care + attention

Important links:
MJM Bespoke link

Side.Bits link
Ikea link

Grand Union link
DigBrewCo link

OB Works link

Big Kid Ice Cream link

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After graduating my childhood with some ok grades and entering George Osb’s dream world of an arts education (childhood 2.0) I - at great expense - accumulated some documents that permit me to describe myself as an ‘Artist’. However, for deep and only mildly overcome shame reasons I have not yet found myself capable of owning that title.

 

Following university, avoiding the work this crisis of confidence called for, I - at even greater expense - accrued some papers that allow me, if I so desire, to describe myself as a failed ex-craft beer ‘entrepreneur’. Which has added a new layer of shame to the pile, the enormity of which is only truly perceivable from space. Let’s call that childhood 3.0?

 

At this stage, with the childhoods getting increasingly expensive, I thought it smart to pause the ‘Career’ and get a day job. The transition was a generally happy one. I found myself working with some very cool people on some amazing projects and even sending out invoices too. I’ve heard it called a freelancer? I think I became a freelancer.

 

I got myself into the company of some fellow arts graduates, some of them actual Artists, working together at the brilliant MJM Bespoke in Birmingham. It was the perfect place for me to hone some dumb courage and raw skills into borderline commercial viability. It was also great fun because our psyches are all moulded from the same 2000s Jeremy Clarkson bits and 2010s e-Flux articles.

 

As life has gone on I’ve found myself in a new city (Bristol), wedded, starting up in business on my own again and finding myself bumping straight back into the pile of shame which appears to be asking me ‘What are you then? Who gave you the authority to name what you do?’.

 

As it happens labelling the services I offer shouldn’t be too tough as I actually do do it and there is already a name for it: if an art school graduate who has no formal training in ‘the trades’, who can if required, obtain a valid CSCS card (with incredibly difficulty), and can work adequately across cabinetry/graphic design/joinery/photography/fabrication, etc., and owns more Festool products than any business case could ever justify, they are called a ‘Maker’. Easy answer.

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(If you need a ‘Maker’ please email oli@obworks.net)

 

But there wouldn't be any reason to do all of this writing if 'Maker’ felt appropriate would there? So dear reader this correspondence is here to inform you that at time of writing I am making a brand of myself all over again (welcome OB Works) and heading straight out into the boggy forest of childhood 4.0.

 

But have no fear, in this chapter there are more characters and working with other people has helped me make sense of it: my wife Bryony and a dear friend, confidant and recent inspiration: Founder/owner operator (not entrepreneur) of MJM Bespoke - Matt Moore. Both of whom I met in 2017 in a dark, dark building on a dark, dark street in the early stages of breweryageddon.

 

Matt is a skilled maker and chef too. He also fits much of the same criteria I do: art school alumni, fellow non-adopter of ‘Maker’. Through proximity to him I have been seeing the words care + attention from angles that I, to my shame (add it to the pile), hadn’t before and it’s been helping me make new sense of all of the above.

 

Each year Matt cooks for ~100 folk at the Grand Union harvest festival and Bryony and I had the honour of having him run a kitchen full of friends and family for us and our guests on our wedding day.

 

The photography below documents some of that fun plus, since we realised the three of us didn’t get chance to properly take in the food on ‘the big day’, a post-wedding re-cook of the entire menu.

 

(I can also make you some photography if you’d like? Please email oli@obworks.net)

 

The common thread that runs through bespoke joinery and cooking for people is that, when done successfully, the person doing the making has done all they can to become an expert and put themselves into the work. (Not a backhanded critique of artists using fabricators… If this is something you would like to talk about please email oli@obworks.net)

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The recipient doesn’t simply get some furniture (oli@obworks.net) or food; they also receive a bit of something else that wasn’t on the job list and a reminder that they are worth the effort.

 

Furniture and the way we alter the spaces we exist in pulls from our sense of comfort, desire and identity in a way that much of the built environment often doesn’t. There is no luxury option when running copper pipe or cables or installing loft insulation

 

(I am also doing my electrical qualifications, so if you do need cable running then… oli@obworks.net).

 

Whether we are talking about a £20 IKEA piece or a bespoke £10k walnut sideboard (oli@obworks.net), we’re looking for things that gives us something far beyond our most basic requirements: we have to like it, we have to want it and we have to keep wanting it.

 

It’s not a simple relationship with money either. Just as a salmon paste sandwich made with love by my grandma does things for me that caviar en croûte won’t, furniture can work through associations that have very little to do with cost. It is a neural pathway through hand, eye, brain and soul that should be exercised regularly and never optimised.

 

Maybe the reason that people like Matt are looked up to and learned from by people like me isn’t just that they are capable of delivering great things, on time and within budget (oli@obworks.net). It’s that they have the capacity, via listening to someone talk about their furniture or food needs, to really hear about their situation, their ideas for improving it and their hopes for what could be made and to guide them towards something that will both serve themselves and their loved ones and be a constant reminder that they’re worth the effort too.

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It's also really helping me to make sense of that childhood 2.0 which is maybe what all of this trouble is all about.

 

If you are reading this far down Matt: Thank you the food was epic. You should do it as often as you fancy. Thanks for your perspective, care, attention, listening, cocktail sausages, samosas, focaccia, cheddar cheese, olives, pickles, ferments, tortilla chips, esquites, zhoug, confit cauliflower hummus, romesco, beef and lamb barbacoa, miso mushroom risotto, beetroot gravlax, café de Paris potato salad, big bulgur tabbouleh, kochumber with pineapple vinaigrette, smashed melon, cucumber, bitter leaves, pecan, apple, carrots with feta and lettuce.

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Also see below: ice cream cake from none other than the brilliant Big Kid Ice Cream (my brother Harry)