About me

Passing on the craft.  Helping a determined young man at the County Fair to turn a flower vase for his mom.

I love to teach, and demonstrate this wonderful tool.  Perhaps the occasional young person will  give it a try and discover their innate talents to work natural materials.

See HERE for the Youth Training program in Sacramento where I teach and develop the curriculum.

 

I have tramped the  Sierra Nevada Mountains since I was 13.  Spending whole summers on the loose up there.  The sparse alpine regions with granite sculpture and 10,000 year old glacial polish and striations informs the objects and images that come out of my studio.  The bark and gnarly, worn trees of that harsh environment inspire my designs.  These mountains are much a part of me.

The lathe is arguably man's first woodworking machine.  Which came first, the lathe or the potters wheel?   We have images of wood turners and turnings thousands of years before Christ.  And all this while the Glaciers were still wandering the Sierra Nevada range!

This heritage of my life and man's history drives me to develop my woodturning techniques,  to discover and  rescue Sierra woods.  The surprise of the graphics hidden in these woods is unveiled by the turning process.  I find myself drawn to ancient utilitarian forms as an element of my designs.   I delight to embrace remnants of a tradition when wood and stone were man's principal raw materials.  And when mind, eye, hand, and body were the intimate instruments of creating objects.

Backpacking with my brother,  54 years later!
In the summer of 1958 my younger brother John and I led a group of boy scouts from Pacific Palisades CA across Glen Pass to the Rae Lakes of the Eastern Sierra.  Little did we know that would end our backpacking in the Sierra for over half a century.    HERE is a slide show of our 3 days of wanderings in September 2012 all around the Grouse Ridge wilderness.  

Furniture Design and Construction

An occasional break from woodturning: Walnut and Red Elm Pulpit for the Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains.  Album of design and construction process and details HERE.

"Hodgepodge" Chair
Natural edge and bark of Red Willow slab and asymmetric Claro Walnut frame
Lathe turned slipper feet and exposed rough cut ends.  Just as they came out of my lumber pile
More mages HERE 

"Meditation Chair"
Imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
Wabi-sabi (侘寂?)  represents a comprehensive Zen view and aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience.
Rough sawn Sierra cedar.  Railroad spikes and iron wedge.  Hand cut joinery.  Seasoned two winters in the garden

Kamm Teapot Foundation Acquisition 
for their permanent collection.  The foundation, founded by collectors Gloria & Sonny Kamm of Los Angeles, CA, is the largest and most comprehensive collection of teapots in the world.  The collection consists of approximately 10,000 teapots and tea sets.  An exhibition of 250 of the foundation's mostly contemporary artist's teapots toured nine museums over a four year period under the name of the "Artful Teapot" and set attendance records at six of the nine museums.  While the collection includes antique teapots from virtually every time period and country, one of its greatest strengths are its sculptural teapots, many of which were created by world well known contemporary artists.  More information on the collection HERE.

Recognition

• Featured Artist in Nevada County Gold Magazine and The Union newspaper.
• Blue Ribbons in the 2009 and 2010 Nevada County Fair for furniture, sculpture and woodturning.

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