With an excess of dried bamboo lengths, we were challenged with turning the material into an interesting form to be placed on a table.

I think today’s class was one of the noisiest I have attended due to the hive of activity. A two hour hubbub of sawing, hammering, drilling, sanding resulted in lots elements to assemble. A little like patch work – cut everything up then put it all back together.

Seiseki Umemura demonstrated a few different techniques such as splitting, bending, wiring and one very useful technique making bamboo pins. To create work where you don’t want see the technical fixture – bamboo lengths are held together with small bamboo pins – drill holes but not right through, carve a ‘pin’ making sure there is a point on either end, insert into one bamboo then the other and tap with a hammer to ensure the fixture is secure. There is always something new to learn.

Industriously preparing our material we run out of time, so as ‘they’ say watch this space and images of completed work with be upload next month