Nigel Donovan

How would you describe the work you do and why?

I love to work with wood as taken from the tree, rather than prepared wood, giving a totally natural appearance, in some cases, 'warts and all'. I view cracks, knots and other natural features to be part of nature and therefore should always be retained as much as is practically possible. I enjoy the freedom to create artistic work which is functional as well as beautiful to look at, usually to a basic client specification, or something that I think will make the very most of the features nature provided. One of the great challenges is to be given a raw piece of wood, from someone’s garden, that holds specific memories for them, then create a striking memory for them to enjoy for years to come.

For you what does being an artist mean?:

To me being an 'artist' means that I am able to take the beauty of nature and transform it into something that will live on as a legacy of that slice of nature, harvested at that moment. Being able to bring natural materials into the home is one of life’s joys and enables us all to enjoy the gift of nature all year round.

Describe what you call yourself/your practice?:

WoodcraftByDonovan

Your practice & activities include e.g workshops, teaching:

I am always keen to share my methods and experiences with others, as this mostly opens up the opportunity to learn from them. I occasionally enjoy teaching others to develop the skills to be able to become creative with wood, but as we all know it is difficult to teach creativity itself. I would love to run learning workshops, but unfortunately my facilities are not really set up for it, however, I am always happy to offer one to one tuition and assistance.

CV & Education, relevant & leading to your artistic practice:

I was introduced to working with wood at a very early age, the family business having a joinery shop as part of a construction company, so spent many hours in the joinery shop and on the building site as a youngster. At school, when not on the sports field, I would be found in the woodwork shop, assisting the teacher and helping budding woodworkers. My one and only ‘A’ level was in woodwork and opened the door to attend college to study furniture production and management. Back in the workshop we produced high class joinery and manufactured kitchen furniture, before I embarked on making more bespoke furniture for people. As happens in life, I was diverted into the world of kitchen design for some years, before running our own pub and restaurant, before a long spell property surveying, when I realised I had completely forgotten my roots and love of wood. So 20 or so years back I started repairing cricket bats, a pastime which grew into building up a new workshop, allowing me to start making beautiful things again... and here we are, still loving it!

Your gallery outlets/stockists:

As most of the work we do is bespoke, we do not really have a showroom, but examples of my work can be found at https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/WoodcraftByDonovan and https://www.instagram.com/woodcraftbydonovan?igsh=eTV5bXJwd2pjd3N0

Artwork for Nigel Donovan

Details