After a successful career as a professional photographer, Gavin has returned to his first passion: working with wood. His work incorporates woodturning and woodcarving to produce a diverse range of bowls that are a pleasure to look at and a real tactile experience when you pick them up.

Living on Kawau

Living in an isolated spot on Kawau Island helps to give Gavin the time to focus on his work. 

He knows just how lucky he is to live there: Kawau is one of the few places where the forest flows all the way down to the water’s edge. “We are so incredibly fortunate with the location of our house and workshop: sitting on a small headland, it is both in the forest and surrounded by the sea.”

Their remoteness, with only boat-access to the property, also sees Gavin and his wife living an off-grid existence, in a solar house they finished in 2008, a way of life that feels a little “back in time” with daily activities like chopping firewood, veggie gardens and collecting water through the winter months to use in the dry summer days.

His process

The process of creating his wooden bowls starts with his early morning walks with the dog. Not only is the time to think and dream so important to his bowl design but this is the time when he finds trees that have been brought down in storms – coming back with a chainsaw to harvest and carry home the wood for his next bowl or artwork. This windfall timber can be seasoned for years before being turned or, more likely, turned while still ‘green’ to work with the movement and personality in the wood.

Back in his woodturning studio, he uses a wood-lathe and an assortment of hand tools. “Truly mastering these tools is a life’s work”.

Starting with a large block of wood, the process sees him rapidly removing 95% of the timber to reveal the shape of the bowl in a process that is quite dramatic to watch.

“The real challenge is to slow down and visualise what sort of vessel is waiting inside a particular piece.”

He tries to approach every bowl with the mindset that it will, one day, become a family heirloom. This, he says, frees him up to spend the time necessary to achieve just the right form, balance and finish that each piece deserves.

The combination of his love for the wood, his strong environmental awareness, along with his eye for form, really set his wooden bowls apart.

Artist statement

Please read my Artist statement for more on what motivates my work and what’s important to me as a maker.

Environmental statement

Making bowls which are actually good for our environment is really important to me, please take a moment and read my Environmental impact statement.