Turning Around America

June 28th, 2011 in blogs         3 users recommend $(document).ready(function() {$("a.popit").fancybox();});

The back of Beth's van opens to a complete woodworking shop.

Photo: Doug Stowe It seems that many in the media these days are mourning the loss of American manufacturing, and have changed their minds about whether or not it is ok for us to abandon manufacturing completely. (I for one never thought it was OK.) But if we don't introduce our children to  craftsmanship, and the value of making things, there is little we can do to reverse the loss. Beth Ireland decided that as a woodturner she could do something. She’s been on a mission to turn as many students on to woodturning as she can in a single year. Her idea was that while children taught to the test and challenged by compliance with "standards" in school and occupied by social networking at home  just don't make things anymore, she could take matters into her own hands.

Having heard about Beth's Turning Around America project, I invited her to Eureka Springs, Arkansas to teach at the The Eureka Springs School of the Arts, and the Clear Spring School. 

For 9 months, 32 states, 21,000 miles, Beth traveled the US in a van equipped with two lathes, a band saw, boxes of tools, a grinder, and would teach wherever an extension cord could be plugged in. Her van also contains a bed, living and cooking supplies, toilet, and space dedicated inside for book making. She’s taught at schools, clubs and even campsites. Her total after 9 months is 2084 students, which in the vast scheme of things may not seem much more than a dent, until you remember that most of those students had never made anything before in their lives.

At ESSA, our School of the Arts, I brought a lathe from Clear Spring, and the Stateline Wood Turners from Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missiouri brought one, and with Beth's two lathes set up and ready to go, woodturners of all ages were invited. Adults, some as old as in their seventies turned on the lathe for the first time. We made turned pens and whistles, and even the director and staff of ESSA became hooked on turning.

In three days at Clear Spring School, all my students from 1st through 12th grades made turned and carved whistles.  From  a wood shop teacher’s perspective, I can tell you that spending time with another teacher with such skill and passion brought me new skills of my own.

Beth’s partner Jenn is taking the  the van on the road to new schools, while Beth does a residency at the Turning Center in Philadelphia, as part of the International Turning Exchange. Her project, "Turning around America" is aptly named, as nearly all the political pundits have finally moved toward agreement that we have lost our creative edge,  that we've been going steadfastly in the wrong direction and that it is not enough for us to be a nation of mindless consumers educating our students heads, but failing in the education of their hands. We've been missing the development of character and intellect that arise when the hands are intelligently engaged in learning.

You can support Beth's project through a link on her website. www.turningaroundamerica.com

posted in: blogs, , wood turning, woodworking education, Beth Ireland, ESSA, the Clear Spring School

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150 – Bowl Turning Tools & Techniques w/ David Marks

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On a recent visit with my friend and mentor, David Marks, we decided to make a little video together. Initially the idea was to simply show David my video production process. But as things started to progress, I knew we had the makings of a great video and this was something I wanted to share with the woodworking community.
The goal was simple: let’s turn a bowl! But as easy as that sounds, properly filming a bowl turning from start to finish can be quite tricky with just a few hours to play with. I had to catch a plane that evening and this was something of a last-minute idea. But we managed to pull it off, amazingly.
Anyone who has worked with David knows that the man is a perfectionist by definition. He regularly achieves a level of quality that I can only hope to some day match. So with David Marks, even a “quick and dirty” bowl deserves a perfect spherical profile, an absolutely tearout-free finish, and a crisp decorative band. And forcing him to produce a David Marks creation under those conditions proved to be a challenge and an important learning experience for me. When David works, there is really only one way to do things: to the best of his abilities. So there’s really no such thing as “good enough”. Its either done properly or its not. This is something I really admire.
David shows you a number of tools and techniques in this video. You’ll see some of the more standard options like the bowl gouge, the parting tool, and the pyramid point tool, as well as some interesting offerings from Easy Wood Tools. In this video, David shows the Easy Rougher and The Easy Finisher. You can purchase the Easy Wood Tools, including the David J. Marks Pro Series featuring beautiful Bubinga handles at David’s website. The advantage of buying the David J. Marks Pro Series in addition to getting a signed bubinga handle, is that the handles are longer than the standard Easy Wood Tools which gives them better leverage.
I hope you enjoy this special episode. Maybe this will help fill in the gap left by my severe lack of turning content! And for those of you who miss the good old days of Woodworks, this is going to be a real treat!



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Steven Kennard: Turning Blackwood Boxes

Steven Kennard is not an easy man to pigeonhole. Born and raised in England, where for many years he built furniture and restored antiques, he also lived for nearly a decade in France, where he turned wood and took photographs. Now he and his Canadian-born wife, Ellie, live in Nova Scotia and work in a renovated barn on their property.
Kennard's earliest woodworking included building sets for theatrical productions. Along the way he also built kitchens, French-polished pianos, and ran a successful business building portable tables for physical therapy and massage. In the late 1970s he bought a lathe so he could replace broken parts on antiques; within a few weeks he had turned his first box, and since then, he says, amidst the wide array of work he's done, one constant has been his passion for turning boxes.
These days, in addition to photography--a blend of fine art photos and shots of work by other artists and craftsmen--Kennard devotes much of his time to box turning. In this slide show, he talks about turning and presents several dozen of his remarkable boxes.

Kennard's work was featured on the back cover of Fine Woodworking #220.






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