INCENTIVE: Woodcraft workshop as art

A short drive from Maribor’s city centre two lovers and experts of woodcraft provide an incentive programme of woodcraft workshop. The workshop enables participants to feel and experience the touch of wood and to work with it into making a useful and beautiful tool either for themselves or as a gift for others.

Both of the masters of woodcraft, Matija and Tine who are the mastermind behind the Esen Woodcraft, guide the attendees through the creative process of making lovely products from kitchen utensils, to jewelry, little boxes, shelves and other products made of wood. The workshop is not a regular workshop, but rather an art workshop where a person can express creatively on a piece of precious, Slovenian wood, while learning about the basic processes of working with wood.

The participants first listen to some basics of working with wood, then they sketch their own product that they want to make, and then they enter the manufacturing process where they work with hands as well as with woodworking machines under a lead of a skilled carpenter. Participants can also come with beforehand planned specific ideas; for example, some of them have some far made a laptop stand, a clock, specific shelves, etc.

The workshop provides participants with the experience of taking time for themselves and making something that they can then use every day. The work with wood is, as the woodcraft masters say, some kind of a meditation, going into oneself through creative work and careful focus on the end product with a direct connection to the raw feeling and relaxing smell of the wood. In addition, the workshop provides participants with finding a new kind of creativity within themselves that they have never faced before.