| I’m a retired teacher who has moved from attempting to bring out the best in young people to trying to bring out the best in a piece of wood. Teaching and woodworking are often most successful when they develop a characteristic that already exists, though it might not yet show itself. When woodturning, I shape to reveal. The wood is less my material than it is my partner. George Nakashima writes that there “must be a union between the spirit in wood and the spirit in man.” I want my work to serve a function, and the shape should contribute to that, but the beauty of the wood and the wood’s spirit are what should contribute also. If I turn a bowl that is not all of that, I do not sell it. |
