About
Konrad Zalar
I am an Austrian self-taught sculptor and hobby artist. Most of the time I got to spare after university is spend in planning or making new art pieces. Doing it since 2013 passionately I grew up with it and am eager to keep it up.
The possibility to take some time, creativity and patience and create everything you want from scratch is fascinating.
My love to nature is only one aspect, which got me to the point where I am now with my craftmanship and art. The other one is the familiarity with tools I already got at a young age. Starting out with a cutter knife and a branch of hazel a passion was born.
Now the goal is to share this and let others be part of it.
Working on anything I care about leads me to seek perfection in it. Knowing that I will never get a result near this goal I try to proof myself wrong every time a project makes it into production. Therefor it is necessary to create everything in a natural process, because only those sculptures will not only be a piece of wood which resamples something, but get a soul, a life through it.
As far as it is possible, I do not use any power tools neither I finish before the result is like I have indented it or better.
About
Andrea Zalar
Since I was a teenager wood has fascinated me. I loved to touch smooth, wooden surfaces and was always excited by the different uses of this material. But I unfortunately had never really had the chance to work with it and therefore could only wonder at curiosities made of wood at markets. Still my dream remained to one day create pieces of my own.
Years later I had heard of a wood turning course near my home city. First, I was unsure of what that really meant and more importantly if that was something I wanted to pursue. With this uncertainty I put the thought aside. 2 years later I turned 50, and what better time to start something completely new. So, I registered myself for the course, where we learnt the basics, and after just two days I was able to create first pieces. At that time far away from perfection, the one thing I am determined about in every single artwork, yet a first step in the right direction. With my persistence and patience, I soon started to make very beautiful objects, for which I’ve gained a lot of compliments. This encouraged me to keep digging deeper and deeper into the wonders of woodturning and to keep trying out new things.
Whether it is various kinds of wood, materials, techniques or transforming something old into something new. And so, with time, my shelves filled with objects of assorted types of materials like wood from all over the world, the banksia cone, antler, products of stone and other specialties put in epoxy resin.
Through the enthusiasm of my customers I am always reassured, that with this passion I can not only bring myself great joy but others as well. So, it looks like I am not going to quit this hobby soon, and meanwhile I will happily spend many, many more hours, right in-between the lovely smells of wood in my beloved workshop.