Artist statement

What drives me

Why do I make wooden vessels? It’s a combination of championing the natural environment with my self-confessed addiction to being a maker. I get immense satisfaction in taking a beautiful piece of wood and shaping it into something that has the essential function of a bowl, to hold food, a connection with the tree and a vessel to hold the memories we develop over time.

The connection with the Tree

My raw materials are pohutukawa, puriri, totara and many other beautiful natives. Each of these trees have their own personality: if they like to grow on the water’s edge, or in the deep valleys, the way they grow, how they mature and age …all of this personality and history is reflected in their wood.
The growth rings talk of the tree’s age and the growing conditions of each season. A ripple or ‘fiddleback’ speaks of strain under the weight of a limb. Or the wash of strange colour across the grain comes from the spalting of life after the tree itself has died. Each species of tree has its own unique characteristics.
A great example is Puriri. Most trees’ hardwood is found at its core but the Puriri has its hardest, long-lasting, wood on its exterior – the interior has generally rotted away to leave large internal voids. Working with these different natural characteristics has helped me create collections of work that reflect the tree and their own personalities.

One of my guiding principles has always been to keep some distinctive part of the original tree in each of the bowls, so people can have some connection to not only the wood but also the tree it grew from.

What it is to be an Artisan

It’s really important to me that artisans not only make something by hand but that we continue evolving our craft, developing our ideas and refining our techniques. So the end product is not just “handmade” but a piece of art in its own right.

I have a real passion for refining and developing how I work, from initial concept drawings to the various ways that I shape and add texture to the wood.
It might be obvious to say but the process and methods I’ve developed, shapes the finished work I make.

My functional work

Making vessels that help put food on the table has a simplistic rightness to it that has always appealed.
For my functional pieces, it’s not just the shape and what it’s to be used for but how it feels in your hands that matters.
The simple weight and balance of a bowl tells you a lot about how well a piece is made.

Art vessels

This is where I put the wood first: drawing out the knots and bark inclusions to be the feature of the piece. With simple forms, that speak to the strength and beauty of the wood itself.

Environmental statement

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

What is ebonised wood?

The black ebonised look I have on some of my bowls is actually a very old traditional technique to darken wood. Ebonizing got its name from its traditional use: turning wood black to appear more like ebony, a rare, dense and durable, naturally insect resistant wood...

What makes a good fruit bowl

What sort of fruit bowl looks good? Does the type of bowl affect how long fruit lasts? Or is it just a simple question of deciding what size fruit bowl is right for me? There're lots of questions and plenty of ways you can look at it but the best one I know of is...

Bowl Art Gallery & Turning Studio

Gavin has his home, turning studio, and bowl art gallery on Kawau Island. Their house and gallery, called Tŷ Pren (“Wood House” in Welsh) is just that: made of wood - a combination of hardwoods, macrocarpa and plywood. Everywhere you look is wood with wooden floors,...

The process of making a wooden bowl

Finding the wood... I'm incredibly lucky that I live on an island covered in native trees: with the coastline dotted with Pohutukawa, hidden valleys of Puriri, and Kanuka as far as the eye can see. I find most of the wood I use after big storms have brought down...

Kawau Island Attractions & Transport

What's special about Kawau Island? A lot of people are interested when I tell them I live on Kawau Island. Kawau is one of the many small islands that dot the east coast of the, much larger, North Island of New Zealand. We have some 90 permanent residents, which makes...

A family heirloom in the making

What will you give your kids? Hopefully, your time and your love but, like photos from your childhood, there's a place for keepsakes too. For each of us it will be a different thing: a lovely wooden chair or a casserole dish, but it’s something we will really cherish,...