Some new weedpots

The farmers market season has already begun. Most weekends will find me at Antigonish on Saturday morning between 8am and noon. I just started a twitter feed, so you can get more uptodate information of my whereabouts at twitter.com/SeafoamWoodturn.

This week I made some weedpots. Some are quite unusual, having natural edges and the like. The large ones are Black Ash, the ones with the bark still on are Striped Maple.

Black Ash Weedpot

Today I am able to offer someone the opportunity to purchase a very unique weedpot. Essentially it is a three-sided pot, each face having its own unique texture. It is made from a most unusual piece of black ash and stands about seven inches tall.

This first picture shows the turned face on the left, and it is here that you can see the beautiful grain of black ash. This piece has several horizontal ripples in the grain to provide extra visual interest. The heartwood is lined with a thin layer of sapwood just underneath the bark.

The second side of this pot is the bark of the tree, a coarse ridged texture that is a complete contrast to the finely finished wood surface.

The final side of the pot comes from an old crack in the tree. I think this may have been made by a lightning strike, but can't be sure. No matter what caused it, the result is a calloused area with vertical lines running down along each growth ring.

This weedpot might be used to display dry grasses, but will make a fine addition to your decor or collection on its own.

SOLD

Triplets II

Last year I told you all about Triplets I. Since then I have created the second in the series, pictured below. They have both received a lot of favourable feedback, both online and in person.

At first sight, many people are baffled by them, but when I rotate the individual pieces and a new pattern emerges their faces light up and they want to 'play' with the pieces themselves. They love to pick them up and examine them individually, looking at how the turned surfaces meet to create edges with quite bizarre profiles. When placed side by side, these edges often give the impression of the pieces having been wrought asunder by violent means. And when the set is arranged as shown in the picture below, viewing from one angle shows one complete pattern while choosing a viewpoint 90 degrees away shows another pattern. This art is really quite interactive, and I encourage people to re-arrange the pieces and view from whatever angle they choose. Looking down on the tops provides quite a different aspect of this work.

But for all this interest, I was beginning to wonder if they would ever sell. So I was delighted when Triplets II was sold the other day.


The very next day the postcards that I had ordered arrived from the printers. They are based on the picture above and I hope they will prove to be a useful promotional tool.

tecnorati tags:
interactive art, woodturning, sculpture

Triplets

I recently completed a new piece of work that I am really quite excited about.

It is a set of three weedpots, turned from the same piece of wood on five different axes. At first glance the faces of the weedpots seem to be decorated with random carving, but when they are properly arranged a single circular design can be seen. When the weedpots are rotated, you will find that there are four such designs to look at.

One of the things I really like about 'Triplets I" is the way the surfaces of each weedpot meet at the corners. It makes for some really interesting shapes.

Click the link to see more pictures and learn about my latest piece of sculptural woodturning.


Technorati Tags: woodturning, art, sculpture

Making inlays for weedpots

This past week I have been making inlaid weedpots. The photograph below shows some of the inlays in various stages of production.

This batch of inlays are made of oak burl and black cherry burl.

The roughly cut round slices (right) are glued to circular blocks of wood (top right). These blocks are held in a chuck mounted on the lathe during the turning operation. The finished inlays (left) are carefully pried off of the glue blocks and are ready to be glued into the finished weedpot.

These weedpots are much admired by visitors to the studio. They are quite time consuming to make, so I like to build up a good stock before the busy summer tourist season.