My Turn

The International Turning Exchange (ITE) is an annual residency program for wood artists organized by the Wood Turning Center in Philadelphia. The ITE program brings together four woodturning artists, a furniture maker, a scholar, and a photojournalist from across the globe to explore, create, and collaborate for eight exciting weeks. The 2007 ITE will take place June 8–August 5 and will culminate in an exhibit, “allTURNatives: Form + Spirit,” that will run August 3–September 22 at the Wood Turning Center. As part of the exhibit, the residents will hold public demonstrations and tell the public about their personal and collective experiences during their time together.

The lathe artists this year are Peter Oliver (New Zealand),* Jean-François Delorme (France), Sean Ohrenich (USA), and Siegfried Schreiber (Germany), plus me. Like many past ITE photojournalists, I will be participating as both a photojournalist and a (fifth) lathe artist. The furniture maker is Peter Harrison (USA). [*Note: Peter Oliver is unable to attend this year.]

The book Connections: International Turning Exchange 1995–2005 provides an overview of the first ten years of the program. In addition, the Wood Turning Center site has a photo gallery of some of the work created during those years, as well as photos of work from last year’s program.