It's hard to believe I have been at this since 1997. As I look back through the pages and pages of woodturnings on this site, the passage of time does not seem so fast. Time flies when you're having fun, that's true - but when one reflects on all the events that have occurred during that time, it did not go by so fast after all.

When I do look back it is like re-visiting a journey. Most of the turnings of 1997 seem so different, so inferior to the stuff I do now, but there are some among them that I realize now were a bit more inspired, and certainly more adventurous. Now I have a pretty good idea what will work and what won't work, but back then everything was a new adventure. I now realize that I took some dangerous chances and did not know it.

Anyway, there are a few new things coming out in 2011. I am hoping to do more with color, piercing, texturing and carving. We'll see at the end of the year whether I meet any of those goals. I hope you will stay with me and visit often.

Again, thank you for visiting, and please let me know you were here. I love hearing from people who visit the site.

Let's start out the year with this one. The tree stood in the "north end", and to Winnipeggers that means it was more or less on the wrong side of the tracks. The area of north central Winnipeg has been the focal point of police and emergency vehicle activity for decades and is a bit of an embarrassment for its part in making Winnipeg known as the "murder capital" of Canada. In many parts of these neighborhoods there is an element of criminal activity that is ever present. Who knows what this tree witnessed in decades that it stood sentinal over the street. Perhaps in earlier times it saw a quiet and neat neighborhood where ethnic values and ethnic pride ran deep, and crime was the furthest thing from anyone's mind. In more recent times, one wonders, how many exchanges of drugs and human beings occurred beneath its boughs, or was someone knifed or shot within its hearing? One can only wonder and imagine - but here is an example of the beauty that lay beneath the surface of that tree. No one watching that tree grow and decline over the decades ever would have thought that, someday, someone like me would make anything of beauty from the tree. Even when it was cut down, it was unceremoniously hauled out to the country to be burned, and most of it was. But some, just a tiny bit, was saved to continue life in a different form. It's hard to put into words, but all that I have just written is much of the reason why I do woodturning. This piece is large. It is 12" in diameter and 5½" deep without the finial. It is finished to a matte finish with water based urethane. The top is ebony.

		Close - Closer - Closest I thought I'd show you three shots of this one, each one closer than the other so you could see the lid rim treatment. This is part of the elm tree I recovered in 2010. You can see the photos and read the story here. This piece really shows the beauty of that wood. I rough turned it as soon as I got the pieces of elm home and then it sat in the garage for more than a year drying. It finished as smooth as glass and took a finish of wipe on poly (WOP) really well. Several coats and a buffing gives it the sheen. The finial and part of the lid are made of walnut that is dyed black, and the insert is cut from the opening in the piece and fitted into the walnut lid. The closest photo shows the slight texturing treatment that I gave to the lid for interest. Originally it was plain, and just seemed to be missing something. Once it was textured the piece took on a whole different look. It is about 11" in diameter and about 4½" deep, and can be used as an urn if one wished.

This is another lidded hollow form made from the elm tree mentioned in the previous panel and is basically the same shape as the previous piece. This is also a possible urn with a slightly different treatment on the lid and finial. The lid and finial are both part of the same piece of wood with slightly different grain direction. The lid is still part of the burl figured wood, but the finial, in order to be strong enough and to have a different color, had to come from the straight grain closer to the center of the tree This piece is slightly smaller - about 10" diameter and 4¼" high. The finish is Danish oil, which is buffed after it dries.

One more elm hollow form, from the same elm burl as the previous pieces. This one also has a textured and dyed walnut rim around the opening of the piece. I am rather fond of this piece, now. At first I thought it look a bit like a bag of sand that someone had dropped, but the form has grown on me. It is hard to beat the character of the wood, though. This is a smaller piece, about 9" in diameter.

This is a fairly large goblet with a natural edge. It has a main bell shape, which is one of my favorite shapes to use, and it is placed on an ebony pedestal. Manitoba Maple, or box elder, never ceases to amaze me with its incredible variety of colors, textures, flames and figure. The burl, if turned wet and left to dry can take on a texture like weathered leather. The wood has more variety and character than almost any other wood I know, and it is definitely my favorite wood to turn. Besides, it's a local wood. The piece is about 5" in diameter and stands close to 10" tall. I wish now I had turned it thinner because it is a bit heavy for my taste, but it grows on me each time I look at it.

		Here are two more small lidded hollow forms from the elm tree mentioned above. To re-tell the story, my granddaughter named these "keep" boxes because that is where she would keep things, like her rock collection. Some people that got these from me use them to store a special piece of jewelry. The one on top has a lot of small inclusions in the surface, which I really like. The lid and finial are also made of elm. The box on the bottom is largely the same, but it has a lid and finial of African blackwood. Both of these stand about 4" tall with the lid and finial. The top one is about 5" in diameter and the bottom one about 4". Both are finished with Danish Oil and buffed and waxed.

The next few pieces represent something new that I have been working on after watching Dave Schweitzer work with his technique at the AAW Symposium in St. Paul this past summer. It was a pleasure to spend a couple of hours watching Dave and his unique and practical methods of producing spirals. This was my third attempt at doing spirals. I looked at this completed hollow form and wondered if I would ruin the beautiful grain pattern by carving spirals into it, but decided to give it a go. I was pleasantly surprised to see how the spiral treatment actually enhanced the grain of the wood by causing it to "ripple" through the waves of the spiral. I was most pleased with the effect, although carving this many spirals into a large piece of hard wood certainly takes a lot of time and effort. The piece is about 10" tall and about 9" in diameter. It is finished with Danish oil and buffed. It is currently on display at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

		These two pieces represent my first and second attempt at producing spirals on a hollow form. I turned the forms specifically for the spirals as the walls have to be left a bit thicker to allow for the depth of the carved spirals. Both of these are about 5" tall and 4" in diameter. The top one is of ambrosia maple which I picked up at the AAW Symposium in St. Paul. The patterns in the wood are caused by the ambrosia beetle. It is lovely wood and seeing how the wood grain pattern was enhanced by the spirals gave me the courage to carve into the finished elm piece just preceding this one. The bottom one is of walnut that I have had for years. Both of these are finished with multiple coats of Danish oil, then buffed and waxed.

		"Well," I thought, "it works with hollow forms. I wonder if a spiral would work on a bowl?" I had an elm bowl ready to finish so I drew the spirals on the bottom of it and looked at the pencil marks before deciding to try it. I am actually quite pleased with the result and when I brought the piece to the gallery they chose it to display. So, I guess someone else liked it too. The piece is large, about 13" diameter and more than 4" deep. I finished it for salad bowl use, with Tried and True oil on the inside and WOP (wipe on poly) on the outside. Also included is an upside down view and a close up of the spiral treatment.

Sometimes, just for fun and to have a few small gifts on hand, I will turn a bunch of pens. These four are left from a batch I did early in the year. I can't remember the various woods, but it appears the one on the left is spalted maple and the one on the right is walnut. I am fond of the Sierra pen kit, which these are, and I buy them from Lee Valley Tools.

I also like to make ornaments from time to time. They also make nice little gifts at Christmas time and are a good way to use up some of the little bits of wood I have lying about the shop. These three are (l to r) dyed elm, cocobolo and natural color Manitoba Maple.

Three more ornaments. The ones on the outside are dyed Manitoba Maple and the one in the center is natural color elm.

I play around a bit with the shapes of these ornaments. Although these might appear to be the same as the photo above, they are not. The shapes are different on the two on the left, although both are of dyed Manitoba Maple. The one on the right is made of a sea urchin shell. The finials on these are mainly ebony, although I also make them of holly (the whitish ones) and a couple of these are of elm. All the ornament balls are from 1" to 2" in height and the finials from 4" to 6". The dye is mostly fabric dye and some aniline dyes. The fabric dyes have the advantage of color-fastness.

This bowl is quite unusual and is the first time I ever tried to carve in a bowtie joint. It's not great - like the bowl it has some rough spots. When I started this bowl I knew it was going to be a problem to keep it together because of the big void and bark inclusion on the side. After it was rough turned and dried I knew it would fly apart on the lathe unless I found a way to strengthen it. The walnut bowtie seemed the thing to do, but it was made difficult by the fact that I had never done one before and that burl wood is not easy to carve. It tends to chip out. However, the tactic worked and the bowl held together very well. It has made an interesting bowl that generated a lot of comments. The bowl is 13" across and about 4" deep and is finished with water base urethane to keep the color natural. I sanded the gloss back to a matte finish.

		I am including three photos of this one so you have a view of the treatment of the lid. I have started doing a bit more texturing on some plain woods to add a bit of character, and people that have seen this urn like the effect. In this case, this is a Manitoba Maple piece and the lid and finial are walnut. After the lid and finial were completed and textured I used black leather dye to color them and top coated them with wipe on poly. The urn stands at about 10" in diameter and a bit over 3½" high, and like most of my Manitoba Maple pieces it is finished with water base urethane and sanded back to a matte finish.

		I made this madrone burl urn in 2009, You can see the photos of the original piece here. Someone wanted to hold the piece and picked it up. Before I could tell them that the lid was a separate piece they turned it over, the lid fell off and hit the floor. Since the original lid was madrone burl the wood was naturally weaker than non-burl wood, and the edge of the lid broke off. There is no way to invisibly repair a broken piece like that. I was upset and somewhat disgusted that I never even got an apology. However, after a few weeks I decided to try to repair it a different way so I gingerly turned away the broken lip on the lid, reduced the size of the inside tenon on the lid and fit the whole thing into a separately turned ring of ebony. Then I turned the ebony and old lid as one unit to blend in the curves. I think it worked so well that I prefer the new version, and it is a lot stronger. The ebony ring gives a nice separation between the wood and the lid. I included this piece again to show that - as woodturners say - "a broken piece is just another design opportunity!"

Here's a pair of natural edge goblet of Manitoba Maple. I like making goblets on tall stems as I think they are graceful and are a good showcase for nice wood. Since they can be small it is also a good way to use up little bits of wood that I find so difficult to throw away. As a matter of fact, the little goblet (2" across) on the right is from a small piece of wood that I had chain sawed off a larger block and then discarded. I threw it towards the garbage can and missed, and when I went to pick it up again it seemed a shame to dispose of such a nice piece of wood. A few weeks later it turned into this. It is just sitting on a tenon on the stem, since I don't like the way the stem works with the bowl. I plan to turn another stem for it. The goblet on the left is quite a bit larger, about 4" across at the bark, and it is on an ebony stem.

		While visiting some open houses with my daughter in Calgary I spotted a ceramic vase on a table filled with dried flowers, and I was struck with the simple line of the piece and instantly recognized that the form is a perfect way to showcase the grain of a lovely piece of wood. It always pains me to cut into a burl knowing that the best canvas for the grain is probably a flat surface. That is why so many of my hollow form pieces have a fairly broad and expansive top. While in Calgary I bought a piece of claro walnut at the Black Forest Wood Company with this piece in mind. It was not difficult to do until I had to put a flat spot on it for the base and cut the opening into the top. Foolishly, I had waited until the piece was complete with rounded sides instead of cutting those surfaces while the piece was flat - before turning. I had to jury-rig a jig to do the cutting on the band saw, and did not think it through clearly enough. The opening is just far enough off-center to notice, but strangely, that adds to the appeal of the piece. It belongs to my wife as it is a good match for the walnut furniture I made years ago. A visit to Michaels with the vase generated a lot of oohs and aahs from people watching me and the saleslady deciding what looked best in the vase. The dried flowers are embedded in a thick layer of smooth stones. The piece is about 12" in diameter and is finished with Danish Oil. The flash from the camera illuminated the cracks and changes their color, making me re-think that I will have to take a small brush and paint the inside surfaces of the cracks with flat black paint. There is another view of the piece here.

		As I said in the introduction to this years' work, I am doing a little more alteration on the wood like dying, carving and texturing. I thought this ash bowl would make a good candidate for a bit of texture to add some pizzazz to a rather plain grain. I am fond of the form in the design of this bowl and wish I could always capture this shape. It's not as easy as it looks. After adding the texture I thought it greatly improved the look of the bowl and I'm glad I did it. This is a large bowl, almost 15" in diameter. The rings were burned around the bowl using a hot wire and I simply used a flexible shaft tool with a carbide cutter to put the texture inside the two rings. The bowl is finished as a salad bowl - that is with Tried and True linseed oil on the interior and Danish Oil on the exterior.

My buddy and woodturning teaching assistant is also an arborist. Jesse came across a large Amur Chokecherry tree on one of his tree removal jobs and saved me a couple of pieces. I don't think either of us expected the kind of beauty that the tree would contain. I turned this large, 16" bowl from the tree, along with some other pieces that have not yet been finished. This thing twisted and warped and cracked like crazy while it dried in spite of the generous coating of log end sealer I had put on it. The wait was worth it, and the combination of bark inclusion, cracked branch pith and the white sapwood makes for a beautiful and interesting bowl. I don't normally do a lot of beading or decorative add-ons to my work, but this bowl seemed to want the rim treatment of three slanted rings. I loved making this bowl and I hope they are enjoying it at the North Dakota Museum of Art, which is where it is displayed.

We were visiting Alan and Jean and Alan handed me a little white, square protector to put under my drink on the end table. I looked at it and was completely fascinated with the ink drawing of a branch on the protector. It looked Japanese, I thought. I took a photograph of the ink drawing and took it home. The next day I hauled out this little unfinished Manitoba Maple vase that was rather bland in color and appearance and which had warped. The warping was intentional, as I had turned the piece wet and allowed it to warp to see what form it would twist itself into. Somewhat disappointed I threw it into a corner on the bench. Using photo software I combined multiple images of the drawing in different sizes until I had what I thought looked a bit like a tree. Printed out and transferred to the wood with acetone, I then proceeded to burn the image into the wood, after which I used dye to color a few of the leaves and flowers. This is more "craft" than "art", but it was fun to do and a lot of people like it. It's about 9" tall

Some bland and nondescript wood is like a blank piece of paper in that it means nothing until someone puts something on it. Or, as in this case, pierces it to create "negative space" - a fancy way of saying "remove some wood". I turned this tall (13" tall) birch vase years ago while the wood was wet and then allowed it to warp as it wished. It is turned very thin, about 2mm, which I did deliberately so I could pierce it. However, it took a long time to get an idea of what to put on the piece. Finally, because it had been sitting around for such a long time I just went through a scroll saw book for ideas and found a couple of butterflies. I took photos and manipulated the images into different sizes and figured out what to remove to get the image I wanted. A little burning on the outlines, and this is the result. There are 5 butterflies in total on this piece, but for some reason I only got one in this photo.

This is one of my favorite hollow forms of the year, primarily because of the shape. I love the way it turned out despite flaunting the rule that "the widest part of a form should not be dead center". In this one, the wide spot (10") is absolutely in the center of the vertical height of the piece, and it really works on this. I think it is because the ratio between maximum diameter and height is somehow correct. This is Manitoba Maple again, finished with water base urethane to keep the colors from yellowing or darkening. I wanted the wood to remain as light colored as it naturally was, and I also sanded off any gloss to give the piece a matte finish. If I feel like being lazy I will sit at my small lathe and just turn finials for an afternoon and I keep a few dozen finials and lids in various designs and sizes and woods in a box. Then, when a piece is finished I mix and match them until I find a combination of shapes and colors I like before turning a lid and finial for the new piece. When I set a white finial on top of the Ebony the piece just "woke up", so that is what I went with. The finial is holly, set in an ebony lid.

		Calgary's Henning Johansen has been a friend for many years, although we have never met face to face. A couple of years ago Henning retired from wood turning, and asked me if I was interested in purchasing his entire shop. That was an extremely tempting offer, since he had a beautiful Oneway 24x36 lathe that looked brand new. An it had all the goodies and attachments possible. If only I had an opportunity like this when I was beginning, but by now I had my shop set up and everything I needed. So - I told a friend about it - and to make a long story short, David and Henning made a deal and now the entire shop resides only a couple of miles from my house. Henning sent me a piece of brown mallee to say thanks, and I have been sitting on the piece - afraid to cut into this beautiful wood. I finally came up with the idea of the lidded goblet, which has a lot of broad surface to display the grain of the piece, and which meant that I could core the main piece of wood to create the lid, and thus not turn the whole thing into shavings. Besides, it fit the shape of the block of wood I had. This is the result. The lid opens with a soft "pop" due to a slightly suction fit. The piece looked like it needed a pedestal, so it acquired an ebony stand. I am pleased with the outcome, and I hope Henning will enjoy seeing what became of his kind gift. The bottom photo shows the piece with the lid removed. The body of the piece is about 5" by 3". It is finished with Danish Oil and buffed.

		In my 2010 work I posted a series on harvesting wood and show the roughing out process of a series of birch bowls from a log my friend Larry saved for me. A storm had gone through the cottage country called the Whiteshell, here in Manitoba, and while spending time at his cottage, Larry found some logs at the local dump and brought them home. This panel shows the last two of the bowls I finished this year. I have not found any wood more pleasing for salad bowls. It takes on a beautiful patina, especially on the inside due to the salad oils used on them. These bowls are all finished with double boiled linseed oil on the interior (although the salad oil left in the bowl after use becomes the true finish), and the exterior is finished with Danish oil and buffed and can be easily maintained with some good quality paste wax and a buff once in awhile. Both of these bowls are about 17" in diameter and 6 to 7 inches in depth.

This is just a small piece of unidentified wood that has some interesting spalting in it. Spalting occurs in the process of decay, as a result of fungus, and therefore should be turned and sanded only when wearing a mask and finished by sealing the surface completely, inside and out. I can easily get a birch log, bark on, to spalt by throwing it on the ground in a damp and shaded place. It will spalt within weeks, and in a few months will be rotten. Other woods take longer. The black marks and stains are a way to make plain wood take on some interesting characteristics. This is a small piece, only about 6" tall.

Something a bit different. Little scoops made of oak, with dyed walnut handles, and used to scoop nuts or other snacks out of bowls. I'm not sure I like the design. They look OK but are not very efficient as the handle gets in the way. The scoop needs to be at an angle on the handle and some later ones have been made differently. They will be on the 2012 page. Of course, for scooping things like sugar or fine materials out of a container that you can tilt, these work fine. I didn't bother to make these to any measured size, but if one wanted to make kitchen scoops this design would work nicely, made in different sizes.

		These are just a couple of little keepsake boxes, or "keep" boxes as my granddaughter used to call them. They are just little. The size of the box, without the finial and lid, is usually about 5" in diameter and about 3" high. People like them for storing small treasures, including the ashes of beloved pets - as Karen and I did with our little dog. The upper one is made of Manitoba Maple with an ebony lid and finial. It is finished with water based urethane and the finish is sanded and buffed back to a matte finish. The bottom one is elm and it is finished with Danish oil and buffed.

Mike Walter, a good friend, gave me a spruce burl. I had never turned spruce before and had shied away from it due to the sap and pitch that oozes out of the wood and gets everything yucky and sticky. However, this wood was very, very dry and the pitch was not an issue. I decided to turn this urn, about 9" diameter, and kept the colors true by using a water base urethane for the finish. The finish was buffed to a sheen with the Beall buffing wheels. I keep a small box full of finials and caps that I turn when I feel like sitting at the small lathe for awhile. That gives me a choice of designs, woods, and colors when I turn a piece that requires a lid and finial. With this piece I tried a number of different finials, and then decided to turn the cap and finial out of a small piece of bloodwood I had. I am pleased with the result and how well the bloodwood fits with the spruce

Another Manitoba Maple (box elder) urn form that I experimented with. On this one I tried a bit a dye on the cap and a finial bead. The bead was actually turned separately, dyed and then placed over a tenon inside the finial. In other words, the finial is constructed from three separate pieces. It's a lot of work, and I am not sure it was worth it. This piece is also about 9" in diameter and also finished with water base urethane.

Another twisted piece, and I'm not sure I like it. It was an experiment - the experiment was to take the twist all the way to the lip of the piece. Tbat made it more difficult, and the end result fell short of what I had hoped for. However, some others that have seen the piece really like it. It is about 8" in diameter and is finished with WOP (wipe-on-poly) and buffed.

Somone gave me this small piece of wood and they told me it was sumac. I have no idea what it is for sure - I only know it was soft and stringy and took coat after coat of danish oil. The wood very much resembles russian olive when it is finished. I did not enjoy working with this wood. This piece is about 8" tall and 4" across.

Every once in awhile I have to post a picture of myself, someone said, so they could see how badly I was aging. Once upon a time I would stick my mug in front of any camera that was around and not feel bad. Nowadays .... not so much. I like to imagine that my appearance now has character - isn't that what they call it? Trouble is, everytime I have another of Karen's delicious meals, more character is added. I think I need to get rid of some character. I only post this so you won't get the wrong impression. I'm not as handsome as I sound.