Gone Fishing…

I am now retired and no longer run any courses but still enjoy working with wood… when I’m not fishing!

I have been making furniture since 1975 and became a professional designer/maker in 1990, at which time I was based near Huddersfield.

My style has always been contemporary although I also draw on the Arts and Crafts and the Art Deco movements and techniques, and I use hand tools and machinery as I think both have a contribution to make to the production of well-made, beautiful furniture.

I have been lucky enough to have my furniture exhibited in galleries and exhibitions nationwide, and many of the pieces are featured on my furniture making website, www.christribe.co.uk

From the early days of my professional career I taught woodwork alongside the furniture making. I taught evening classes at Loxley College in Sheffield and at Huddersfield Technical College for some years and then at Leeds College of Art and Design. In 2002, in order to develop my teaching practice, I gained a PGCE in Adult Education, but the days of college-taught woodwork courses were numbered so I increasingly taught small groups in my own workshop.

In 2012 I moved to Ilkley where I set up a new workshop at the Cornmill. This offered more space to develop the courses, which was just as well as the popularity of the courses has meant that I now teach a lot more than I make. I enjoy being able to design courses to suit my students and also being able to keep the class sizes small enough to give everyone the attention they need.

In 2015 I was approached by Quarto, the craft book publishers, asking me if I could write a beginners guide to woodwork.

I have written a lot about woodwork for magazines, blogging and also handouts but this was a new challenge which I relished.

The book “Complete Woodwork – essential skills and techniques for beginners” is published in December 2016.

More about the Complete Woodwork book here.

I am enthusiastic about woodwork and I hope I share that enthusiasm with my students. Although I’m a stickler for accuracy, I think my methodical, professional approach gives my students the best chance of success and satisfaction as they develop their skills and learn to make their own furniture.

My approach to teaching is nicely summed up by a quote from W B Yeats:

‘Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire’.