Sunday Greetings

I know it is after Sunday, but I just wanted to tell you what happened at church. One of the guys took his grandchildren home after Sunday School and came in to tell me he had brought me something from home. While he was out he had picked up a couple of maple burls he had cut off his firewood for me that week. They were sitting by my car door. One is about 12" long and the other about 8. These should have some great color in them. There are some great folks in that church and they treat me well. Have a good one folks.

Sometimes I Drive Myself Nuts

Some people say I have succeeded long ago and am simply driving faster and farther. I think I have enough wood stashed to keep me turning for about 5 years, maybe longer. People still give me stuff too so the stash just keeps growing. Some of it will have to be fire wood because it is too "spalted" to be anything else, not that there is much heat left in it. Most though will turn beautifully. So why is it so hard to turn a pretty piece? Too often I think that a piece may as well be made from "plain wood" and save the burl/bird's eye/curly for another day. John Jordan, I think it was, said that life is too short to turn boring wood. Man, there is some nice stuff on the piles.

The Stronger Pull

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

Rumi(13th Century Persian Mystic on Creativity)

Every piece of wood is a mystery. Sometimes the mystery is less as we work with debarked and smooth boards, but often it is a wonder as bark is removed and color and texture are revealed. We are also a solitary people most of the time, working alone to uncover the secrets of a piece of wood, itself a mysterious thing created to enrich the world.

This sense of mystery itself generates a sense of wonder and of love. That love may be one for creation itself embodied in the amazement of the wood, or an expression born of oneself for the recipient of the piece. That recipient may not even be known to us. It may be a buyer or for that matter the receiver of the gift the buyer has gotten. Yet there can be a love that reaches out to the unknown person, themselves part of God's creation.

Sometimes of course the person is known and the love is obvious. But what of the time when the person for whom the piece is destined is known but not loved in the classic sense? Then is there not a love for the wood, for the work, and for the integrity of creation that fills the piece? Or is this something to be sought, time and again?

wet apple hollow form

Is this not cool? I will get back to posting about the other piece soon but I got a chance to start this one from a wet log of apple I have in the shop. Soon I will have a series up about playing with this log but this is just fun. It is like turning in the rain the wood is so green. I am going to lose about an inch off the bottom of this and I think I will have to pull the top back some to fit the new curve and to adjust so the majority of the piths will be on or close to center. It should move dramatically as it dries. I still have to mount it to a face plate, final turn and hollow it.