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

Summer Craft Market

The Pictou Weekend Craft Market has opened for the summer, and that is where you will find me every Saturday and Sunday until September 24. It is located on the Pictou waterfront in the curling club, just across from the ship Hector and is open from 10am to 5pm.

This year I have a slightly bigger booth and have set up a workbench where I can spend time between customers doing some carving. At the moment I am working on decorating a small oak bowl. It is a nice way to pass the time between customers. I'm not very good at sitting around with nothing to do.



So if you are in Pictou this summer, drop by and say hi.

My studio at Seafoam is open daily from Monday to Thursday, 10am - 5pm as a minimum. I am usually open well before 10, and sometimes stay open after 5, depending on what other chores and yard work needs doing. Fridays are bit hit and miss. This is the day I might shut up shop altogether if I have to go out, but I hope that won't happen too often and that the studio will be open as much as possible. If you want to call ahead the number is 902 351 3886 or toll free 1 888 428 3794.

Technorati tags: Pictou, Nova Scotia, woodturning, carving

Salad bowl Sunday

Salad bowls are something I only make when I have access to suitably large pieces of green wood. Unlike some of the bowls you will find in stores, these are made from one solid piece of wood. Hauling and handling the raw material is no easy matter, and not something I am really geared up to do on a regular basis. So I don't always have salad bowls for sale, and when I do they usually sell quickly from my gallery during the summer and fall. So they don't usually make it to the website.

This year I actually have some salad bowls ready early. So, for all my on-line customers I am going to make them available on this blog. It's easier to post them here than on the website. So for the next few weeks watch out for 'Salad bowl Sunday'!

Here is this week's offering:



It is turned from maple and finished with walnut oil, a kitchen-safe oil which is non-toxic and easy to maintain with further applications of oil or beeswax as needed. The rim pattern has been handcarved with a gouge.

The internal dimensions of this bowl are 12.5" diameter by 4.8" deep. Externally it is 13.7" by 5.7".

SOLD

Technorati tags: salad bowl, salad, kitchen, woodturning

Winter woodturning update

Yesterday was a beautiful day today here in Seafoam. The sun shone all day and the temperature soared to just above freezing. It made me wonder where the winter had gone and what I had been doing all winter.

Apart from making stock for the summer and fall seasons, winter is a time for getting odd jobs done and trying out new ideas. One job was to reorganize the lumber pile that has been sitting in the middle of the workshop since last fall. I extracted all the maple that can be used for inlaid weedpots and bits'n'bobs bowls, and cut it all up into square blocks ready for use. I also rearranged the pile so that the lumber I am most likely to need is at the top of the pile:)

Last month I took a woodcarving course at Carvers in Pictou. There were four of us and we made spirit faces. I choose to use a fairly dry piece of spalted black cherry which added a few extra challenges to the task.

My carving is the third from the left. It still has a few details to work on, but at least it looks like a face. The color or the wood, the spalting and the knots disguise some of the features, but I like it. I think it adds an air of mystery to it, perhaps suggesting that the wood spirit doesn't really want to be seen. Standing behind my carving is Keith Matheson the owner of Carvers and our instructor. I plan on doing more carving this year, so what Keith taught me will be very useful, especially how to sharpen carving tools, a quite different technique to what I use for turning tools.

One of my other experiments this winter has been with woodblock prints. I want to explore the possibilities of creating the blocks on a lathe and using multiple blocks to create abstract prints. Here is one block being turned:

So far I don't have any results worth sharing, but I am intrigued by the process and am confident I will have some prints for sale this summer. I am fascinated by the limitations that a lathe places on the art, but I am equally convinced that I can make some work worth showing.

Yesterday I turned a natural edge bowl out of yellow birch. A nice little piece with some interesting inclusions.

Today I need to finish sanding this bowl and turn the base. Then it will be left to dry for a month or so before it can be oiled and buffed. I have some more green wood in the shop that I want to work on and make a few more green bowls. There are also some big pieces in the yard waiting to be cut up and roughed out for salad bowls.