The Work

Our lives tend to follow a five-act rhythm.

In Act I, we taste beginnings—raw energy, discovery, first sparks.

Act II brings growth, ambition, and the shaping of identity.

Act III is often the high point—mastery, reputation, a sense of standing. Yet even at the height, the air can grow thin. What once felt alive begins to feel fixed. The ore that burned so brightly starts to cool into metal.

This is the threshold where I work: the end of Act III, when the call is either to slip quietly into stagnation, or to begin a new kind of work—the alchemy of renewal. Sometimes that means refining what you already have; other times it means melting things down and casting a new form.

I am in my own Act IV. Act II and III were spent as an RAF officer, followed by another 20 years running businesses, firstly those of shareholders, and then my own. That led me to executive coaching, working with individuals in uncertain and fluid situations, helping them establish their own authority and vision for what they had been tasked with or chosen to lead. Act IV is hosting communities of practice for those in similar roles.

I don’t come as a leader or a follower. Camus caught it best: “Do not walk in front of me… do not walk behind me… just walk beside me and be my friend.” My role is to walk with you at this turning point, to hold space while you recover curiosity, and to help you find the path that allows your Act IV to be lived with confidence, or succeed with something altogether new.

In addition to my work here, I write at New Artisans and Outside the Walls, collecting and sharing observations that provide the raw materials for my work.

Core Values

A covenant of craft

Learning and teaching are shared responsibilities. Knowledge is passed on with care; practice is met with honesty, patience, and effort.

Truth in making

We work with integrity. Materials, methods, and words are used as they are, without pretence. Our work carries its own witness.

Care for people and things

Ideas, models, materials, and the wider world are held in trust. What we make should last, be repairable, and leave room for others after us.

Useful and beautiful

We aim for work that serves and delights. Use without beauty is thin; beauty without use is hollow.

The workshop as a school

Creating is thinking made tangible. We learn by doing, by sharing, and by opening our work to the eyes and hands of others.

The discipline of simplicity

Clarity matters more than cleverness. Restraint keeps us honest, whether in words, form, or resources.

Belonging before renown

We stand in a lineage of creators. Credit is shared, standards are held in common, and no craft is ever ours alone.

Steady and open hands

Tradition gives us roots; openness gives us reach. We are ready to try, to share, and to be corrected.

Work in service

Craft is not an end in itself. It exists to meet real needs, to improve lives, and to bear consequences with awareness.

Peace in the process

Calm, kindness, and steadiness shape the pace of our work. Good work takes the time it needs.