Yoav Elkayam

Born 1985, I was introduced to Greenwood Working in 2013 while travelling around the UK.

A year later I came back and took a bowl turning and tool forging course with bowl turner and now good friend Sharif Adams and attended the biggest spoon carving gathering and festival - Spoonfest.

Meeting some of the best craftsmen and learning from them, really made me want to take my skills and approach to the craft to the next level and making it my full time occupation.

In 2015, I decided to sell and leave most of my possessions, and to travel between friends and craftsmen I met along the way, only with my basic tool kit and my rucksack.

2016 I have finished converting a self build van that will be my home and workspace, which hopefully allowed me to take my travelling and exploring more about being a full time craftsman.

Since then, I've been teaching regularly in the beautiful woodland workshop in Brook house Woods (Herefordshire, UK).

the workshop was originally built by the great chair maker and father of green wood working in England, Mike Abbott, and now run by a collective of makers including myself.

My partner Kris and myself had since built a small home here and are now full time residence of Brook house farm, living and working here with our young daughter , and friends in a small community.

I feel a part of a rising alternative hand-crafted & slow culture, one that puts its focus on creating simple objects, in a simple process, designed and made to be used and looked at every day; to stay with us and become more beautiful and meaningful to us by doing so.

I feel like teaching and sharing the skills is a major part of my work - passing to others skills and tools to make with their own hands the things they need while experiencing and understanding the effort, thought and depths that can be found even in the most common and simple object in our life- a spoon.