An Oxfordshire Artweeks woodturner, Richard Shock, has been voted Britain’s Favourite Designer Maker in an on-line poll by Seek and Adore, an innovative on-line selective retailer which sells distinctive quality goods crafted by top designer-makers across the country (www.seekandadore.com). Votes were cast on-line between June and August, and Richard came joint first when the poll closed.

Shock makes bowls and platters, many with signature inlays, and sculptural pieces. Increasingly he uses British native woods, from around Oxfordshire, mainly ash, beech and elm, but not oak to which he is allergic.

‘I’m delighted that people across the country are enjoying the fruits of my labour and it’s particularly exciting that more galleries are showing my work,’ said Shock, 64, of Woodstock Road, Oxford who took up woodturning as a hobby in 2000 before becoming a full time woodturner in 2005.

It isn’t the first time that the quality of Richard’s work has been recognised. Richard was invited to join the Oxfordshire Craft Guild in 2003, was accepted on the prestigious Register of Professional Turners in 2007, and won the Oxfordshire Artweeks Mary Moser Award in 2010.

His work will be on show at the All Together Different exhibition in Great Milton from 11th-14th October alongside work by other Oxfordshire artists.
All Together Different : www.carolinemeynell.co.uk/news.htm

For more information on Richard Shock see
http://www.artweeks.org/members/2012/u19m2042