My Story
ForLou
My mother, who went by the nickname, “Lou” from the time she was a child, was an avid crafter. She spent her years in retirement preparing for craft shows that, unfortunately, just didn’t happen. When I took up woodturning, she was very interested in and supportive of my progress. For the last several years, we had been separated by some distance, and she had never held one of my pieces. I was preparing a bowl for her as a gift, when she passed away suddenly in October of 2020. While settling her estate, I decided that I would put myself out there with my newfound passion, and when I began selling my creations, I would dedicate it to her. Thus, forloustudio was born.
The lathe is a mesmerizing machine. It is unique in that it is the only power tool that moves the material while its operator holds the cutting tool in their hands and presents the sharpened edge to the moving mass before them. There is something about a spinning mass of wood that is hypnotic. The sound the rough chunk of wood makes as it moves through the air around it. Then, once it is cut uniformly round, that sound disappears and all the is left is the sound of the gouge, held in hand, as it cuts through the spinning mass toward its final shape. When the wood is spinning no details are visible, only the form that is being shaped can be seen. When the cuts are finished and the lathe is stopped, only then is all that has been revealed visible.
For me, shaping the exterior to a pleasing form isn’t enough. I want to remove enough material on the inside to create a void surrounded by a shell of wood approximately an eighth of an inch thick. I want to create that void through the smallest opening I can so that I disrupt the exterior surface and its flowing curve as little as possible. Why then go through all the trouble to hollow it at all? There are several reasons. I want the piece to be surprisingly light when it is picked up. That is part of the sensory experience of interacting with my pieces. I enjoy the challenge of the process, and that is my part of the sensory experience of interacting with my pieces. Lastly, there is a practical reason, much of the wood I use is green (freshly cut) and will crack if left thick, as the exterior dries before the interior.
In my work, I aim to create vessels with simple, flowing lines that illicit a sense of volume within and create an emotional response as the eye follows that line from the mouth, over the top, around the shoulder, and through the foot of the vessel. All while presenting an exterior surface that showcases what lies beneath the bark.
