How did it all get started?

Humble Beginnings!  I turned my first bowl in the ‘50’s.  Hardly a masterpiece, it was a laminated maple bowl I turned in shop class for my mother.  I got the bowl back when she passed on, and while it didn’t weather the decades too well it still oversees my current work from a shelf in my shop.

I’ve had a lifelong love affair with wood but allowed education and a couple of careers to interfere with any serious pursuit for 35 years, so I’ve only been turning with a passion since moving to Georgia from the Texas Hill Country in 2002.

Here's my shop (excuse me… studio) in Georgia.

When I arrived in northwest Georgia in 2002 I was fortunate to find a builder who wanted a motor home because I had a motor home and wanted a shop.  Now we’re both happy.

Where do I get my wood?

I am often asked where I get my wood.  The first line of my normal response is that "It finds me now."

Disclaimer.  I try to avoid doing anything that would encourage cutting trees just so I can have wood to turn.

Firewood.  When I first moved here I started with the wood in the firewood pile that came with the house I bought, but I needed a better source. 

Ads.  I soon had more than I could handle after placing a couple of ads in the regional free classified traders.  In fact, the first tree I got was a 70 foot white oak monster from Calhoun, Georgia.  It had fallen across three back yards during a violent storm in 2002 and took several trips with my pickup and trailer.  Before the job was done I had blown  two tires on my trailer and uncovered a car.  As it turned out I had tackled more that I should have to be working alone with just a manual crane on my trailer.  This experience would later join with a similar retrieval of a red oak from Eastridge, Tennessee to convince me I could no longer think of myself as a latter day Paul Buyan without a blue ox.

The Dump.  Fortunately I live in an area that does not offer garbage pickup.  (What?  What has that got to do with it?  Please read on.)  That means I have to take my garbage to the transfer station where it is transported from the compactors to the land fill.  That also happens to be where county residents take their trees to allow them to be shredded into mulch for county residents.  (So, you're starting to see where this is going.)  When I take my trash I see what's available.  My wife thinks I'm a scavenger, and she is probably correct, but I've found some very nice cherry, maple, sycamore, blackheart poplar, and other turning stock there.  Let's not forget, too, the added bonus that it's only two miles from home and I've not yet blown another tire on my trailer.

Get Lucky.  Every now and then even I get lucky.  An acquaintance was clearing some land that included some cherry trees destined for the pulp mill.  I was able to get these at a reasonable cost including the load.

Make the Best of a Bad Situation.  Though I do not encourage cutting trees, they will be felled for other reasons.  If that's the case anyway, I would certainly prefer to give them a second life if I can.  This walnut was taken out in favor of a parking lot across from the Wal-Mart in Calhoun, Georgia.

I am much less concerned with producing a technically perfect piece than I am with finishing something with a pleasing form and finish that showcases what already exists in nature to be appreciated.  If  the shape is pleasing it is probably not new but only reminiscent of something we’ve seen before… the spiral of a chambered nautilus… the curve of a rainbow… the outline of a poppy.