My Story...

'Ello! I'm Tamsin Quin and welcome to my website full of wonderfully wild wooden things. 

Back in 2014 a friendly man named Jeff showed me how to carve a spoon in a tiny woodland near Bristol airport. I have always been a bit of a tree hugger, but discovering this way of giving a felled tree a new lease of life, especially when it means something special to the recipient, really resonates with something deep within me. I was instantly hooked. 

For years I was a hobbyist, working with any wood I could get my hands on in any spare hour I could find.  At that time I was an apprentice (on apprentice wage...) working for Wiltshire Wildlife Trust so I would supplement my income with catering work on the weekends to pay my rent. Not much time left for foraging wood and spoon carving. Luckily, working for a conservation charity, I would often arrive to work to find freshly felled logs on my desk left by friendly colleagues, which helped hugely towards continuing my spoon journey.

I would carve by instinct, working with the quirks of the wood, so I am mostly self-taught with a some guidance from Dr. YouTube. 

I started getting asked for commissioned pieces and delivered some beginners Spoon Carving courses for WWT which spurred me on to create more. 

I also found Pyrography (the art of burning designs into wood) to be a welcome addition to my carving work and have enjoyed exploring artistic designs on chopping boards, wall hangings and spoons, with my most recent commission being several large information boards for National Trust nature reserves at Studland and Kingston Lacey. 

In the last few years I have realised how important it is to me to create beautiful and practical things from a natural material with my bare hands. I've craved so long to make this into a living. I knew it wouldn't be an easy living to make so I made the practical decision to lower my outgoings by buying an old stripped-out caravan for £100 and, with the help of friends, converting it to live in. 

In 2022 I was able to pursue my green woodworking full time and opened a joint workshop with Felix Byrne Guitars in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire (UK). In 2023 I was extremely lucky to receive a grant from Arts Council England to develop my creative practice in the traditional methods of green woodworking.  

Eventually my aim in life is to buy a little piece of land where I can live and work, almost in the sense of the real 'bodger' who would work a coppice and create chairs, spoons and other products to sell while living close and in tune with the natural world. 

 Each piece I craft comes from some primitive part of my soul, and when my work goes to someone who appreciates it I hope they can feel the human/tree/heart connection in that piece. 

Working with wood continuously blows my mind. You know, when you split that log open with your axe, you're the first person ON THIS PLANET to see inside that piece of wood; the grain, the colour and the smell, in all its glory. For me, that is nothing short of a miracle. 

Thank you for reading and supporting my work. It means the world.