Tim Wade
Craftsman Tim Wade combines his skills as a furniture maker with those as a forester.
His Woodland Skills Centre in Llanafan, Builth Wells, has been developed on a 120 acre piece of land, situated close to an old church hall which he has converted into a workshop. Here, Tim plants and harvests the timber that will later be turned into one-off pieces of furniture, like the Bardic chair he carved for the 1994 National Eisteddfod.
The plural economy Tim operates in is typical of that experienced by many other craftspeople living and working in Wales. It is estimated that 1 in 10 people here earn their living by working either full- time, or part-time, in the crafts industry, many of them independent makers, like Tim, based in rural areas.
"My interest lies in exploring the relationship between responsible woodland management and landscape protection with the use of timber in specific end products, such as furniture," he explains.
"I've travelled extensively in Central Europe studying the self-sufficiency practised by carvers out there and it's influenced greatly how I run things here."
Three years ago, Tim received a Winston Churchill Fellowship travel award to fund his research, which took him to the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Poland and Hungary. He maintains his links with the carvers he met in Slovakia, impressed by the results of their extensive apprenticeships, which begin whilst still a teenager in special Folk Art Schools. Tim has raised money for one particular school, which regularly sends students over to his Woodland Skills Centre for work experience, whilst he has helped carved images from the Stations of the Cross for a wooden altar in a Greek Orthodox Church in Bratislavia.
Tim built up his workshop practise after moving to Wales, keen to return to a country which he had visited as a child. He feels Wales has not abandoned its folk traditions, something which is echoed in the attitude of the Central European craftspeople he has worked with for a number of years:
"The skill of these carvers really is second-to-none," he explains.
" They have maintained the best of their traditions, which contrasts greatly to the situation we have here in Britain. The Slovakians believe that without a folklore, man lacks a soul. What I try and do with the centre and the courses I run here is encourage people to keep their traditions going."
It is work, which has been recognised with several major awards, including a Wales Environmental Tourism Award and a Prince of Wales Award. Each summer, people are welcomed to the Woodland Skills Centre to try out traditional craft techniques, which range from charcoal burning to building a coracle, a type of boat used by Welsh fishermen for centuries.
"People value their cars, their videos, even the latest football results, over crafts and fine arts," he adds.
"But I think the contemporary should come out of the traditional. Time spent on preserving something is a great investment; taking time to learn the skills of an earlier generation can feed through into the creation of something that still has relevance for today. Perceptions about the craft worker need to change and we can learn from colleagues in Europe how to achieve a better status for ourselves."
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