‘My sense of self-worth grew alongside my calluses': a woodworker who found relief for depression in craft
When Samuel Alexander was in the grips of a crippling depression, his therapist suggested he might find relief in a craft. So, in 2017, he opened a woodcraft book and turned to a chapter on spoon-making. ‘I promised myself I’d try it for 20 minutes, but that turned into an hour, a day, then weeks. I found it compelling,’ says Samuel. The 28-year-old started to develop his craft, studying other books but consciously not looking at other woodworkers: ‘I didn’t want to compare what I was doing to anyone else’s work. It was just about me.’
In part, it reminded him of a hobby he had as a child growing up in North Devon. ‘I would gather sticks in the woods and carve them into swords or fishing rods. I wanted to tap back into that sense of making and of freedom,’ he says. But he also found the process immensely therapeutic: ‘My sense of self-worth grew alongside my calluses.’
Samuel does everything by hand, using a growing collection of handmade tools. It is physically demanding work – he has a pair of gymnastic rings next to his axe block so he can stretch out – but he finds the taxing nature of it deeply satisfying: ‘When you’re chopping a block of wood or gouging out a hollow, you experience a huge release of energy. I could turn these objects and it would be slightly easier, but I really like this release – it is what I strive for. I love transforming that energy, be it positive or negative, into an outcome that I can touch and feel. It becomes something I can hold, give away or even burn. It becomes symbolic.’
Vessel-carving is a gruelling process that first involves splitting a block of wood with an axe into a piece slightly larger than the intended bowl. Next, Samuel takes an adze – an axe with a scoop head – to establish the hollow. Then he uses a twca cam – a leverage tool ‘a bit like a giant spoon knife’ – and moves around the axe block, chipping away at the inside of the vessel in what he describes as ‘a little dance – like a waltz’. The axe is used to create the outside shape, before he uses smaller technical knives to refine the ‘vicious axe marks into delicate, smooth surfaces’. Pieces are left to dry for two weeks under the floorboards of his houseboat. ‘It’s the most moist and cold place. The aim is to dry things as slowly as possible so there are no breakages,’ Samuel explains. He then continues refining them with his knives before finally curing the wood with walnut oil.
He never keeps his work as mementos. There is not a single spoon or bowl he has made on the houseboat near Little Venice that he shares with his partner Marianna and their cat Pip. So, to keep an archive of his work, he uses Instagram, where he has more than 7,500 followers who, early on, started asking to buy his work.
As well as selling via his own website, Samuel was chosen as one of Toast’s new makers of 2022 and his work is now stocked in its shops and online. It has meant increased exposure and has given him a rare moment to slow down. ‘Normally, one piece leads on to the next and I never repeat an idea or a shape. But, for Toast, I am making the same pieces and it’s been interesting to work in a totally different way.’
Samuel has a studio on the back of his boat, but he works primarily among a community of green woodworkers in a studio space at Hackney City Farm, where he also teaches at monthly spoon-carving workshops. All the wood is sourced for free through a local scheme, which recycles offcuts from the council’s tree surgery work. It means the type of wood he works with is random: currently there is a lot of sycamore – a hardwood – but fruitwood is not good for vessels as it is prone to cracking.
Handling the pieces of wood is, Samuel says, a way to feel connected to his rural upbringing, as well as the way nature inspires the forms of his work: ‘Nature’s hugely important to me. I need to be around trees and be outside. I feel I live quite a rural life in the city. I like the fact I’m part of a community of makers and of boaters. It keeps me sane’.
samuelalexandershapes.uk/shop | @samuelalexandershapes | toa.st
Dean Hearne1/5His shared studio space in Hackney City Farm.
Dean Hearne2/5Sketching a 'Stork Wood Vessel' design onto wood.
Dean Hearne3/5A carving knife is used to refine the axe marks on the exterior.
Dean Hearne4/5A drawing of the vessel, the finished item and Samuel's tools.
Dean Hearne5/5Samuel hollowing out the vessel blank.
