Last month, a group of students joined us for Work Experience at City & Guilds of London Art School. During their time with us, the students were invited to write blog posts documenting their experience.
Read below about what they learned in our Wood Workshop.
“During our work experience at the City & Guilds of London Art School, we spent a day touring the various workshops, including the wood workshop. Here, we met the Wood Workshop Technician, Art School alumna and sculptor Ana Kazaroff. Ana began studying psychology at university in Argentina, but after discovering her passion for art, she completed a Masters in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School, where she also trained in woodwork and decorative surfaces. Her practice involves teaching students how to create sculptures with wood and supporting the other departments at the Art School, such as making boxes, processing logs and providing necessary materials for the students.
The woodwork studio is equipped with several machines and tools, that are used for many tasks from processing raw logs to carving and refining, that would be hard to access elsewhere. Ana also explained that there are no more than around five students working in the studio at a time, creating an easy-going atmosphere, as the studio isn’t crowded and allowing for more one-to-one time with the technician.
Outside the Art School, Ana creates large wooden sculptures, painted to mimic different textures such as marble, and less conventional textures like salami and terrazzo. Preferring to work with wood rather than alternatives like metal or glass, she finds wood a more simple and calming material due to its flexibility, as she doesn’t have to follow exact measurements and can take away from or add to it at any time. A large part of her technique involves compromising between making the wood light enough to sculpt, but also strong enough, usually opting to hollow it out. She also uses more specialised techniques such as burning the wood to leave a glossy finish.
After asking about Ana’s biggest challenges with woodwork, she explained that wood, being a natural material, can be unpredictable and slightly change its shape after it is cut, which could be a problem when aiming for precision. Sometimes, the design has to be adapted to the material rather than the other way round. There are also more technical challenges such as health and safety and managing space.”
Words and Images by Work Experience Students, Summer 2024
