Les Symonds » Find a Turner

Les left a career in special needs teaching in January 2015, to pursue a life-long interest in working with wood, by developing his hobby of woodturning, which he had commenced just 2 years earlier. He is based in the town of Bala, in the Eryri National Park (formerly known as Snowdonia) where he has his principal workshop and where he sources most of his raw materials. Whilst he is content to make functional, utilitarian pieces, Les prefers to work with storm-damaged and weathered timber, incorporating materials such as leather, copper, silver and semi-precious stones into his work. Les’s work has been included in both the on-line gallery and in the printed newsletter of the Association of Woodturners of Great Britain, and he has had the honour of having more than 30 of his more artistic pieces declared ‘Woodturning of the Week’ by an international woodturners’ web-site. and his work has been exhibited in galleries and arts centres throughout north Wales and in London. In March of 2015, upon setting up his business, Les set himself the goal of developing his wood-turning skills to a sufficiently high level to be accepted onto the Register of Professional Turners, and he gained this accolade in February 2016, becoming one of only four registered woodturners then working in Wales. With a first-class honours degree in Education and Training, and with years of experience in adult education, a natural progression of Les’s work was the tutoring that he commenced in 2017 and which has since become a major element in his woodturning business. Since 2018 Les has been a regular feature writer and four-times Guest Editor for the world-famous “Woodturning” magazine, which is published by The Guild of Master Craftsmen  –  GMC Publications. Primarily Les writes articles of a practical, project-based nature, but also occasionally articles of technical content. Now semi-retired, Les still teaches and writes for GMC Publications. He continues to make a small amount of turned work for resale, and this can be viewed at an artists’ cooperative gallery in the name of Celf Aran Arts, in Dolgellau, where Les is a full-time member of the cooperative and where he stewards the gallery a few days each month.