Ambrose and Brid O’Halloran are partners in all things, having built both a life and career together. They each have a distinct style and approach which compliments the other. Their craft is the traditional art of woodturning and they have spent years honing their skills. The husband and wife duo have travelled widely and studied with master craftspeople across the world, including Tobias Kaye in the UK, Jean François and Monique Escoulen in France, and Al Stirt, Todd Hoyer, and Hayley Smith in the USA.  As well as making their own exquisite works in wood, they are passionate about education and the future of craft skills. They are teachers who describe themselves as students; constantly striving to enrich their knowledge.

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Ambrose and Bird O’Halloran have been teaching woodturning for over 20 years. They have travelled widely honing their skills and are excited to share their passion and enthusiasm with the world. As experienced teachers they offer a well-rounded experience taking in the essentials of woodturning, as well as contextualising the craft within the spectrum of contemporary decorative arts. With an emphasis on creativity and enjoyment, this is a great environment for the novice woodworker. They will build your confidence so that you can take on a project and complete a piece to take home with you – your very own hand turned creation.

Woodturning workshop

Woodturning workshop in Galway

Introduction to woodturning

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This candlestick, turned on a lathe, is made from ash wood that has been stained black. The design intends to celebrate this organic material by making functional objects that look elegant with understated simple, clean lines.  The candlesticks taper from a large diameter at the base for stability, to an inflection point and then flare out to the top.

Stained Black Ash Candlestick

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This wall plaque is made from maple and stained sapele wood.  This object is a square sapele form stained black with a large plain maple disk at the centre.  The plain maple disc has a series of geometric concentric groves cut into the surface. The object is designed to contrast forms, colours and textures. The wall plaque was hand turned and finished on a lathe.

Wall Plaque

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Bud Vase, hand turned on a lathe, is made from spalted beech. The pear-shaped design is based on Chinese Yuhuchunping vases. The intention of the design is to celebrate this organic material by making functional objects that look elegant with understated simple, clean lines.  Spalting is a natural wood decay process that adds patterns to the wood. The core is drilled to accommodate a vial for water to keep the flower cutting fresh.

Bud / Twig Vase

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The design of this candlestick, hand turned on a lathe from ash wood, celebrates this organic material by making functional objects that look elegant with understated simple, clean lines. The candlesticks taper from a large diameter, for stability, at the base to an inflection point and then flare out to the top. The plain candlestick shows the natural beauty of the grain of the wood.

Plain Ash Candlestick

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This pendant is made from two contrasting woods, both in colour and visually.  The fine grain and darkness of walnut wood are complimented by the open grain and paleness of maple wood. The design is simple but thoughtful. The gentle convex curve of the maple has been mirrored in the walnut rim. The bail is made from sterling silver to accommodate a fine sterling silver snake chain.

Contrast pendant

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Colin Harris has a background in engineering, following on from which he studied furniture making at the renowned Parnham College in Dorset, England. He spent a number of years working in sustainable design for international furniture studios before returning to Ireland to set up his own studio in 2015. He combines a head for design with craft skills to create his furniture. He is passionate about using native hardwoods such as wild Irish ash, oak, birch and sycamore, which he sources from a local sawmill which produces using sustainable methods. From these materials he creates timeless pieces that tell a story of local and wild simplicity, showing off the exquisite beauty of wood.

Harris, Colin

Design vision for wooden furniture

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Stephen O'Briain started out as an artist, studying painting at the Crawford School of Fine Art in Cork, Ireland. But woodworking was in his family, so perhaps it was inevitable that he would follow his mother and grandfather into the craft. Inspired by the work of Russian master cabinetmaker James Krenov, Stephen began woodworking as a hobby, but within a year it had become a full-time job. “I have always been interested in how things are put together,” he says. “Then there’s the satisfaction of working with my hands and acquiring new skills. But most of all I think I enjoy the creative process of coming up with new ideas and then working out how to realise those ideas.”

O'Briain, Stephen

The artist who listens to wood

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When Roger Bennett took a year’s sabbatical from his career as a secondary school teacher in Dublin, he was always intending to go back. But one day he was mesmerised by a woodturning demonstration and the experience changed his life. That very day, he decided he had to try woodturning for himself. He joined an evening class, bought a lathe and set up a workshop in his garden, and soon was selling pieces in a local market. One year turned into four, before Roger finally told his school he wasn’t going back. He now specialises in making woodturned bowls, vessels and wall pieces, turned very thin, coloured with water-based dyes and inlaid with silver.

Bennett, Roger

Drawn to the magic of woodturning

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He grew up surrounded by chests of drawers, tables, and chairs made by his father, a woodworker and technical drawing teacher. His grandfather was a carpenter. It seems that somehow, Lee didn’t have a choice about his vein of work. “There is a long association with wood in my family, I couldn’t even say if there was one particular moment in my life when I consciously decided to continue the tradition.”
He graduated from The Furniture College in Ireland in 1993, and he opened his own workshop in 2004 in Maynooth, a small town in County Meath. He has exhibited extensively, both nationally and internationally. In 2015, he was awarded the Irish Design Award for Excellence and Innovation.

Lee, John

From father to son

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Developed in partnership with Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte and made possible by the support of Cartier, Homo Faber in Città gives you a rare chance to visit over 70 artisan workshops. The project is developed in collaboration with Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Confartigianato Imprese Venezia, CNA Venezia, Consorzio Promovetro Murano, The Venice Glass Week and Venezia da Vivere.

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Step inside the workshops and ateliers to learn the secrets of local master artisans and manufacturers

Try your hand at different crafts with an authentic experience

Marvel at examples of fine craftsmanship by doing our itineraries

This september, the second edition of Homo Faber in Città invites visitors to step off the beaten track and discover the artisanal addresses where Venetian craftspeople create objects of exquisite beauty. A rare opportunity to witness Venice’s master artisans and young talents demonstrating their crafts and presenting the tools, materials and skills involved in contemporary Venetian craftsmanship.

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Homo Faber Guide is an online portal dedicated to contemporary craftsmanship, showcasing artisans, ateliers, museums, galleries, shops and experiences. Create your user account for access to exclusive features on Homo Faber Guide: save your preferred pages, hear about hot topics first, leave recommendations for your favourite artisans and much more.

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Although the Michelangelo Foundation researches the talents for its projects autonomously, collaboration with our ambassadors is fundamental. Over 120 associations, schools and institutions allow us to map the continents for craftsmanship and to have partners in each country who share our vision and goals. In addition, we have asked well-known personalities in the craft, design and art world to be our ambassadors in the cities where they live, so that their recommendations can offer a unique insight into craftsmanship in the major cities of Europe and beyond.

Who are our ambassadors?

Download our free Homo Faber Guide app (iOS and Android) to discover artisans, museums, galleries, shops, and experiences by location. Search Homo Faber on the App store on your mobile device.

Find craftsmanship destinations on the go

Discover the addresses of esteemed manufacturers, well known for producing high quality objects across a wide variety of crafts. Read their stories and find out where you can shop their contemporary pieces, see their archive collections and even in some cases visit their workshops. Find exceptional ateliers where artisans collaborate creatively to create fine pieces of craftsmanship. Reach out to them to commission something special.

Ateliers & Manufacturers

All the artisans and small workshops featured in Homo Faber Guide have been carefully researched and selected. They are presented and narrated through a selection of images and an interview, which allows readers to immerse themselves in the universe of these makers who exemplify excellence in their individual fields or are promising talents of the future. Find masters and rising stars who share the same passion and determination, and whose workshops are ready to share their secrets with visitors.

A selection of the best artisans

Are you eager to discover a city through craftsmanship? Do you wish to spend a few hours visiting an applied arts museum or attending a course on a craft with one of the masters featured in Homo Faber Guide? Browse the section dedicated to experiences and find your next adventure.

Experiences

An expert artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years. He or she may also be engaged in passing on their knowledge to the next generations, but they have been doing so for less than seven years. Beyond this, they will become a Master artisan.

Who is an Expert artisan?

Homo Faber Guide provides you with a selection of the best addresses across Europe and further afield, where you will be able to discover and purchase exceptional objects, some of which are created by artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide.

Galleries

Homo Faber Guide is an online platform dedicated to craftsmanship that allows you to discover artisans and their masterpieces; explore museums, visit galleries and shops selling unique objects; enjoy experiences in cities across Europe and beyond.

Homo Faber Guide is a signature project developed by the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship, an international non-profit organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, which was set up in 2016 thanks to the intuition of Franco Cologni and Johann Rupert. The Michelangelo Foundation’s mission is to celebrate and preserve master craftsmanship, and for this reason it has created a map of the most significant representatives in this field, with the aim of connecting all its protagonists: artisans, designers, gallery owners, art curators, collectors and enthusiasts of high-quality handmade pieces.

About the Guide

Are you an artisan, atelier or manufacturer? Would you like to be featured in Homo Faber Guide? The Michelangelo Foundation encourages self-assessment initiatives and is pleased to evaluate new members to appear on the Guide or in other projects. Thanks to the Master’s Touch Evaluation Tool, every artisan can send their application: register and access a questionnaire to see if you fulfill the 11 criteria for excellence that stand behind all the activities of the Michelangelo Foundation. If your answers reach the minimum requirement, your application will be brought to our attention; if, on the contrary, you should score below the minimum requirement, we will give you some points for improvement, in the hope that you may participate in future initiatives of the Michelangelo Foundation.

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Our artisan labels

A master artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years, and who has also been engaged in passing on his or her expertise to the younger generations for more than seven years. This is in keeping with one of the key values of the Michelangelo Foundation: the transmission of knowledge in craftsmanship.

Who is a Master artisan?

Find museums handpicked for their links to contemporary craftsmanship and the exquisite collections they have on display. In each city, discover a museum of interest and organise your visit. From Italian museums displaying coral collections, glass pieces and ceramics to decorative art museums in Russia and Greece, marvel at the variety of museums exhibiting masterpieces, showcasing techniques and recounting histories.

Museums

A rising star is an artisan who has been active for less than ten years, and who is capable of expressing his or her craft with competence, creativity and originality. Whether self-taught or trained, the rising star represents the future of craftsmanship, in creativity, concerns and approaches.

Who is a Rising star?

The artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide have been selected through a meticulous assessment process based on the 11 criteria for excellence, identified by Alberto Cavalli, Executive Director of the Michelangelo Foundation, in the volume The Master’s Touch, written with researchers Giuditta Comerci and Giovanna Marchello. The members of the Michelangelo Foundation’s network who have been invited to participate in sourcing artisans for the Guide use an evaluation tool based on these criteria. In this way, they can identify the most suitable artisans to include in the project.

Simple rules for a transparent selection

In which city does the artisan work?

In which country does the artisan practise?

What craft does the artisan practise?

What is the artisan’s Instagram page?

What is the name of the artisan you are recommending?

Does the artisan have a website?

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