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Alison Ospina - Green Wood Furniture Maker and Woodland Elf in human guise

Alison Ospina is in great demand her time is split between the promoting and committee skills required of her within the West Cork Craft + Design Guild and Cork Art + Design for which she is the Secretary. The rest of Alison's time is spent continually producing her unique green wood chairs for sale in various exhibitions and to commission. Alison's "sculptural chairs from locally coppiced hazel and other selected native hardwoods. Wonderfully transcending functionality, to reflect the swaying, living grace and beauty of the trees from which they're formed". She is frequently asked to produce Rockers or His and Hers Dining Chairs as wedding gifts. Baby chairs (which are really cute) for christening or new baby gifts.

I was first introduced to Alison Ospina at Rossa College, Skibbereen. She was to be my class tutor for Green Wood Furniture making. Her classes were one day a week and soon became very interesting for me, Alison has a gentle manner about her which put you at ease within the workshop environment that I was unfamiliar with. Alison was enthralled with the wood we were all working with and some of that enthusiasm rubbed off on each and every one of us. We would look at the selected sticks of Hazel and wonder how they would come together into real pieces of furniture. Alison would visit us in turn and talk about how a particular piece would make a good back panel for instance because they turned a particular way that would make the piece feel comfortable. Or the way a piece turned nicely to make good front legs of a chair or stool. We would see sticks but Alison would see a completed chair or stool. She would carress the wood turning it in her hand and draw us mental pictures of the finished piece. Her classes were very popular with the students whom enjoyed her company.

Alison has recently added a visitors area to her property where persons attending her Green Wood Chair courses are greeted with her wide smile and calming personality. The visitors area is also used for the attending students as a refreshments center and has many of Alisons pieces of Green wood furniture. Virtu - Art was invited to join Alison for this interview, as she put a few pieces of hazel into the burner to take the chill off this spring day. We drank coffee and chatted.

"... these chairs have an animated quality ... you feel they could almost re-arrange themselves when your back is turned ..." Alison Ospina

Alison says there is at least one chair in all of us and her pleasure is to see the creative process through from start to finished product. Alison uses freshly-cut Hazel, coppiced locally. Coppicing ensures a sustainable supply of Hazel, as the trees are cut back and regrow every 5-7 years.

"I want to retain the animated energy of the trees in my chairs. Hazel is my raw material and depending on its growing conditions and position the bark colouration is always different. By using the Hazel in its natural shapes I am incorporating stories, a different one for each component. Was the woodland wet, was it dense, was their iron in the soil, was it acid, and was it damp? Did the branches have to twist to get to the light, was ivy growing around it and biting into the bark? When the wind blew did one branch rub over another leaving a flattened scar?"

"This is my raw material, the story continues when I get back to my studio. I have to carefully select sticks that really go together, offering one post up against another, looking for that perfect fit where nature, by pure chance, has grown components that 'work' together. My hands work as if they had knowledge of their own, creating a chair that goes beyond functionality, into the realms of grace and beauty."

Alison runs Green Wood Furniture courses, what is important to Alison is that the process is enjoyed. That they are not coming to make as much furniture as they can but that they enjoy the process. The process of sitting on the shaving horse and taking off the bark with the draw knife is a unique experience which you can get lost in. It is surprising how much pleasure can be derived from working with the green wood. Persons attending her courses start off thinking they are just coming to make a piece of furniture but the journey through the process to completed piece is very therapeutic. The whole point is how enjoyable it was not what they have produced. Over one day when you can expect to make a stool or a table.

Just recently Alison had three ladies attending her classes, all sister in-laws who had been given vouchers for her course. At first they were not sure about their suitability for such a course the idea that they could actually make a chair that was functional or useful to them after the course was incomprehensible to them. However by the end of their time with Alison they had all produced individual chairs that matched there personalities. Working with the Hazel is just like that.

Alison says that each chair that is produced during her courses goes out looking a bit like the person that made it in some way or other (strange but true). Everyone has their own approach and it depends on their personality. Their approach could be I'm going to take my time, I'm going to remove all the bark and I am going to sand it all smooth. Another would feel that I am just going to make this chair and leave the bark on barks nice. They may start off with the same dimensions but in the making the bits of wood they select will all be very different. So like a face they all have the same features, but as we know all faces are different. Every chair is like that.

Alison says that when she is looking at coppicing wood for her chairs that she is looking at the negative spaces provided by the wood she is of course looking for straight pieces to form her elegant chairs. So when you look at a completed chair and you look at it center on the negative space is more or less the same. When she realized that it was a bit of a revelation to her. Now when she is looking at the Hazel trees the branches without leaves, she is looking all the time at the negative spaces. Where the curves are, where the angles are and the shapes the tree its self is making. She says that is what she is trying to reproduce when she is making a chair. That look that the tree was making when she is making a chair.

Virtu - Art suggests that you go to Alisons web address to see the examples of all the types of chairs mentioned above. Though there is no substitute for actually running your hands over Alison's work in person, they are very tactile and have a presence of there own which cannot be fully appreciated by seeing the pictures of them alone.

Web links related to this interview with Alison Ospina

• Greenwood Chairs, Alison Ospina Greenwood Furniture
• Hands On Creative Workshops in West Cork
• Cork Art + Design

The Art of Rustic Furniture: Traditions, Techniques, Inspirations
A book full of practical information about collecting and storing wood, tools and techniques, and building styles. In no time at all you will be carefully and artfully assembling twigs, sticks, logs, roots, and driftwood into practical items of outdoor furniture. * Romance of the tree * Influences * History of Rustic Furniture * * Full Colour Gallery of Contemporary Rustic Furniture Makers * * Materials, Tools & Suppliers * Resources * Books & Contacts * Projects include pieces culled from the history of frontiersman technology: * Veranda Chairs * Slab Furniture * Picture Frames * Planter * * Bark-covered Chair * Towel Rack * Tree Settee * Side Table * * Curtain Rails * Miniature Chairs * Child's Chair * Headboard

Simple Rustic Furniture: A Weekend Workshop with Dan Mack
This volume explains all the materials and tools needed to make rustic furniture, working with natural forms, drilling and simple joinery. The projects include: trellis panels, a seven-foot ladder, basic bookcase, four-panel room screen, garden chairs and benches, a rocking chair and rustic tables. No woodworking experience is needed, step-by-step how-to photographs take the reader through each project

The Rustic Furniture Companion:
Traditions, Techniques and Inspirations
This volume offers a variety of rustic projects, many of them reproductions of turn-of-the-century slab and rustic furniture. The book uses time-tested techniques to create a distinctive bench, settee, gazebo, or chair from the reader's chosen wood

The Workshop Book: A Craftsman's Guide to Making the Most of Any Workspace
The Workshop Book is an illustrated guide to woodworking spaces ranging from basements, garages, outbuildings and cupboards to cavernous cabinet shops. This work presents details on layout, machinery, systems, storage, fixtures, speciality shops and dream shops

Setting Up Shop: The Practical Guide to Designing and Building Your Dream Workshop
The ultimate guide to setting up a workshop. It offers top-notch advice on buying tools, setting them up, shop layout, dust collection, lighting and safety. It goes beyond the usual books by addressing the real needs of anyone starting out or improving a woodworking shop by offering specific suggestions and examples culled from the shops of many famous and amateur woodworkers. Their years of experience have found many ingenious solutions to common problems.