Woodworking has been my passion and my profession since 1971.
I have made custom furniture, kitchen cabinets, built some houses, and made
various accessories. But of all the woodworking I've done, turning bowls
straight from the log is the most satisfying. It has allowed me to
bypass the lumber company and create straight from the tree, using found
objects, local woods. No two are
exactly alike, and I'm able to exercise spontaneity and judgment in shaping each
piece.
I was born in 1950, and my
earliest
memories are images of a childhood in a poor coal mining town outside of Hazard, Kentucky.
My father was a Presbyterian minister. In 1956 Mom and Dad packed my two sisters and me off to Brussels, Belgium,
where we all learned some French. Then in 1957 we took the boat to the Belgian Congo,
where Dad taught in a newly formed
seminary on a remote station. It was true third world living. Then independence
wracked the Congo
and we evacuated to New Haven, Connecticut for two years. Then
we returned for three more years in the new Democratic Republic of Congo. I went to a
boarding school with 60 other kids, and had a blast playing among the mango and
palm trees. From making do with little in Africa I learned to make my own toys,
to build tools, to get by with what we had, and to love another culture. I
developed self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and a distaste for TV consumer
culture.
After graduating from high school in Richmond, VA, I went to Eckerd
College in St. Petersburg, Florida. When I was 19 I spent 6 weeks on an archeological dig in Israel. There was
a strong focus on potsherds, for they are critical in dating the levels. I have turned many
bowls in the past with lips similar to some of those shards I picked up.
I've also been long attracted to Navajo and Hopi pottery. Many of my globe
shapes are derivative. I don't believe there are any shapes in
wood that haven't been done millennia ago in clay. In fact, my first foray
into building tools was a pottery wheel. But it didn't grab me. Wood
does. In 1971 I dropped out to
try working at Jonathan Jones Woodcarving. I quickly learned that I
loved it all, from carving to painting to making simple furniture to building tools.
In 1972 I married, and in 1973 we moved to West Virginia and began homesteading on 24
acres on a mountain top. We built a house, shop, greenhouses, solar heaters, drying
kilns, kept goats and chickens. And, oh yes, we raised three children, all home schooled,
a very involving experience indeed.
Fifteen years went right by. In 1988 we moved to Virginia, finding 9 wooded
acres just west of Charlottesville that were appealingly close to the Skyline
Drive, and recreated as much as possible the rural lifestyle which had been
so life-forming in West Virginia. In 1997 I married Mary Rice, and the good
life got better. My sons have bought land about 8 miles away, and my
daughter is 2 years out of college now. Check out Ryan's fleece sewing
business and hiking adventures at
http://www.themouseworks.com . Mary's sister Amy Webb also is
self-employed with a fine flower business called Blue Ridge Floral Designs,
supplying the greater Charlottesville area with lovely flowers for all
occasions, particularly weddings. See
http://www.blueridgefloral.com .
On the artistic side, I have been largely self-taught. For years my goal was to make wonderful furniture. I took some workshops, read, visited galleries, and whittled away. But I also turned some bowls off and on, and they always sold. Gradually I turned more and more bowls, enjoying the quick results and freedom of design that came with it. I've had one workshop with David Ellsworth and various others on furniture building. Mostly I've worked alone. If I'm an expert now, it's because I've made most of the mistakes there are to make. I rebuilt and rebuilt my lathe, making it larger, heavier, stronger, and going to a variable-speed motor. Sometime around 1996 I decided to do only bowls. I get a great deal of satisfaction from using all local and native woods, from staying close to home, and from creating objects of beauty out of rough materials.
Making Bowls is VERY hard work, and I get very tired after a
day covered in shavings.
This is how one recovers.
phone: 434-823-1882