Cheri Bauer, PRW President: Reflections 2022 SWFL Wood Art Expo and Woodturning

For anyone who appreciates the beauty of wood, the 2022 Wood Art Expo at Charlotte Event Center in Punta Gorda was an incredible feast of “eye-candy” from wall-to-wall! The talent and expertise shown in the items entered in all of the Woodturning Competition Categories, and the turned pieces for sale at the Artist Booths, was breathtaking to say the least.
 
Branching out beyond the basic bowls and utility items needed for everyday life, the process of woodturning has expanded into a true “Art Form” of its own. The wide variety of beautiful bowls, boxes, vases, wall-hangings, and miniatures (pieces under 3”, but intensely detailed) was eye-opening! Laminated, segmented, carved, and pierced vessels and sculptures, and even life-size wildlife, were a testament to the incredible skill and artistry these amazing Woodturners have achieved.
 
We learned that a woodturning is anything that can be created, at least in part, from material being spun at fairly high speeds on a motorized wood lathe – think of a extremely high-speed BBQ rotisserie – and cut with skill and precision by an Artisan using handheld chisels, gouges, and specialty knives, which creates a concentric piece around the axis of the rotation. Woodturned pieces can be spun on several different axises as a piece progresses, so the shape is not even necessarily cylindrical when completed! The pieces created are limited only by the imagination and skill of the Artist. Woodturnings can even be cut apart and reassembled, or created from multiple pieces that are glued together to create intricate designs.
 
Each woodturning Artist starts as a Beginner, and grows their skills learning time-tested basic tool techniques, and develops a style and variety of turned artwork that is uniquely their own as an Intermediate and Advanced Turner, all through practice, dedication, and hard work. Some Turners branch out into more specialized areas of embellishment or engineering/construction techniques that defy the observer to perceive how they could even be created.
 
The lathe machine can be as “simple” as a portable foot-treadled springpole lathe, developed somewhere around the 2nd century AD and still in use around the world today, up through highly specialized electric motor-driven marvels of technology... But the practiced expertise of the Artist maneuvering the tools is the key!