AAW 2010 The big names

The instant gallery allows participants to bring 3 items to show and if you are a presenter you can bring 5.  Some of the biggest names in woodturning brought their wares to show at the instant gallery.  You can see from the picture of Cindy Drozda's work below that tables are filled with items and 8 to 10 rows of long tables not including the silent auction items and special displays.  This is very overwhelming and mind blowing that this many people are making such quality work.

David Ellsworth

 

John Jordan

 

J. Paul Fennell

David Nittmann

Cindy Drozda

Dale Larson

Mike Mahoney

AAW Hartford

I need to post some of my thoughts and experiences from the 2010 AAW convention in Hartford CT.  I had a great time.  Sometimes I got way overwhelmed by all the art, talent,  potential opportunities, and people... so many people!  A couple of the big picture things that I came away with are:

1.  seeing things and people that I have seen online, in print or @ our club meetings.

This is an example of something I saw on WoodCentral.com and couldn't believe it when I saw it/them and then when I saw it I was still dumbfounded that it was so cool and mesmerizing.    I went out with 2 friends Friday night for dinner and ran into woodturners Barbara, Pat and Dixie.  We went to 4 restaurants  before we could find one with room to eat.  Barbara had done a demo at MCW and it was very interesting.  She had candlesticks on the table and one in the silent auction and Phil won it.   They kept talking about Pat's entry in the Acer (maple) display that and the wonderful sphere.  I had not had a chance to check out that area but I am impressed as well! and Dixie seemed to have taken the show by storm, she had a cool entry in the Acer exhibit, this lipstick teapot in the teapot exhibit, and was picked out of the Instant Gallery with an excellence award.

2  The whimsy and thought that some people can do.  The chapter challenge is very cool where groups of people come together to pull a project together. 

There also is often an item that makes a statement, where this one is a bunch oft "human forms" in different woods with "one root".

3.  Things that will take me out of my comfort zone but may be doable and or at least a good starting place.  This cube from the Acer exhibit is a good example.  Many of the demos also did this as well.

4.  And finally how did they think of that.. this was turned at the show buy one of the emerging artists exhibit with twigs glued into the base and put in a block of ice and then the ice block was turned.  Several people commented on how cool that was with the water flying everywhere!  I am bummed I missed it.

I didn't know what to take in for the meeting last month.  Patrick O'Brien was the demonstrator and did the critique.  He looked over several of the items and gave pretty heavy critique to the items.  I was pretty worried when he got to mine but he had very little to say.  Maybe change the bottom but not much to say other than it was a nice bowl.  He pulled out the other one, the taller and said about the same thing,  either define the bottom more or maybe take it out but just a personal choice..  The bowls are from a Beechnut tree from Potter County PA.  I am pretty happy with how they came out.  The beechnut is very good wood to work with, it did not move much as it dried.  It has great color and fun lines from the grain.   The taller bowl has knot for a little extra character.  Maybe they will get to visit their saplinghood home this summer.

Road trip ..... Side trip

My Montgomery County Woodturners club (MCW) took a road trip to a wood art collector's home.  It was a very interesting collection and wonderful people opening up their home to us.   Socialwoman needed to go into work and get some stuff moved around.  She couldn't come and took Farmvillegirl to help her.  I gave permitboy the option to come see wood art and get a chance to drive and he took it.  Leaving the wood art house I ask the GPS for items of interest since I don't get to the other side of 95 much.  Savage Mill was 2 miles away so I said, "Permitboy....turn left."   We get to the mill and turn into the parking lot.  There is a lot building around but no clear sign "Come Here".  We wandered around, found that the "mill" is turned into artist studios, stores, bakery, and restaurants.   We found our way outside and walked to the over to where the power to the mill would have come from (at least the best we could determine, we could not find a sign that says this is a historic mill and here is how it works)

 

We first found the spur of the RR tracks that came by the river.

The building that would have held the equipment that supplied the power has not been restored at all and is in pretty bad shape.  There were big metal "tubes" (probably 4 foot diameter pipes) that connect to the large restored mill building.

But the thing that caught my attention was the bridge out front.  

The last Bollman Iron Truss Railroad bridge.  

It is on the National Historic Landmark list and is a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

Built by the B&O RR Co. 1869

I love the lines on the side.

Flower bowl

 I was given this pice of wood by my friend at work who is building a new house on Kent Island (yes she works way up here and lives on Kent Island...I don't get it either) and I ask her to bring some chunks of wood up with her.    This is the only log that looked like this.  I am not sure if this is locust but it has an interesting profile.  It has been sitting in the garage all winter because I did not know what to do with it.   Normally I would cut a log through the center and put the 1/2 (or less) log on so that I see the bark like the top left picture.  I couldn't decide to do that or to a natural edge with all that interest going on but that would be endgrain turning which is harder and something in don't do much.  It also involves the pith which tends to crack.  In a bowl like this.  I know it adds character and that is what many of my bowls end up with but this would have a great amount of character without extra character. My usual style is to have an idea what I am going to make but no clear plan.  I will plan to use the most of the wood, most likely a bowl and whatever shape comes out from the shape of the wood, my turning mistakes, or "character" that turns up in the wood.  I turned the back round and a tenon on it.  Turned it around and started hollowing out the inside. Then I thinned it out and made it deeper.   I got to a point where I liked the shape and I sanded it pretty aggressively to get rid of the tool marks.  If I saw a crack I would super glue it to stop the spreading.  When I got most of the sanding done I put some salad bowl finish on to seal it to pull out the areas that I needed to sand some more.  Then I made my semi-fatal flaw.  I parted off the bowl from the base and left a most of the base here at the bottom of the bowl on the bowl.... solid.    Now one of the well know ways to try and prevent bowls from cracking is to make them all the same thickness.  So when you make thin "leaves" on the bowl and make the base 2-3 inches thick ... solid ... it can't be good.  There are the cracks starting on the bottom..... Then notice the nice "character" with the nice crack in the bowl. 

 Photos of the finished bowl.  I put several coats of salad bowl finish on it and took it to the meeting @MCW and got some great comments but no real ideas of what wood it is.

I was lucky enough to get a picture of the bowl in it's final (for now) resting place.  It looks like a place of honor and I am very pleased, thanks sweetie ;).

Thanks for the wood.

My goal in turning is to learn, have fun and get some wood to turn with.  with that plan in mind, I like to give back to the people that gave me the wood.. I have done it with friends and have a plan to do it with other wood I get but sometimes get less motivated.  Today I took a couple of bowls to Deb that I .... well, almost begged on facebook to come and get some of the wood that came down when a "tornado" came through and cleaned out some of the weaker, dying trees in the neighborhood.
I had roughed out several of the blanks and many had  punky spots that were rotting when the tree was up.  I found this one chunk that was pretty clear and made  a pretty nice plain bowl.  I kept looking at it and said that I didn't think it was a good representation of what that tree is about.  I found another log and decided to try natural edge bowl.  I had not tried this in a while and had just seen a demo on making them and cranked one out and it came out real nice.  It has a hole in the bottom where there was a knot but the bark stayed on and even had some nice character to it.   I delivered them both to her and her BF today and made me feel good.

Karma

At the last meeting, Phil was collecting items for the Potomac library exhibit.  I know that they have a big display case and he likes to fill it up.  Displays are not for sales but you can make your own deal if someone calls you...  I do it for the club and to get items out in front of people.  He was not getting many items and since there was no meeting the month before, I figured that most of us forgot.  I offered to bring some items if he needed them.   I reminded him earlier in the week and he said sure, bring some big pieces.  I put together 4 big bowls (including the wide rimmed bowl that is currently the top picture of this blog), loaded them in the car and  Cindy and I took a drive down River Road.  It was a very pretty day for and it is always fun to look at the big houses in Potomac, so we thought we would take the scenic route.   Many signs of winter storms with pine limbs everywhere, but not much I can use for turning.  Then, just before the turn onto river from the slightly less scenic route, tree workers with Oh so much maple laying on the ground, I thought I was dreaming.  I continued down to Phil's house and got a wonderful tour of his collection of wood, glass and clay items.  On the way home I was torn for going to rockville to eat or checking out the wood.  We stopped to see the wood and picked up 5 good chunks. There was soooo much, 6 huge maple trees.  There was ambrosia, spalt and lots of large logs and crotches, I just couldn't get them in my little wagon.   I could have gone back with papa's truck sitting out front of the house but StrongBackBoy was out at GF's, and I didn't have it in me..  Instead I cut up what I had, sealed it, stacked it and started turning it by roughing out one bowl and I got another rounded out... It has me flummoxed a little.  It is spalted and punky on one side and is hard to turn and is very off balanced with a light side and a wet heavy side... I will clean it up tomorrow.  I don't know what will come of it but it has potential!  So everything fell into place, Karma..... Now I hope I can get something worthwhile out of this!

We did stop and eat...Went to Michael's Noodles and it was very good.  Different than anything we had had before but yummy.