On Tuesday I gave a talk to a group of "slöjd" consultants who are amongst other things responsible for setting up "slöjd" clubs for children all around the country. "Slöjd" is Swedish style craft, a special way of working with material. The building where I have my workshop was where they developed a teaching method for this a century ago. This method became well known in other parts of the world and people travelled long distances to attend the summer courses. They still hold lots of different courses here but they are more general interest, not aimed at teachers as such.
One of the 5 principals of the modern "slöjd" clubs is that they should aim to be multi-cultural. In other words one can find inspiration from unexpected sources (e.g. from the african violin-maker down the corridor), from other countries and other disciplines of the arts (e.g. music, story-telling) and incorperate them into the children's creativity.
So that is the background to the little workshop I did. Contact me if you'd like a copy of the notes that I made. They include a bit of theory, a long list of questions that a instrument maker might ask themselves when choosing suitable wood, a few pictures and some links to relevant video clips on you-tube. Below is the little resonance box that I used as an example, made out of a birch tree that we felled in the early spring.
