My Turn

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After our visit to Mark Sfirri’s and David Ellsworth’s studios, we went back to the shop to meet with Albert and Tina and to meet Lesya Popil, our dancer, for the first time. Left to right, we are: Sean, Albert, Elisabeth, Siegfried, me, Peter, and Lesya. Tina took the photo. Jean-François was back at the dorm nursing his broken toe.

We spent a little time individually acquainting Elisabeth and Lesya with our work, then Albert and Tina took us out to dinner at a diner near the airport (the name escapes me at the moment).

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Mark has a Oneway with two bed extensions, allowing him to turn pieces up to 13 feet long. The farthest extension runs under the table in the background.

Mark does a lot of off-center and inside-out turning. Here is a sample he has turned with the two halves still joined. For those who don’t know, inside-out turning involves joining two pieces of wood, turning them, separating them, reversing them by putting the two outside faces together, rejoining the pieces, and turning them again. Mark further complicates the shape by offsetting the centers he uses to turn each face.

Mark is also well known for turning pieces that appear to be bent. This is an example of the blank he uses to turn such shapes, next to the kind of shape it will yield. The trick is to cut the blank and mount it as shown in the second photo below.

Mark keeps on hand a lot of samples to help him recreate forms.

Mark showed us how he uses a mirror to simulate the absent opposite leg of a model for a piece of furniture.

Mark has many beautiful turned and other wood art works in his home, some his own work, others by fellow turners and furniture makers.

The highlight of our visit was a fruit salad Mark made for us, a creation for which he seems to be known. He told us that one year he had a card made with a photo of such a salad (but even more elaborate), clearly identified as a “kitchen creation,” and sent it out. The first five or so recipients called him asking him about the availability of the piece, assuming it was wood! He says he wishes he could create a piece that looked so realistic!

The salad was very refreshing, perfect for a steamy summer day. Peter, of course, couldn’t resist playing with his plate.

Peter took these pictures when he accompanied Jean-François (“Jean Francis,” the E.R. personnel kept calling, but no one would respond) to the emergency room. To read the captions, just hover the mouse over each photo.

Well, I am doing my best to catch up, but I suspect it will take me a few days, especially because tomorrow we need to prepare for an open house at the woodshop on Saturday, when anyone who wants to can visit us at work and meet us and see what we have been doing. So I will be adding groups of photos from the past few days as I can; these may be interspersed with more-current photos, so posts may be jumping back and forth chronologically until I do get caught up. Please be patient and try to keep it all straight.

These past few days have been jam-packed, but I’m too tired to do a full post, so here is a brief summary. You’ll have to wait for photos.

We nearly lost another resident to the emergency room. Saturday evening, Jean-François narrowly survived a vicious attack from a member of his own clan. He was chainsawing an elm log (his last name, Delorme, means “of the elm” in French), and it split and fell on his foot and broke his left big toe. Peter escorted him to the emergency room, and Jean-François managed to limp out on crutches at around 3 a.m. He stayed behind Sunday on our trip to Mark Sfirri’s and David Ellsworth’s but recovered enough to come with us Monday to Wilmington, where he got to tour Winterthur in a wheelchair in chauffered comfort. He will have his revenge on the elm, though: he will turn a bowl from the log that attacked him.

Our visits to Mark’s and David’s studios were fun. As I noted in my brief last post, Elisabeth accompanied us. She enjoyed having the chance to talk directly with two eminent woodturners (unlike us ITErs) about their work, and we enjoyed seeing their studios, their work (past and present), and the work they have acquired from other turners, and talking with them, of course. We also enjoyed getting to know Elisabeth.

Sunday evening was our first chance to meet Lesya, who seems eager to explore this opportunity with us. She couldn’t accompany all the rest of us to dinner with Albert and Tina that night, but she made it back Tuesday to learn more about our work and to take a turn at the lathe, where she quickly advanced to trying to turn beads and coves.

Elisabeth also tried her hand at turning on Tuesday and proved a ready student, though she admits it is “harder than [she] thought.” We didn’t make it easy for her: no round stock for her, but a still-rough log. She toughed it out, though, till it began to feel comfortable.

But I’m skipping Monday, a long day full of pleasures. We began by visiting Winterthur, accompanied by Charles Hummel, curator emeritus and gentleman extraordinaire. There we got to visit the restored woodshop of the Dominys, a three-generation woodworking family from East Hampton, NY, whose shop dates back to the 1700s. (The shell has been recreated, but the contents are original.) Unlike other visitors to the museum, we were able to enter the shop and see up close the tools and equipment the Dominys used, including a pole lathe and a great wheel lathe. We even got to hold some of the hand tools. And we got to see their clock-making shop as well, which contained two other lathes, one not even six inches long, contained in a box (photos will come!). Get your hands on Charles Hummel’s book With Hammer in Hand: The Dominy Craftsmen of East Hampton, New York to see some of what we experienced. We also got a quick view of Gord Peteran’s exhibition there and managed to see some of the Winterthur period rooms.

After a pleasant lunch with Charlie, we paid a delightful visit to the home of collectors Neil and Susan Kaye. Again, pictures will come. In the meantime, let me just say again how unique each collection is, how each reflects the personalities of the collectors, and what a pleasure it is to witness the joy people take in living in such beauty. The Kayes have many, many wonderful pieces and entertaining stories.

We then were treated to the eyepopping collection of Bruce and Marina Kaiser. What a profusion of art their home contains! To do their collection justice, I will have to borrow some photographs from my fellow residents, as I had very little battery power left after Winterthur and the Kayes. There are pictures, however; have no fear. Bruce (Marina was out of town) then generously took us all (Albert and Tina and Charles Hummel rounded out our party) out to dinner.

Yesterday, we had a long day back in the shop. Elisabeth and Lesya both got turning lessons, Elisabeth from Siegfried first, and both of them from me later (with good advice from Jean-François). Elisabeth got to know everyone a little more. Lesya began working with a couple of our pieces to develop dance works: Sean’s “mascot” sculpture (for which I need to write down the proper title) and my multiaxis cherry bowl, so far. Jean-François, who is unable to stand for long periods and so not yet able to turn, experimented with new finishes involving sand and gesso and other various coatings. Siegfried got the vacuum chuck up and running with a foot switch he had his wife send him from home, and he worked on finishing the large vessels he turned first. Sean continued to carve various pieces. Peter worked on building a form for a collaborative piece with Siegfried. He also helped Jane develop and pour a form for a table she is making (we get everyone working here). I worked on a new honey locust bowl with a textured exterior and helped Jane a little (mostly as supervisor) with her table.

Today, we are off to the Wharton Esherick Museum with a stop afterward at the studio of furniture maker Brad Smith. Perhaps by tomorrow I can have some pictures for you to look at.

to say catch up with us tomorrow.

Yesterday, Elisabeth Agro, our resident scholar, joined us in a visit to the studios of Mark Sfirri and David Ellsworth. Upon our return, we all met with Albert and Tina, as well as with Lesya Popil, our dancer, to let Elisabeth and Lesya begin to get acquainted with the work we all have been doing.

Today, we head to Wilmington, DE, to visit the Winterthur Museum, and then the homes of collectors Neil and Susan Kaye and Bruce and Marina Kaiser. Stay tuned . . .

Today, we visited the studio of famed furniture maker George Nakashima in New Hope, PA, where his daughter, Mira, continues to make furniture in the same tradition. Mira began our tour by telling us about her father’s life and work.

The first building we visited was the wood barn, filled with enormous slabs of wood cut from whole trees and stacked together for drying in the sequence in which they were cut from the log. Mira explained the challenges of storing, keeping track of, and accessing the wood, much of which is stored for many years.

Many slabs were marked in chalk with customer names, measurements, cut lines, and other information.

This dining set was in a residence built by Nakashima in the early 1970s.

What is known as the art building is also the home of the Nakashima Foundation for Peace.

The silver appearance of the table edges in this photograph is caused by the camera flash. The edges are actually the dark, barkless natural surface of the trunk.

Notice how the concrete wall at the top of the stairs follows the same line as the right edge of the stairs.

I liked the way the stairs looked viewed sideways just as well.

The loft in the art building held samples of many types of chairs.

Jean-François enjoyed speaking French with Kevin Nakashima, who learned it in high school from a native French speaker.

The pond outside the showroom had very vocal frogs among the water lilies. I thought their croaking was some sort of squawk from a walkie-talkie until I squatted down and looked.

this image to represent my focus for the ITE, I didn’t realize that part of the ITE for me would be about mending brokenness and learning again to value the self that broke.