From July 14 to 16, Launceston-based woodcarver Carol Russell will join wood sculptor Hape Kiddle in hosting the More Than A Cup workshop at Illawarra Woodwork School in Woonona.

Over the three-day class, participants – from beginner through experienced – will design and craft a drinking vessel, learning timber selection, tool selection and carving and finishing techniques.

Despite forging a friendship over their long-spanning careers in the field, Carol and Hape work in different styles – which the pair says will give workshop attendees a chance to explore various creative processes.

I asked Carol about how she discovered her passion for woodcarving, and what it is about the More Than A Cup workshop that she’s most looking forward to.

Can you tell me about your childhood, and what it was like growing up in Tasmania?

I grew up here until I was about 17. Growing up in a sort of fairly small, protected community, it was very beautiful. I was very aware of the forests and natural environment. I knew I always wanted to work with my hands, but when I was 17, I was actually interested in writing as well.

I was offered a cadetship with the ABC, but I actually answered an ad to crew on a yacht which took me to the mainland. It was going to New Guinea, and I actually jumped on the ship and off I went on this yacht, and I ended up in Queensland. It wasn't until I got to Queensland [that] I just decided that was enough. 

I left the boat, went to Brisbane, and I actually saw an exhibition of woodwork there. It was just one of those things. I'd seen that sort of work before, but I just went, ‘Oh my god, that's incredible’.

So finding your place in Brisbane, and in woodworking, was quite random?

Absolutely. I got to chatting to one of the makers, and he said, ‘Oh, I could teach you to make this, you know’… So, he did, and he taught me to make a little shaker-style table, and that was just an absolute lightbulb moment for me.

Just the fact that you could take bits of wood and create a substantial piece of furniture, and the whole notion of joinery and joining of pieces of wood, it was just that thing about everything slotting into place. I think I was very fortunate to find it so young… It really wasn't my intention to stay.

I would've headed back and then probably taken up this cadetship and gone into journalism and writing – and I have done quite a bit of writing for woodworking magazines over the years – but… I think for so many of us, how we meet the people that we end up being with, our partners, the best jobs, it's all random.

So, it's just about being in the right place [at] the right time so often, and also having someone listen to you and see you and give you that opportunity. And I'm really aware of that now with teaching – that each time we have a class of eight, 10 people, however many, there might be someone in that class that this could be a really life-changing moment for them. It could be that thing that sparks something, and it may not even be woodwork, but just the creative process.

I'm very conscious of the fact that you can have a major effect on someone, so you don't ever take that lightly, because it was certainly how it was for me. [I was shown how to] make a table just for a bit of fun, but it actually was really the thing that clicked.

Entering that trade in the mid-80s, what was it like for women at the time? 

I didn't know any women woodworkers. Actually, there was a woman making amazing stuff called Gay Hawkes – and she's still here in Tasmania, south of Hobart – and she's still making her amazing assemblages from found objects. But there weren't many, and I subsequently found her when I got interested in woodwork.

It was very kind of trade-based… [and] until this exhibition that I'd just kind of happened on, I thought fine furniture was antique furniture. I didn't understand that there were people actually making these exquisite things and, as it turns out, the home of it was, in fact, the place I just left…

But to be honest, most of the people I encountered, they just wanted to share knowledge, and a lot of them were older generation makers who were in that last phase of their making, and they were looking for people to hand it on to.

How would you describe your craft, what you do now and how your wood carving has changed over the years?

When you're making furniture, you are adding things together, so you're joining, you're making bits of wood fit together to create a whole. But with woodcarving, you're starting with the whole and then you are reducing it, taking away, and what you are left with is the finished object. It's a completely different mindset and I didn't realise that that was my natural way of doing things.

I'd been making furniture, reasonably successfully doing commission pieces [and] working with some wonderful makers, but I wasn't super happy, and then I actually got really sick. It was at that point where I had to stop doing it, and then a friend of mine, Gary Field, actually showed me how to make a spoon, showed me how to carve a spoon, and just there was that second bulb moment where I had, in fact, been doing it the wrong way…

[But] I wasn't a good drawer, and I believed that if I couldn't draw the piece first, I probably wouldn't be able to carve it… Then, at some point, I just started giving it a go, and I actually found that with a three-dimensional object in my hand, I could really visualise how it needed to be. In a way it breaks all the rules, but it's just how it's worked for me, and, you know, my pieces are pretty wonky, and the animals are not anatomically correct… but I try really hard to get the heart and character.

What are you most looking forward to at the upcoming workshop, and what do you hope the participants will take from the experience?

I actually hope that they will surprise themselves as to what they're capable of… I still feel that with my own work. I'll start something and I don't really know what it's going to bring out in me, so there's always that hope that there'll be some little magical thing that will come up to the fore. I love seeing that in students.

The Illawarra Woodwork School folks – Stuart [Montague] – he's got an amazing place there…

"They have a beautiful community of makers that they've created there. I've been there before to teach with them, and I really love it because … it's that little community and it's like you're sort of with your people… It really feeds your soul.

To find out more about the More Than A Cup workshop, click here.

Visit Carol Russell's website here