s deteriorating health.

From 1985 to 1989, I concentrated on functional work and during this period I designed and made a small range of kitchen utensils which was sold in the David Mellor design shop in London. I had no intention of becoming an ‘artist’, but I always tried to produce work of exceptional quality. However, in 1989 I started experimenting, out of necessity, with turning unseasoned wood. I had seen a beautiful holly bowl by Richard Raffan which had been green turned and had distorted with perfect symmetry. It occurred to me that if it was possible to predict the distortion of a piece with such accuracy then a whole new world of design was opened up which was not possible if one only used seasoned timber. It also struck me as an exciting challenge and, at this point, I could see no one who was developing this idea in anything but the most mundane way.