Yo !,

This sign depicts the Chinese characters for “Feng Shui”. We designed, carved and painted it in the HoBB toolbod and left it hanging outside to age for six seasons and more reasons.

By allowing nature the time it needs, we create works that looks as though they have existed a lifetime. This progressive system of design allows us the joy of witnessing growth and is not for those liking a quick fix.

A lot of books and television programmes promote these instant ‘make-overs’ for interiors, gardens and lifestyles. At the end of a few hectic days, you can be instantly themed into anything but this is too touch and go. Getting the balance on life and culturing a great environment around your lifestyle takes a profound effort not a shallow surface treatment.

Many assume that they can invoke a Feng Shui spirit, or that a total stranger can apply a set pattern of Feng Shui rules to their personal living space so as to make it ‘better at providing advantages’ . This is too often the way of westernised Feng Shui, hinged firmly around the commercial wish to shift ever more merchandise. We recently popped into some shops around Glastonbury (UK) and discovered, ever there, Feng Shui shops that invalidate their own principles by stacking clutter in corners and fragmenting their energies with inept shelving and gaudy graphics. Somehow, it seems like an act of infidelity to ‘sell’ in a manner that betrays the cause.

We all need space and the time we spend creating places where energy simply flows and is not blocked should be filled with intuitive joy. The best way forward is to re-evaluate your own stuff rather than to get in more or different clutter. Being a consumer will always be a balancing act. Sellers will always say that we need something they produce.

By sorting through what needs to be kept and what you can re-cycle elsewhere, you clarify more than the space around you. I was on one of my sort-outs the day I made the sign above. It was made from a special piece of green oak – an off-cut that never made it into the wood stove. Either the grain or the feel of it made me put it on one side. I had produced a similar sign to this for indoor use using well matured ancient oak so I took a break from sorting out the tools and marked out the sign for Feng Shui on its surface. A few hours later and this sign was cut, carved, treated and hanging outside – on one of the big HoBB oak trees as a thank you to Nature itself.

~~~~~~~~~~ <+))))))))>< ~~~ waves from Grant