Juror’s Award – Through the Woods: Around the Block

This basket bowl was created for the Through the Woods: Around the Block exhibition at the The Lubeznik Center for the Arts, Michigan City Indiana, February 18th through April 10.

The Through the Woods, Around the Block show had the following requirement:

Starting with 2 identically sized indigenous, non-endangered solid wood blocks measuring  6x6x3, artists were asked to create an original piece from one block while leaving the other untouched.Juried by renowned woodturners Cindy Drozda and David Nittmann, the resulting exhibition of wood and object will provide a thought-provoking visual “before and after.”

When I first heard of this exhibit I knew that the basket look veneer work that I’ve been doing was perfect, fortunately I had two blocks of spalted maple left – one to transform and one to leave as is.

This construction uses seven parallels alternating (3,4) between layers of veneer. The parallel arrangement causes the visual energy to change from the tightly woven end view to a calmer side view. This is analogous to the experience of lathe work where cutting changes every quarter turn – side to end, easy to hard.

Nest is the beginning of a new exploration of ideas. It consists of twigs collected in the New Hampshire woods, gathered into a small bundle which is mounted in a cherry base. A steep parabolic hollow is then turned in the sticks, creating a “nest” that holds the egg.

The egg is actually a box, turned from a branch collected from the side of the road. It was turned around Easter time, inspired by the plastic eggs in which one hides candy.

Every box must have a surprise inside. This egg contains a small, fully functional top of my own design, which can be worn as a pendant. The top hangs from a clip and allows for hours of spinning pleasure.

I like the fact that this piece is three separate works, made over the course of three years.

Two sets of identical offset rings. Turned to a shallow spherical dish form.

One set was painted black, the other white.

Then vee-grooves were carved in each set, one horizontally, the other vertically.

Finally, the rings were shuffled, alternating black and white in each set.