Bowl Surgery. 
For years I had my bowl turning lumped under my furniture making page. But I have come to the realization that at this point (2009) I have probably made more bowls than furniture. So welcome to the new bowl turning page.

Click here to download my bowlturning flyer

This work began only as a personal diversion. Turning a big chunk of wood with a huge gouge and shavings flying everywhere is a great release after hunching over tiny lute pegs for 8 hours. But passing interest coupled with the fact that there are 100's of bowl makers just in my immediate vicinity, meant this was not a craft that I needed to pour any amount of time into as far as documentation, marketing, craft fair-selling, etc. I would enjoy doing it, the house would fill up with bowls, and when we reached maximum density I would start handing them out to friends or whoever came through the door. Everyone left with a bowl. But what grew out of this idle woodworking is something that is now permeating my instrument making: the story behind the wood. It's not much of a story to say: "I went to the lumberyard and after sifting through 20 stacks of kiln-dried maple I found this one piece with beautiful grain in this one part." But there's real interest behind: "This bowl is made from a red maple tree that was planted by Frederick Law Olmstead 100 years ago and which I drove past on Ponce de Leon just about every day of my life for 15 years and one day a ferocious storm brought it down and I braved killer traffic to scavenge a few pieces to make this bowl and it was so fresh when I put it on my lathe later that day that it sprayed water enough to drench a foot-wide strip on me, the lathe, the floor and the ceiling." That is a story, if not an egregious run-on sentence.

From that first experience in Deepdene Park (part of Druid Hill's Olmstead Linear Park) I naturally gravitated to seeking only 'wood with a story' for my bowls, and have used more storm-downed trees from Atlanta's historic places as well as trees from friend's and family's homes. And now I am making a dulcimer from wood scavenged from a home built in 1911. This may be the beginning of a new outlook on the raw materials of my craft.

It all began with a bishop: After years of just spindle turning I got into bowls through an unlikely source. I volunteered at an Episcopal mission in downtown Atlanta run by one of the ex-bishops of the diocese, Frank Allan. We taught the neighborhood kids how to turn bowls, pens, and do other woodworking projects. I came with plenty of woodworking and even turning experience, but spindle turning is a different set of tools, both literally and figuratively, so I had an on-the-job tutorial from Frank and, fortunately, I was able to convince the 12 year olds i was working with that i knew more than they did.

All of my bowls are meant to be used. This bowl probably gets the award for most use. Made from a neighbor's redbud in probably 2003, we use it for holding hors d'oeuvres at parties and general kitchen use as evidence by the many knife marks.

Another aspect to my bowl turning is the steady scholarship I've garnered from visiting museums - notably the Carlos Museum of Archeology at Emory University - looking at the most prevalent shapes favored by various cultures throughout time. The names I have given these shapes are my own to represent what I have seen as the predominant design produced in each culture's 'golden period'. To the right are the basic forms which I turn the most. The following are images pretty much in chronological order of my work over the years.

Some of the following images are a bit blurry, because they were taken at a time when website space was limited and my images were only 400dpi wide. Now that the future is 'wow!', my dpi is 600.

The two on the ends are from a neighbor's redbud tree that came down in the last hurricane. The photo doesn't do the wood justice. There are bright pinks, green, yellow and rich brown pith and veining.

The above bowls were from several years ago, 2002 I think. This sphere and the following images are from late 2008 and January, 2009 from a different redbud tree.

Huzzah ! !

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Wood with a Story. 
My experience with the Olmstead red maple was the beginning of a steady stream of wood that I would collect from all over Atlanta these 12 years. The following are a few of highlights.

This is a piece of a Magnolia tree that was removed from a property in the Brookwood neighborhood of Atlanta, a neighborhood of exclusive homes around a golf course which was planned in the 1920's. The lot is being developed with a new house in an Arcadian colonial style by my company. I'll be turning a bowl for our client to present to them at the move-in.

The Emory Oak.  

An historic event: the 80 year old white oak at the entrance to Emory University is cut down to make way for the re-directed road which will once again pass through the pillars.

So into my trunk it goes (well, part of it) and. . .

. . .back to the workshop where it will be turned into bowls as a donation to The Alliance to Improve Emory Village and to Glen Memorial United Methodist Church for fundraising efforts. (The big hunk of magnolia has new friends to keep it company for a time)

Cutting. . .

Roughing. . .

Finished. Love that spalting! just don't breathe while you're tuning.

Trees I have known.

Another Olmstead Park storm victim. I don't think this poplar is big enough to have been planted 100 years ago like the maple I scavenged previously, but it was a signifiant tree and it will be missed. Until I turn it into bowls. The light post and redbud it took out will also be missed.

The following are some images of quiet contemplation.

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Another tree down a few days later. This time not in the park but from a residence on South Ponce de Leon and laying into Dellwood Park. It's amazing there are any trees left on Ponce.

The Rhodes Hall Oak.

Chance is the mother of opportunity. I was passing by just as the top was falling on this tree in front of historic Rhodes Hall on Peachtree Street. The staff people think it's at least 125 years old, predating the 1904 build of the house. I watched as the trunk was brought down and took some contemplative pictures before hauling off all my car's suspension could bear.

Pulling a guideline to aim the trunk in the desired direction.

If trees could talk

Staff members onlook from a safe distance

Tim-ber, as they say

And down.

A good reason to take a tree down.

The implement

The leaves of change

Into the trunk!

Back home. Hopefully I will get bowls made out of these before the fungus makes food out of them.

Tree climbing spike wound. Philosophize.

The chosen log for the first round with the eye-catchingly cute sprig. And now, every painful detail of making a bowl. . .

Cut flat with axe for bandsaw

Mounted on the outside lathe, but. . .

It's a little cold out tonight, so inside lathe sounds better.

Outside finished.

Here's the fun part

Finis

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Some images taken on a particularly active night of bowlturning on the 'outside lathe'

Tree chunk, meet bandsaw. Bandsaw. . .tree chunk

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A power grab of walnut from a house on Scott Boulevard

The stump to the left will be bowls, the logs to the right will be dulcimer parts.

Future dulcimers.

Here come the bowls.

Here come the dulcimers.

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The Museum Collection.

I have begun a series of bowls inspired by the pottery in the collection of the Michael C Carlos Museum of Emory University. I am a frequent visitor and over the ears have made notes on the shapes to be found across the four major cultures they represent: Egyptian, Mezzo-American, Greek and Roman.

Click here for my flyer on this collection

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